Goldman Economist McKelvey Keeps the Laughs Coming.

This may be the most bizarre pronouncement I've ever seen.  U.S. Recession May Have Ended in June, Goldman's McKelvey Says.

Let's go through this together because I swear that it sounds like a man who got told to, "Get out there and tell them things are getting better!", when he really feels like things are really not getting  better. 

The worst U.S. recession since the 1930s may already be over, according to Edward McKelvey, a senior economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York.

The gain in industrial production in July, the first in nine months, and the likelihood that output will continue to grow because of depleted inventories is “the best” signal that the contraction is over, McKelvey wrote in an e-mail to clients yesterday.

Ok, usual economist mumbo-jumbo.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

“The upturn in industrial production reported for July suggests that June could wind up being the NBER cycle low,” McKelvey wrote. The projection was “highly tentative” and “a lot has to happen before we can state this conclusion with conviction,” he said.

A gain in gross domestic product this quarter and sustained increases in total sales adjusted for inflation, together with further increases in production, would help cement the verdict, McKelvey said.

Hmmm, he just seemed to qualify about everything there no?  His projections of future industrial production are "tentative" and we need sustained increases in sales.  I really don't know anyone calling for that, including McKelvey!  Let's go on.

The job market, which is likely to deteriorate further, is the one component that may not confirm the contraction is over, McKelvey said.

For that reason, McKelvey said the task of predicting when recessions begin and end is “counterproductive” since most Americans will continue to feel glum as thejobless rate climbs and payrolls fall.

Ok, now he has called his "call" a waste of time and he believes Americans will still feel "glum" as more of us lose our jobs and benefits. Here's the capper;

“This is not to say that identifying recessions is pointless, but merely to suggest that a more natural criterion” for determining the length of contractions would be “a period during which unemployment rises significantly,” McKelvey said

Mr. McKelvey just concluded that based on a faulty criteria, MAYBE the recession is over.  However, when you change the criteria to a more sensible one like length and pace of unemployment growth, which he believes is nowhere near over, we are probably still in a recession and have a long way to go.

There, feel better?