Is the "Great Recession" over?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke rendered his most positive assessment of the economy yet in a speech Friday and gave credit in part to his own institution's handling of the worst economic crisis in decades. He claimed that the so-called "Great Recession" is over and things are turning around as we speak.

On paper, one may think so. Home sales have jumped a whopping 27 percent (some say 33 percent, or 17 percent, but either way its a jump). Job loss claims were lower than expected last month (even though they did jump this month to over 500,000). So one might think things are easing up... Well, that is simply not true.

According to Ray Jones, CEO of Farmworth Capital LLC. the majority of home sales were done by corporations who were looking to get a steal from buying foreclosed and decrepid homes. That is where the sales increased. These werent sales from people who were looking to buy a great home at a great price. The latest scheme going on these days, according to Jones is that corporations are getting together and buying homes that once cost $400,000 for less than $150,000 dollars... in bulk, that is all that is happening. And that's not all..

The commercial real estate bubble hasnt even burst yet. There are some companies that overpaid for buildings in Manhattan by hundreds of millions and have no way to coming up with their payments.

One building bought in Times Square for almost a billion dollars, has not only gone down in value by nearly half since the "Great Recession" started, but the company that bought it, TL Gerban, a Dutch corporation, has no way of coming up with the payments because theyre about to go bankrupt. It is one example of perhaps thousands of companies that have no way of coming up with rent payments.

When the foreclosures start in the commercial real estate market, that is truly when the "Great Recession" will have bottomed out. So until then, Mr. Bernake can keep doing the drugs he is doing, he is stepping down in January anyway. Sorry everyone, the "Great Recession" is here to stay for another few years.