Remember the Summer of 2010?  It was the Obama Administration’s self-proclaimed “Summer of Recovery” that, well, wasn’t.  In recent months the economy has ticked up a bit but I wouldn’t be holding your Summer 20102011 of Recovery party just yet.  There are signs that the economy is weakening again:

1. Housing Double Dip – the housing prices dipped in 2009 and recovered somewhat in 2010, however, the trend line for percentage change year-over-year is tracking downwards again.
2. The original Q1 GDP was estimated at 4% – it’s been downgraded to 2.3%
3. Inflation is on the rise (yes, we’re looking at you Bernake) – cheap capital is going away and that’s not going to help recovery.
4. The U.K. is issuing austerity warnings.
5. What happens in Vegas…Gaming revenue is down which is not a good sign as gamblers are tightening up the purse strings.  There is a strong correlation between this and the economy.

Maybe Say It Ain’t So is so busy with all the other important intiatives that he forgot about the recovery.  Maybe we should check on recovery.gov again?  Remember that site?  It shows that we’ve paid out:

• $84.1B to states for Medicaid grants because the states are broke.
• $60B in Unemployement insurance
• $22B in Food Stamps
• $2.5B to states to enforce child support and provide other family support, foster care and adoption benefits
• $13.2B via the Social Security Adminsitration for those one-time $250 checks

This is in addition to the federal budget funding for many of these programs.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.