Gimme shelter

   Okay, so the inflated, baited new home sales 'surge' is about to become history, and while there has been a flurry of hammering in Pasco County, I just don't see home sales moving up much for the year.
   And unless the current administration starts handing out more jobs to people in order to pump up the numbers, I just can't see manufacturing or retail leading the way to real recovery with jobs. Perhaps the military will benefit the most for employment. You know, "Well I can't work so I might as well go kill somebody and get paid for it."
   Here's Robert DiClemente, chief U.S. economist at Citigroup sizing up the situation: "Consumers are exhaling after the enormous loss of wealth from the recession. The intensive retrenchment that they were doing during the recession has ended, but we're only going to get moderate growth in consumer spending so I don't expect this to be a powerful recovery."
  Um .... no kidding it won't be powerful.
   If companies continue to shed jobs instead of adding them then I doubt anyone with sense is going to be too keen on buying a home, or a car, or going on vacation, blah, blah, if they're having nightmares about pink slips.
   While Citigroup Bob may not see 'intensive' retrenchment', it is retrenchment nonetheless, hardly recovery.
   It's quite possible we are merely in the eye of the storm right now.