Another fact that the MSM will continue to obscure or hide is the newest report that economic growth numbers had to be increased for the most recent quarter.  GDP growth is at its highest in 2 1/2 years right now.  Here are the main facts as reported by Reuters news service :

The U.S. economy shot forward at an upwardly revised 5.3 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the fastest growth in 2-1/2 years, as companies built up inventories and exports strengthened, a Commerce Department report on Thursday showed.

First-quarter growth in gross domestic product was more than triple the 1.7 percent annual rate recorded in last year’s fourth quarter, though still slightly below Wall Street economists’ forecasts for a 5.7 percent pace.

Prices remained in check, with the core personal consumption expenditures price index that the Federal Reserve favors rising at a 2 percent rate compared with 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter.

The first-quarter surge in GDP - the largest since a 7.2 percent jump in the third quarter of 2003 - was partly fueled by rebuilding in the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast region. Growth is widely forecast to level off in coming quarters to a range of between 3 percent and 4 percent.

So the economy is cooking along nicely with solid growth, inflation is in check, unemployment is extremely low, and somehow everyone is convinced that the nation is in horrible economic shape.  Propaganda and misinformation do work, proven daily by our friends in the major media who control what average people get to hear and see.  Probably why they get so upset when the Bush administration tries to get the information they want the public to have out…because the MSM claims that sole prerogative.  And they say the economy and prospects in general are horrible as long as a Republican is in the Whitehouse.