One of the economic measures I track actually showed signs of life! Total loans and leases at commercial banks increased by $12.4 billion the week of October 28th, the first weekly increase since May 27th. Of course, that little uptick was only a two-week rise of $15.7 billion and preceded a five-month, $451.4 billion decline, so I would be hesitant to put too much confidence into it. It will require an increase of at least $250 billion to be meaningful in any way, but it only seemed fair to point out that for at least one week, the credit contraction process appears to have reversed itself.
Of course, more debt can’t possibly solve any of the myriad economic and financial problems, but let’s not bicker and argue over esoteric theory. GDP is up! Debt is growing! And how about that Dow! It’s a bull market straight to 36,000! Unemployment? Lagging indicator. Now, wait a minute, this suddenly all sounds very familiar….