I’m prepared to believe that the economy is picking itself up off the floor: in the past three or four weeks, I’ve had more requests to advertise on this blog than in the preceding six months.
I turn them all down, because I don’t blog for money and I think ads could be used to argue that my blogging hobby is no longer covered by my insurance.
But perhaps the requests might still amount to a leading economic indicator?
Every time I get one, I reply, “Okay, I don’t do ads, but I will put up a sponsored link to your site. The first year is $50,000 in advance, paid in U.S. funds in a cashier’s check from a U.S. bank. Once the check clears, my attorney will be in touch.” Oddly enough, I never hear back from them.
Remember that the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”. I would give a bit more credence to the data summarized in http://www.offthechartsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/10-27-11gdp2.jpg
Also, don’t forget that Republicans in the House are doing everything they possibly can to torpedo the economy, and that there is a signed budget deal that will do exactly that starting in 2013 (funny how it is after the election–I cannot imagine how that happened). The goal is apparently to repeat the 1937.
Actually, I once authored an article entitled The Plural of “Anecdote” is “Blog”.
And I wasn’t meaning to suggest all is good — unemployment remains terrible — just that maybe the trend line is getting ready to poke up a bit. I’m still firmly in the pro-stimulus camp.
Where are those multiple universes that physicists are always talking about when you need them? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could push Republicans off into their own parallel of the multiverse so we can have stimulus and recovery (along with clean air and clean water and a stable climate) in our parallel?
I think it’s a single enterprise trying to con bloggers into giving them links. I, too, have gotten more pings about blog ads in recent weeks than in recent years. And I haven’t updated mine in months.