Signs of a fledgling recovery, huh? Here are some of the stories that got past the censors:

– “BUSINESS INSIDER – Feb. 11, 2010 – Today’s latest report from the Congressional Oversight Panel makes it very clear that while things may feel relatively stable right now on the commercial real estate front, the real bomb hits in 2011. Banks could lose $ 200 – $ 300 billion, and ‘every American’ could be affected …”

– “Business Times – 12 Feb 2010 – (WASHINGTON) Commercial real estate loans have the potential to go sour and wreck the US economy unless regulators prepare now, according to a report yesterday from a watchdog Congress created for the government’s financial bailout programme. The report should be a ‘red flag’ that prompts regulators to increase preparations for staving off another banking crisis, said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Asset Relief Program …”

– “www.dsnews.com – 02/12/2010 – Losses from defaults on commercial real estate loans maturing in the next few years could go as high as $ 300 billion, threatening to topple nearly 3,000 community banks nationwide, a federal watchdog group has concluded …”

Now let’s move on to some of the “best and brightest” … the “computer-literate” ones.

– “Business Times – 12 Feb 2010 – (SAN FRANCISCO) Silicon Valley’s economy is sputtering and risks permanently stalling, according to an annual report by a group of researchers. Part of the toll on Silicon Valley has resulted from the recession. The region, the center of the global technology industry, lost 90,000 jobs from the second quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009 …”

The International Freighting Weekly also touched upon “industry-wide signs of a fledgling recovery.”

– “www.ifw-net-com – The US west coast port of Tacoma saw full-year container volumes in 2009 decline by 17% on the year before, to 1.55m teu. It was the second consecutive year that the port’s box throughput fell – 2008’s throughput of 1.86m teu was down 3% on 2007’s record 1.92m teu. Despite ‘industry-wide signs (?) of a fledgling recovery’, Tacoma’s volumes for January 2010 were 15% down on January 2009, at 93,000teu …”

All this tells us, of course, is that the ones steering our ship-of-state are off course, heading for the rocks, and don’t know how to avoid the imminent shipwreck. We need jobs. Paychecks will pay mortgages and keep community banks solvent. Paychecks will put Silicon Valley back on its feet.

And paychecks can only be generated by an Emergency Shipbuilding Program.