[steve86]

It did not take long for the "don't worry be happy" crowd to get on this thread.

The problem with the optimistic crowd is they are too easily pleased by superficial glitter. To mix metaphors, it is like the 2% increase in durable goods orders is the tasty frosting on a cake. The optimists chomp into the pretty frosting, oblivious to the rotting, decaying, putrid dough underneath (the credit and debt bubble).

[Beck_isright]

An excellent point. It's like building a foundation for a house on quicksand. Although it seems stable when you lay it, less than a year later, the home is swallowed whole. But who cares as long as you build and sell the home to some poor sucker. The debt of the consumer and the government is so easily dismissed as a "percentage of GDP", etc, etc... The reality is that the fiat currenc collapse is one of the only ways to eradicate this debt. Or start a world war.