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Isn't there a situation where whenever the economy shows a little life, gas prices go up and kill it? Won't we see that repeat over and over?
I can tell you there were a LOT more jobs in the local sunday paper this week than in previous weeks. Seems like things might pick up a bit.

Also, how come OPEC is not a major topic these days? They were in the news the other day, basically taking the Goodfellas approach to setting the price/brl (F--k you, pay me). Shouldn't the energy independence advocates on the right be making big hay about stuff like that? Or are they truly owned by the Saudis?

In most of the past recessions, the US economy was manufacturing based and when the economy started to recover prices did go up, but employment and wages went up soon thereafter so consumers maintained their purchasing power. I don't think thats going to happen this time, because our economy is service based and the service industry has implemented productivity improvements over the last 20 years. So, I don't look for them to hire more people or feel compelled to give out big pay raises to the emplyees they have.

In regards to OPEC and the news, the Mainstream Media is trying to convince us that we are in a wonderful recovery and that all is well...so they don't want to report bad news. Bad news might have a negative affect on 0bama's re-election chances. I have serious doubts if that is going to work though because consumers eventually realize that they don't have as much cash on hand and eventually the recovery will peter out.