Maybe. But for the most part it's only the stock market that's recovered. Does the Fed notice this?
The Federal Reserve should review the current stimulus effort and consider whether to end it early, said James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed. The effort, a second round of so-called quantitative easing, in which the government buys Treasury securities to put downward pressure on long-term interest rates, was announced in November and is scheduled to end in June.
“The economy is looking pretty good,” Mr. Bullard told reporters in Marseille, France, on Saturday. “It is still reasonable to review Q.E. 2 in the coming meetings, especially this April meeting, and see if we want to decide to finish the program or to stop a little bit short.”
There's something missing.
He said that although the economy was clearly stronger than last summer and fall, uncertainties remained, including the effects of the nuclear crisis in Japan, the unrest in the Middle East and the European sovereign debt crisis. Surging oil prices pushed by turmoil in the Middle East may erode consumers’ purchasing power, and supply constraints caused by the Japan earthquake may slow the pace of the recovery this quarter. ...NYT
Um, no mention of unemployment. But there is a recurrence of referring to people as "consumers." Isn't that a big part of what got us into this mess in the first place?
