Today brings a perfect example that, really, none of these economic forecasters, pundits or people can tell you what will happen with certain parts of the economy and whether we will have an official "recession." I emphasize OFFICIAL recession because by the standards of whether people are doing better, it’s clear that millions of Americans are fighting economic hardship every day: declining health care coverage, meager wages, the popping of the housing bubble (meaning lots of people don’t have their homes to count on anymore as an asset that can just spew cash)….

    But, just at the level of the inside-the-Street babble, this has got to make you wonder. First, we read in The Wall Street Journal that:

Economic forecasters are boosting the odds that the U.S. will slide into recession in the next 12 months as the housing slump deepens and the credit crisis continues.

The latest WSJ.com survey of economists, conducted in the days following the gloomy Sept. 7 employment report, pegged the recession risk at 36%, up from a 28% probability a month earlier. Three-fourths of the 52 economists responding to the recession question put the odds at or above 30% and 11 put the odds at 50% or better. The range was wide — from 5% to 90%.

    But, heck, then, you read this in the Journal in the same edition reporting on yesterday’s stock market prices:

Upbeat news about consumer demand, together with continuing hopes for an interest-rate cut next week, pushed stocks strongly higher.

Following encouraging news from General Motors and McDonald’s, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 180.54 points, or 1.38%, to 13308.39.

The stock gain represented a continuation of the violent back-and-forth swings that stocks have experienced since credit markets seized up in July and August. The recovery didn’t recoup all of Friday’s 249.97-point decline, but it left the Dow industrials up 6.8% for 2007, just 4.9% down from their July 19 record of 14000.41. McDonald’s and GM are among the 30 components of the Dow industrials.

    Translation: no one knows what the hell will happen. Hang on.