How are things looking these days?

On Wall Street they look not too bad. That is because stock investors like profits. Not only the profits they make buying and selling stocks. They like to see companies make greater amounts of profit each year. That has been happening lately. And that is why Wall Street has been happy to push up stock prices of those companies.

On the jobs front, things are looking better. Not great, but better. The economy is beginning to create more jobs each month than it managed over the past many months.  Loans to smaller businesses are beginning to thaw. If you asked me to celebrate this I might break out a beer. Not the bubbly, just a beer.

Color the unemployment picture grey. Many millions have lost their jobs of course. Worse, many millions have given up. They have lost their will to look for work. If you count all them when you calculate our unemployment rate, the rate is around 18 percent.

The unemployment rate for young Americans is a lot higher. And for young minority Americans it is dreadful. If the President was a Republican the mainstream media would trumpet this dismal news.