Bloomberg reported today that the U.S. recession may have ended in June, per Edward McKelvey at Goldman Sachs (U.S. Recession May Have Ended in June, Goldman’s McKelvey Says)?

“The upturn in industrial production reported for July suggests that June could wind up being the NBER cycle low,” McKelvey wrote. The projection was “highly tentative” and “a lot has to happen before we can state this conclusion with conviction,” he said.

He is right, a lot…a LOT has to happen before you can say this is true.  For one, the majority of this increase in production is probably due to the ridiculous Cash-for-Clunkers program.  The article states this itself:

“The government’s cash-for-clunkers program is among the reasons production, GDP and sales are all likely to increase this quarter, McKelvey said.”

What happens when this program ends?  The buyers will disappear.  No new buyers = lower production numbers.

The Goldman Sachs economist also notes that the job market is likely to deteriorate further.  Hmmmm…yes, this sounds like the end of the recession and suggests there will be “tons” of buyers to pick up the slack when the Cash-for-Clunkers program ends.

The only positive number in the article, no increased production due to an artificial increase in demand (Cash-for-Clunkers), is the re-hiring of 1,350 union workers by GM.  Of course, this is still a semi-artificial number and job losses are still high.

This guy does not sell me on a turn around yet.  Especially, when the banking issue is still out there, people are still losing their jobs, 1.5 million people will be losing unemployment benefits this fall, and the consumers’ debt load is still huge.

I wish these guys would be a little less blatant with their attempts to talk up the market.