Today we examine a couple of recent stories from Fantasyland – otherwise known as Wall Street. Seven of America’s largest banks repaid their TARP borrowings to the US Treasury yesterday, in the process providing one more occasion for hopeful investors to proclaim the end of the credit crisis.

Worldwide indexes reclaim that losing feeling,  The skinny on those TARP repayments and two curiously conflicting assessments,Four factories for one McMinimum Wage house and plenty more…

Through the tangle of green shoots and sprouting mustard seeds, a certain nervous view persists that the arc of events is taking us to places unimaginable.  The collapse of General Motors and Chrysler signifies more than the collapse of US car manufacturing.  It spells the end of the motoring era in America per se and the puerile fantasy of personal liberation that allowed it to become such a curse to us.

GM’s Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and the US Governments International relations

We’ve been keeping a close eye on US Treasuries lately. That’s because the bond markets are full of useful information about the real state of the economy. For one, they tell us how investors really feel about government wastefulness.

A detailed report from the National Association of Business Economics (NABE) says the U.S. economy will recover in the third quarter after a continued contraction in the second.

We’re now in an extended bounce which could last until mid-summer. Stocks were up yesterday… the Dow rose 196 points.  What were investors thinking?