From Fund My Mutual Fund:

During this entire ‘recovery’, the consumer confidence figures have been in the ‘recessionary’ camp.  That probably reflects the fact, that for many Americans there has really been no recovery at all.  This morning’s U-M consumer confidence really took a turn for the worse plunging to 54.9 vs expectations of 63.0.  I assume some of this had to do with the political dysfunction in D.C. over the debt ceiling issue, but its truly an awful figure.  To put the figure in perspective, the lowest reading during the Great Recession was 55.3 in November 08…

…Bad times in the economy were expected by 75 percent of all consumers in early August, just below the all-time peak of 82 percent in 1980.

My view is that we never emerged from recession – we certainly have not in Las Vegas (did you know the famed Las Vegas Hilton is actually in default?  That is like an ATM being in default…).  Just this morning I was running some errands and, once again, was just stunned at the rapidly spreading “for lease” signs on business property.  We’re pretty much doomed out here…until the pinheads in Carson City start trying to encourage new businesses, we’ll have no growth, because gaming won’t come back until the country comes back and that is a long way off.

I’m sure that most of you out there have similar views of your own, local areas…to be sure, there are bright spots in the country, but the trouble is that move of them are the result of (borrowed) government spending, and thus aren’t sustainable.  Recession is here – it never left; really all we’re doing now is playing a little game where we see how long it is before the government can no longer fudge the numbers to show “growth”.