What Have We Learned?

I don't have to say much about these numbers so I'll pretty much let them speak for themselves. From the Bureau of Economic Analysis this morning:

• Personal income increased $11.4 billion, or 0.1 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $47.6 billion, or 0.4 percent, in January.
• Personal consumption expenditures increased .5 percent.
• Personal saving—DPI less personal outlays—was $367.2 billion in January, compared with $467.9 billion in December.  Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was 3.3 percent in January, compared with 4.2 percent in December.

Once again, disposable income is falling while expenditures are rising and the savings rate stumbles back towards zero. The government's goal of perpetuating our over consumption and under saving habit is succeeding. So while the free market is demanding massive deleveraging and saving to occur, the administration and the Fed is making sure that doesn't happen. And yet they want us to believe we have learned our lesson and an economic recovery is underway.

An ersatz recovery is underway but I can assure it will be shallow and unsustainable. We have not learned a thing.