The epitome of optimism – a headline from abcnews.com:

Has the Recession Finally Ended?

I guess you could characterize this as “talking up” the economy.  Here is one paragraph from the article that made me laugh (emphasis mine):

Today also brought some positive news from the much-battered retail sector. For the first time in three months, retail sales in May rose, by 0.5 percent, according to the Commerce Department. The sales were pushed higher by increased demand for new cars and sales at gas stations. It was the largest increase since sales rose 1.7 percent in January following six straight monthly declines. While this is good news, part of the jump can be attributed to a recent spike in gas prices which isn’t helping average consumers.

“Sales at gas stations” is clearly the spike in prices as the last sentence states.  That would actually be working against consumers and the economy.  A .5% increase could clearly be nothing more than a spike in gas prices, couldn’t it?

My discussions with candidates has been fairly consistent – the economy is brutal and another spike in gas prices like last year would be a tremendous blow.  Telecommuting jobs will be in even higher demand if a significant gas price increase occurs.

Comments(0)