Some Good News About The Economy?

It's still very, very early, and it's way too easy to prematurely paint a rosy picture. But some new early evidence suggests that President Obama might just be turning around the public mood about the economy and the recession might just be slowing down a little. Some new evidence suggests that although retail sales have taken their 5th straight monthly decline, that the decline is not nearly as bad as expected by economic analysts. This might be a positive sign that a sales rebound might be soon coming within a few months. And further evidence suggests that new unemployment claims might be slowing down a little as well.

But the most stark evidence of a possible looming recovery comes from some impressive new polling results coming out of Rasmussen. This week 35% of respondents believe that the nation is now headed in the right direction, which compares to 30% the week before, and 28% the week before that. This is pretty good evidence that President Obama is beginning to inspire some faith that his hands on management style is beginning to instill some faith building by the public.

But there is still plenty of bad news to dampen spirits as well. GM appears to be in a near hopeless situation according to a dire new report. The stock market continues to hover at very low levels that it hasn't seen in several years. And the number of home foreclosures and retail store closings seems to be only worsening. However, the few new positive signs might mean that this recession might well be bottoming out very soon, and some signs of a recovery might be possible soon. In fact, since so much of American industrial capacity is now unused at this point, there is a huge potential for an industrial rebound and large employment gains there in the future.

I know that after the 2003 war in Iraq began to lag some supporters of that war were very quick to want to declare victory and success anytime a little good news came along, ignoring the very tough road to stability ahead. And equally, it is very easy to do the same here with this recession and ignore that a rebound will long and tough. But a few faint signs of a pulse and heartbeat are out there today. And President Obama might just be succeeding in slowly building up the public hope, trust and confidence required to help fuel a strong economic recovery.

On Friday, the final unemployment figures for February will be released. And these might be a good indicator whether this recession is slowing down a bit or not. But the few good signs out there including some money futures set for a few months from now might all indicate that this recession might just be bottoming out soon, and a few decent signs of a rebuilding might be coming soon.

In recent days, radio talk host Rush Limbaugh had hoped to take advantage of the continued bad news about the economy to destabilize the position of new Republican Party Chairman Michael Steel as well as to undermine President Obama. However, if recovery comes soon it will be Rush Limbaugh who will left as the odd man out, and his own position weakened as once again being wrong on too many issues. Good news and economic recovery will once again reduce Limbaugh's core of support to his fringe of true believers, while the rest of the public will go about the business of getting the economy moving again. Rush Limbaugh has no cabinet or core of experts and advisors like the president does. The president only needs a little good news to prove that so many experts can be right and one lone radio talk show host can be wrong.

With an annual salary of $33 million dollars a year to survive on, Rush Limbaugh might wish for economic disaster to impact others to drive them to his political side for his own purposes. But for average citizens, President Obama is quickly working to shore up the economy, reduce unemployment, reduce health care costs and stabilize this current crisis because it's the right thing for the nation he loves. There's a huge difference in motivations here.