September 07, 2011 06:39 PM UTC

Good News Trying To Leak Out Around The Gloom

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• by: Colorado Pols

The economy sucks! Doom! Gloom! Zero jobs created in August!

Somewhere in the daily avalanche of pessimism, the AP reports today:

Companies advertised the most job openings in three years, a hopeful sign after the worst month for hiring in nearly a year.

The Labor Department said Wednesday that employers posted 3.2 million jobs in July, up from 3.17 million in June. That is the largest number of openings since August 2008. Typically, it takes anywhere from one to three months to fill an opening…

Of course, openings don’t necessarily translate into jobs–but we learned in economics class that job postings is one indicator to look for as a sign of economic recovery. And not that we want to jinx it (we’ve been accused lately of causing wild swings in the stock market, in addition to our usual manipulation of Colorado politics), but the Dow is up almost 200 points as of this writing.

Also, those of you expecting bad economic news all the way through, you know, November of 2012, probably shouldn’t read this story in today’s Grand Junction Sentinel titled “6-month sales, use tax revenue for city up 9.2%.” Or this story from today’s Vail paper, “Vail hits July sales tax record.” Because they’re about people feeling better about the economy and buying stuff, and that just doesn’t fit the narrative. Especially in beet-red Grand Junction–if these people had any political sensibility about them, they’d put off all this buying until next Christmas!

Sorry, that was kind of cynical.