by GEORGE BLECHER
It takes a good deal of selective reading to see it, but the US economic picture isn’t looking quite as rosy as the end-of-recession optimists maintain, and it seems like it’s getting worse. According to the US Census Bureau, the market for new housing is the worst that it’s been since 1963, when they started keeping records. Homeowners are abandoning their houses and apartments by the thousands because they can’t pay their mortgages. Eighty-three US banks have failed this year, more than double last year’s rate. And then there’s the continuing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, which has put thousands of people out of work.
All this doesn’t seem to influence the behaviour of corporate America, which continues to create an atmosphere of suspicion and resentment. In April, a coal mine in West Virginia exploded, killing scores of miners – and immediately questions were raised about whether the owners had been collecting piles of violations and bribing inspectors to overlook them.
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