Day after day investors are treated to 5-Star Morningstar managers, so-called "strategists", economissseds with entire religions on the line, and circus barkers who proclaim that: a) The US is decoupled from the rest of the world; and/or b) The US is the cleanest dirty shirt; an/or c) There are no indications that the US economy is near a recession. Here are four simple charts - from, just today's data - that destroy this glass half full and rose-colored ignorance of reality... 1) Business Inventories-to-Sales are at recesssion-inducing levels... 1a) Sidenote 1 - Wholesale Inventories relative to sales have NEVER been higher... 1b) Sidenote 2 - here is why that is a problem... 2) Industrial Production is - as would expeted given the inventories - rolling over into recession territory... 2a) Sidenote - as Empire Fed confirmed this morning for August - inventories are collapsing (and along with that Q3 GDP)... 3) Retail Sales is not supportive of anything but a looming recession... And finally, 4) The last 6 times Auto Assemblies collapsed at this rate, the US was in recession... So - still think The US is "safe" - because stocks are certainly not priced for anything other than a hockey-stick of hope in earnings rebounds, let alone a collapse into recession. Charts: Bloomberg