Non-recovery News: New Home Sales: 4 decade lows

On May 26, the Commerce Department released a peppy statement about new home sales figures. New single family home sales had risen 14.8.% in May vs. April to 504,000 units, an increase of 47.8% since April, 2009. 

“The rise in new home sales is good news for this important sector of the economy,” said Commerce Department Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Rebecca Blank. “The growth in sales partially reflects the impact of the homebuyer tax credit.  But low mortgage rates, affordable prices, and strong job gains have also contributed to the firming of new home sales and should support sales in the coming months.”

Fast forward three months, and there were no such glorifying press releases for this month's New Home Sales Figures. Because they were AWFUL. New Home Sales for July dropped by 12.4% compared to June, to 276,000 units, their lowest level since 1963 when the Commerce Deparment started tracking them. Now, even if you believe that the rosy figures a few months ago were accurate and related to expiring tax credits, these more recent figures, coupled with yesterday's existing home sales figures, are more indicative of reality.

In other non-recovery news, U.S. durable goods orders for July only rose slightly, by 0.3%. If you take out all the orders for commercial aircraft (read: private contractors headed for the Middle East), the figures were down 3.8%. 

I don't like to be right about this, but I've never said we were in a recovery, slow or otherwise, so we're not in a double-dip recession as many pundits are now exposing - we've been unfortunately, mired in a slow, painful deterioration marked by the occasional artificially or federally inflated economic indicator that doesn't represent the personal economies of most Americans.