Is the Great Recession about to end? This has been the dominant meme at least since June, when my local paper, the Anniston Star, ran a front page story by McClatchy's Kevin Hall with the headline, "Economists: Recession Nearing End as Unemployment Dips."

Sad to say, though, that if such news is the basis for optimism, in June or today, then we are in trouble.

Before I explain why, let's review Hall's article. The July job figures turned out to be much less bad than predicted. Job losses for the month were reported at a mere 247,000, which was about 25 percent less than the figure anticipated by forecasters.

That, coupled with optimistic labor market revisions for May and June, led some economists to declare that happy days may finally, if slowly, be getting here again. In this spirit, the British investment bank, Barclays Capital Research, concluded in a report, "June is likely to have been the last month of the US recession."