That’s what passes for good news these days, as Wall Street focuses on how soon growth might return to the economy.

The U.S. economy is losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month, but that’s not as many as before.
Housing prices are still declining, but not as quickly as before.

Foreclosures are at record levels and will get worse, but not as much worse as previously predicted!
Almost all measures of consumer spending are down, but they’re expected to get better.

Credit remains very tight and a major wave of credit card defaults is expected over the next two years, but we don’t want to bring everybody down by talking about that.

GDP is still falling (-0.7% in the second quarter), but many predict a 3% growth rate by the end of the year anyway.

Out of all this, too many economists are saying the recession is over. They say that although jobs growth will be slow, growth in the economy has returned already – it just won’t show until next quarter’s numbers are out.

We say hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed consumers a month, even if they are fewer than last month, can’t be good, and that massive upcoming foreclosures and credit card defaults, even if they might be fewer than expected, can’t be good, and that millions of people out of work and losing their homes and their credit and scaring the rest of us into bagging our lunch cannot stimulate an economy to new growth this year.
But that’s just us.