Is the economy improving or "getting worse more slowly"

The debate continues, is this rally the real deal or just another bear market rally? It is difficult to sort through the mass media machine and find out who, whether right or wrong, has access to accurate and well-rounded information and is also making unbiased decisions straight from the data. While I generally feel that academics can cloud common sense investing, I do look to economist and those in the high academia for a macro viewpoint. The Room for Debate blog on the New York Times website asked asked two economists, Simon Johnson and Nicholas Bloom, and Barry Ritholtz, a market researcher, for their analysis of the meaning of this bear market rally. There is no general consensus. Three things are true through all this; 1. We have worked through a lot of uncertainty, but there are still questions about assets at the root of this down turn; 2. There is still a lot of bad data; and 3. The market has the emotional stability of an 8 year old.

Please check out "Bear Market Rally: What Does it Mean?"

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/bear-market-rally-what-does-it-mean/

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