New Jersey and Midwest and Gold Lead With Some Good Eco News

Needing some good economic news as you sit there at home or in the office with nothing better to do? Let's begin in the great state of New Jersey, home of all things that we can't quite put our finger on. It's an odd place in some ways, a state with no cities. (Newark, that Paterson, that Trenton, that Hoboken, that Camden...uhm NO!... those are nothing like N.Y.C., Philly, L.A., Miami, Atlanta). And yet, it's still an important place, home of good universities, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and people happier working in Manhattan. Yet, commercial rental stats from the state are important, and things are looking up. Marginally. Experts in that state saw vacancy rights falling slightly in December.

If you get enough of this positive news out there, consumer confidence surely gets bolstered. Often mass perception lags reality, and it takes a group of statistically positive trends before people begin to accept that things are actually getting better.

Not to be outdone, and in a different category, Reuters tells us that the PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) for Chicago rose to 60 in December from 56.1 in November, and above predictions.

It's these little bits of positive economic news that annoy us when we here blanket dismissal of Federal (meaning Obama Administration) efforts to stimulate the economy. The process of stabilization began under Bush with the creation of the TARP, and while there has been waste aplenty and a certain amount of "What should we do now" with the stimulus, it is still amazing to see things looking better only a year after near collapse.

Of course we will know things are really fine when the price of gold begins to collapse, or perhaps the more correct term, revert to norm. Unhappy gold investors with inverted smiles are the best indicator that America is fairing well.

Today gold has been down on a strong dollar, but these day to day things are meaningless, sort of. All we can say is that if the economic indicators continue to come in incrementally positive, it's a matter of time before the red line on this chart nosedives.

 (Kitco.co)