One day, these talking heads and so-called experts will look at the unemployment report and actually say, “Civilian workforce employment sets another record; 86,000 unemployed find jobs.” That's exactly what happened last month . The long term average for unemployment is 5.1%, and we're at 4.7%.

GDP for the second quarter was raised from 2.5% to 2.9%. For the last three years, the average real GDP rise has been +3.7%. For the last three quarters, it's been at +3.46%. The economy's slowdown, it seems, is occurring more slowly than expected.

There was other good news. Gas prices have declined and may fall further, although this has met with minimal coverage in the news. It is likely that gas prices will continue to fall to below $2.50, but not much more than that. Consumer confidence was down , but I still prefer to look at more tangible indicators. Personal income was up +0.5%, disposable income was up +0.7%, and spending was up +0.8%. It's always better to look at what people do, rather than to forecast based on how they “feel.” Just because the Conference Board's confidence survey has 5,000 participants doesn't mean that what they are measuring is important; its effectiveness as a predictor is minimal.