Recovery--Yes If You're Goldman Sachs

Maybe I missed something, but where is this recovery that all, or nearly all, the economists claim has started? Home foreclosures are still at record highs. One out of ten able bodied workers are out of a job, and if the government didn't futz the figures by pretending that discouraged, part timers, and seasonal workers don't count, it would be more like one out of five are out in the jobless cold. Retail sales are flat, food banks can't keep up with the demand from the soaring numbers of the needy. State and local governments are facing record budget deficits, and record numbers of government employee lay-offs, furloughs, and downsizing, as well as deep service cuts.

Then again maybe the real trick in trying to decipher the economist's claim of recovery is to shift gears and finger some of the economic players that have recovered. JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs posted record or near record second and third quarter profits. Their recovery shouldn't have been too hard. After all when taxpayers (excuse me TARP) lined their pockets with billions of dollars and there was no real hammer to make then spread their taxpayer bail out largesse around by loosening their lending purse strings to businesses and home buyers, why wouldn't they have a fat bottom line?
So if by recovery the economists mean the bank and Wall Street fast buck artists then yes, the recovery has begun. If they mean us, it's still the same old economic misery.