While broadly-speaking, both 'hard' and 'soft' macro data has disappointed, the scale of those 'missed expectations' is stunning - worst since Lehman. While this is blamed on weather, the fact is that America had 30% less snow this year than last and still, as the following four chartsmen of the recession-pocalypse show, the YoY drops are on a scale not seen outside of a recession...

US Macro Data has surprised to the downside on a scale not seen since Lehman...

So here are the four charts that can only be ignored by the likes of Liesman, Kudlow, and Cramer...

Sales are weak - extremely weak. Retail Sales have not dropped this much YoY outside of a recession...

And if Retail Sales are weak, then Wholesalers are seeing sales plunge at a pace not seen outside of recession...

Which means Factory Orders are collapsing at a pace only seen in recession...

And finally - coming full circle - it appears everyone is scrambling for credit to afford to maintain even a semblance of living standards (and lift retail sales) but "rejections" of credit requests have never - ever - been higher...

So the credit available to goose retail sales, which will goose wholesale sales which will drive factory orders... is no longer available to every muppet with a 500 FICO (old or new version) Score!!

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But apart from that, given that US equities are at record highs, everything must be great in the US economy.