CAN WE GET TOGETHER ON THIS, GUYS? – AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  Two newspapers, same subject – the economy – and the journalistic results?  A bit of a conflict.

From The New York Times:

PORTLAND, Ore. — The docks are humming again at this sprawling Pacific port, with clouds of golden dust billowing off the piles of grain spilling into the bellies of giant tankers.

“Things are looking up,” said Dan Broadie, a longshoreman. No longer killing time at the union hall while waiting for work, instead he is guiding a mechanized spout pouring 44,000 tons of wheat into the Arion SB, bound for the Philippines.

At malls from New Jersey to California, shoppers are snapping up electronics and furniture, as fears of joblessness yield to exuberance over rising stock prices. Tractor trailers and railroad cars haul swelling quantities of goods through transportation corridors, generating paychecks for truckers and repair crews.

From The Los Angeles Times's Top of the Ticket blog:

There's one problem with the encouraging economic talk coming out of the mouths of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their political posse in Washington and elsewhere these days. Turning the corner on the bad times seems to be the operative phrase.

But evidence is now mounting that more than 15 months into the Obama era, many Americans don't believe it.

A new Harris Poll out this morning indicates that 43% of the country feels less secure about its economic position now when compared to last year. In the next six months half the country thinks its economic situation will be the same.

But the poll of 2,755 adults also finds 30% saying it will be worse come late October, which is just about the time millions of Americans will be making their candidate choices for the Nov. 2 midterm elections.

And...

Only one-in-ten Americans believes the job market has started growing again and nearly four-in-ten don't think it will for another year or longer.

COMMENT:  I get the sense, from a variety of sources, that the L.A. Times is a lot closer to the truth here than is The New York Times.  The New York boys sound like Herbert Hoover announcing that prosperity is just around the corner.  Don't find many people believing that.

April 26, 2010