Things are slow and everyone is in a "wait and see" mode is what I believe these numbers are telling us. Unemployment stayed high at above 9% (9.2%) while all orders (durables and non-durables) increased slightly from manufacturers. The question of course is did that result in sales or did it result in inventory? We shall see as companies report their 2d qtr earnings.
In my mind the equation is fairly simple: No jobs and no job growth leads to a lot of uncertainty which leads to consumers not spending which starts the "death spiral". Tax cuts for the wealthy will not put people back to work as the wealthy can make a lot of money right now "trading paper" and they do not need to open factories and stores.
The real scary thing is the fact that the one economic engine which has driven even the meager recovery (if you can call it that) we have had so far is Government spending. Now we will see what happens when the Government retrenches spending in a recessionary environment. I think we know the answer and it is not a good one.
The Government is playing with fire and unfortunately they are going to have to be burned to have them learn the lesson of implementing contraction policies in a time of a no growth economy.
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