The top economic stories on MSNBC.com as of 4PM Tuesday (I am NOT making this up).

[Pale Blue Dot]

Automakers see sales fall during March

European banks see $23 billion subprime hit

Construction spending falls again in Feb

Manufacturing activity contracted in March

Truckers protest high fuel prices




But the biggest headline?





Wall Street soars amid economic optimism (emphasis mine).

:rofl::cry:

On edit: link www.msnbc.com

[newportdadde]

1. By 'economic optimism' they mean the Fed lowering rates again and printing more money.

[burythehatchet]

7. I liken this phase to the consumer

who has already tapped out the equity in his home, maxed out three credit cards on 28% loans, and now is trying to figure out how to get cash from his Macy's card.

[BlooInBloo]

8. And the taxpayer bailout of Wall St.

[greyghost]

11. Exactly, stagflation here we come. They'll do anything to forestall

the inevitable.

[Javaman]

2. Just another example of the MSM lying as hard as they can!

All is well!!! all is well!!!

[Pale Blue Dot]

3. It's not just the MSM.

The traders of Wall Street are lying to themselves as well. Think about it... the stock market was up almost 400 pts. today because the bad news was slightly less bad than they predicted. That's like saying that your favorite team is going to lose the big game by 30 pts. and then throwing a huge party when they only lose by 25.

[Birthmark]

4. Easily explained

That's the invisible brain of the Market.

[ColbertWatcher]

5. They must have forgotten the last time it went up...

...then back down.

Then back up. Followed the nest day by another fall.

Again.

[bbgrunt]

6. bagdad bob strikes again.

[PA Democrat]

9. That's double plus good news.

[BlooInBloo]

10. Sure, it looks great when you leave out the $232 billion in writedowns, etc....

... http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/04/table-credit-losses-and-write-downs.html

[unblock]

12. it actually all makes perfect sense.

all the bad news was largely known and factored into yesterday's stock prices. we all know auto sales sucked, we all knew there were more write-downs to come, we certainly knew contruction sucked, etc.

what we didn't know was that lehman and ubs would both easily raise billions to handle and liquidity issues, which is THE fundamental crisis of the moment. that both were able to convincingly end concerns about their liquidity helps a LOT to erase the major fear of the moment.

now wall street can go back to ignoring the things they really SHOULD fear, i.e., the sucking of production capability out of this country, etc.....

[Psst_Im_Not_Here]

13. I was thinkin the exact same thing!

Who's optimism?

[Ilsa]

14. Kick for pm crowd. nt

[greyghost]

15. KICK

[EVDebs]

16. Analysts see 200,000 banking industry layoffs

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23904759/

...more layoffs here in the states must mean that they'll 'insource' a few hundred thousand more Indian's on H1B's to take our places, eh ? The Dept of Labor loves that kind of productivity as does the Wharton School for MBA idiocy. We already have our own MBA (Harvard) President !

[Supersedeas]

17. nothing like a Biz Bimbo reading upbeat script to make us feel better 'bout thangs

[marmar]

18. They must be talking about yesterday....The Dow is down 17 points as I'm posting this.

Our PRAVDA-esque media.....

[TheWatcher]

19. It is all rather comical isn't it?

Just day after day of Psy-Ops, Spin, Propaganda, occasionally mixed in with a hint of reality.

Such as this headline on the Home Page of Yahoo Finance:

'Bernanke Warns Of Possible Recession'

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080402/bernanke_congress.html


Gee, wasn't it just a few days ago that The Fed got brand, spanking new powers to take us all to the promised land with Economic Martial Law, and the bubble-headed pundits on "Everything-is-fine in-Pleasantville"Vision were telling us that the "Economic Crisis is over?"

You would have to go back to the days of Hoover to see propaganda and spin this thick, this blatant, and this obvious.

One must wonder what they are going to do when the 400 Point One Day Wonder Rallies don't work anymore.