CNBC interviews Bob Prechter – they always call him a permabear, but they never refer to themselves as permabulls:

CNBC’s Dennis Kneale declared the recession to be over…

then lambasted “cowardly anonymous bloggers” for jeering his declaration:

Karl Denninger, a not-so-anonymous blogger, calls Dennis an idiot, then:

OK, now on to the facts – your idiotic and utterly unsupportable “the recession is over” call.

There are two types of recessions, if you happen to know more about economics than you knew about options a year ago, when you were caught asking on the air “what’s the VIX?”

The types of recessions are inventory driven recessions, the most common, and credit driven recessions.

The last material credit driven recession was in the 1930s.  We called it the “The Great Depression.”

Recessions cannot end until the conditions that caused the recession are removed from the economy.  This is elementary logic and obvious to anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size.

This is not about what I believe Dennis, this is about mathematical facts.  Real GDP has taken a 4.83% contraction already from consumers alone – now add into this the pass-through effects on manufacturing and service output from unemployment and the numbers are even worse.  It matters not what the government cooks up – what matters is what people actually do.

Finally, on your so-called “Golden Cross”; for it to be valid the 200MA and 50MA must be rising.  The 200MA is falling; ergo, it is a false signal.  Go look at some charts; this indicator is no better than a coin toss if the second condition, which you conveniently omitted, is absent.  Better yet, talk to a market technician that knows his butt from a hole in the ground.  I do a nightly technical video available on my forum and pointed this out several days ago.

We reckon the “debate” between government-subsidized CNBC and the “cowardly bloggers” will continue for some time, but we wonder how long the recession has to continue before CNBC must admit that it was wrong and throw poor Dennis under the bus…If we still have over 10% unemployment this time next year, can the recession still be spun as “over”… as of… now?  The clock is ticking.

In a very rare straying from the party line: this CNBC piece focuses on the a market propped up by “manipulation and government intervention” with no painful healing process allowed…

The release that housing starts leaped 17% was initially viewed as optimistic by the CNBC slaves to the FED.  But new information that the number was a result of builders trying to qualify for government handout has even the CNBC folks backpeddling:

“But analyst Ivy Zelman gave me a huge nugget: 50 percent of sales in May were on spec. She says we’re seeing a lot of spec homes now because, “today’s consumer wants to touch and feel the house.” The positives are that cancellations are down, sales are better and there’s less negative pricing, although discounts are still prevalent. “The patient was without a pulse in the fourth quarter,” Zelman notes, “and now the patient’s in ICU.”

So why all the spec now? Because builders are trying to jam all these homes into buyers’ pockets before the expiration of the $8000 first time home buyer tax credit. It turns into a pumpkin November 30th.”

Diana Olick, CNBC Real Estate Reporter apologizes:” I’m not trying to be a bear here, just a pragmatist.”  

CNBC Employers Cut 539,000 Jobs in April, Jobless  Rate at 8.9% – “smaller than expected” and “the smallest amount since October”

CNBC  Charts: This Rally Has Bull Characteristics - S&P 500 is giving strong technical signals it has entered a bull market

Pension Pulse What about stress testing pensions? – Investing public money on the basis of political considerations, rather than merit, heightens the risk of waste and loss

Seeking Alpha Ed Yardeni Likes Emerging Markets, High Yield Bonds: Believes Europe’s in for Trouble - IndexUniverse.com’s Murray Coleman interviews the market-oriented economist and investment analyst.

UBS Financial Services director of floor operations, Art Cashion suggests a “sharp move by the end of the week”, but which direction? …the dribble about swine flu at the beginning can be ignored.

Dr. Jim Walker, founder & CEO at Asianomics tells CNBC’s Martin Soong (with a neat Scottish accent) that we are probably in the horizontal part (that’s the level part) of an L-shaped recession. Swamp Report thinks we are still falling (that is… in the vertical part).

It’s a great quote and ominous too.  Here’s Stephen King from HSBC to CNBC:

CNBC cites “sources” who tell them that the bank stress tests  will require banks to have risk adjusted Tangible Common Equity equal to 3% of assets.  This of course “sounds nice”.  If assets weren’t so subject to “funny accounting”, it would be meaningful.

David Faber at CNBC this morning highlights the fact that “sell side” analysts are sceptical that Wells has properly provided for loan losses.  There is also some interesting hints where Mr. Faber is quoting Goldman’s analysts about impending present stockholder dilution (more on this in another post) toward the end of the video below: