Summertime

Put away the long pants, sweaters, windbreakers, hunched shoulders and sneering cynicism. Forget the calendar. Summer is here. Time to gorge on golf, bask in baseball, tone the tan, pick the ponies, tweak the tennis serve, pen poetry, marvel at Miss Market and indulge in any other alliterative activity that makes the heart soar and shoves the blues to another season. Fly me to the moon.

Scolds who wish the profligacy of the United States in recent decades will visit yet more plagues on the citizenry have seen their best days. They will be left behind, scowling and snorting about “kids these days” while the car stereos blare obnoxious “music” and the car companies, insolvent or not, jockey for position to provide a carapace for one man’s insistence to share his entertainment with the rest of the world walking by.

Auto sales last month were better than expected, even for GM. They were down year-on-year, but up significantly from April. Pending sales of existing homes ratcheted up for the third month in a row in April, according to the National Association of Realtors. Oil rebounded late to close a couple of pennies lower, but it’s fast closing in on $70 a barrel. China keeps growing. To feed itself it must.

Green shoots are showing buds if not flowering, though skies remain menacing. To come tomorrow is the ADP data on layoffs, and on Friday the May nonfarm payroll numbers from the United States Department of Labor will help clarify things.

The arguments for and against recovery are as contentious as the never-ending contretemps among pinstriper fans over whether Joba Chamberlain should start or be the setup man for Mariano. Will a collapsing dollar and rising interest rates sink the USA, or will fiscal and monetary stimuli restore American vigor? Both outcomes are plausible, but for now summer seduces me. Staying in equities and commodities, those things we use to build things, seems the more summery outlook. And we are nothing but summery now after seeing the promised land by breaking the sound barrier of 100 on the golf course.

In the meantime, got a tee time at Dyker Beach on Thursday. Anyone who would care to join me will see a new putting stroke perfected on the living room rug that insures birdies – that’s right, birdies, not par. It’s summer and the fish are jumpin’. Catch ‘em if you can.