The Core

...at least it is in the headlines, which is all that matters. It'll happen now that the media says it's happening.

The current administration wishes it were true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk8d_Ct5cZk

SO AD 

>UK the fastest growing economy in the developed world

Yeah, but when you didn't have anything to start with it's easy to grow, hhh.

Gasoline prices here are at a low despite the wars in the Middle East. Our weather service says the winter shouldn't be hard on utilities. And retailers are predicting a 4% increase in holiday business.  Housing is neutral, maybe a bit of a drag on the economy, though.  Anyway, this is almost all driven by perception -real or otherwise- and that's driven by media and the media is on a good-news roll. 

Problem with Germany is carrying the poo bag for the excuse of the Italian and Spanish economies.

Good, quick western-world overview here

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/19/us-economy-global-idUSKCN0I806520141019

The title of this thread notwithstanding, my personal observation of the 'recovery' is that it feels hollowed-out. Government employees and those that are a part of that food chain may be back in business and their payrolls pumping out cash, but the view from working-man's-small-town-america still sucks.

Most of what's said in this article seems to apply nationally, not just Florida

http://www.wral.com/economic-malaise-clouds-florida-governor-s-race/14094676/

Hollowed out is about right.  Residential subdivisions seem frozen, their lots half unsold since 2008, yet new subdivision starts continue to be announced, like we don't know what else to do.  None of the steel mills seem overly profitable. On the government front, all the state and local infrastructure is crumbling and the patches are falling off, but local governments are going to be starting to fail soon as there reserves run out, because the state keeps capping or cutting or swiping local tax revenues for themselves.

Not as bad as 2008 though, when even the freight trains (we have a lot of them) quit running.  They had nothing to haul. That was erie.

It seems like the nation's wealth is all being siphoned off-shore.

Wow at that bar graph.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2811055/One-four-British-children-living-poverty-six-years-Great-Recession-reveals-damning-Unicef-report.html