All the “economists” who claim the recession is over do so ignoring signs of a looming crisis so obvious that it is clearly willful blindness for them to ignore. Don’t listen to what some shill in a Hope and Change t-shirt is saying, read the news and use your common sense:

Foreclosures Rose 7% from June to July –

“More than 360,000 households, or one in every 355 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, such as a notice of default or trustee’s sale. That’s the highest monthly level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing the data more than four years ago.

Banks repossessed more than 87,000 homes in July, up from about 79,000 homes a month earlier.”

Retail Sales unexpectedly dipped in July–

The latest government reports reinforced concerns about how quickly consumers will be able to contribute to a broad economic recovery.

“There is really no positive spin to put on these numbers,” Jennifer Lee, an economist with BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a research note. “The U.S. consumer remains very weak. The jobs situation, while slowly improving, is still dismal.”

Wal-Mart posts flat profits but beats expectations– Another report that shows American consumerism, which is the engine of the global economy, is not going to drag companies out of this mess. As goes Wal-Mart so to the mom and pop shops in small towns everywhere.

The 10 Fastest Dying Cities met for a symposium– Here’s a little vignette to explain why there is no hope for these future ruins:

Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin ran to the podium for her talk. “If you look under the surface, you will see that we are developing a boutique city,” she said. She didn’t elaborate on what she meant.

But the city is working with hospitals, universities and a U.S. Air Force base to rebuild neighborhoods. About 500 abandoned structures will be razed this year with $3.5 million in federal stimulus money. Neighbors can annex the empty lots or the city will plant prairie grass and call them parks, said John Gower, Dayton’s director of planning and community development.

“We can’t go back and recreate the neighborhoods of the 1950s and 1960s, but we have a huge opportunity to create a new form for our cities,” Mr. Gower said. “People want to live in beautiful places near green space.”

Traders are bracing for a September collapse – You should be too!

The Fed purchased $6.6 Billion dollars in of its own treasuries – Hyperinflation here we come!

Billions of dollars in bad loans still threaten U.S. Banks.

Frequent government intervention to stop the bust part of capitalism’s natural boom and bust cycle have spared many generations minor pain by pushing all that economic pain down the road. This financial game of kick the can worked great for a time, but as the government tightens its control on the economy that can isn’t going to have anyone to kick it further down the line. Massive taxes coming down the pike to pay for the Democrats’ bribing, I mean spending, spree will destroy the last of the productive Americans including those businesses that make civilization possible like small farms which we are losing at an alarming rate.

So the economists may be right, we may be out of the “recession” and into something much worse.