Trusted sources (see photo above) confirm that we can all stop worrying now and go on with our lives safe in the knowledge that everything is fine with the economy and the bright sunshine of a just and verdant world awaits us all. I am referring in part to the news that the Architectural Billings Index has posted a mild gain for the month of August, which signals the possibility that commercial real estate investment will pick up sometime next year. So, everything will be fine and there's no need to worry about the fact that the architecture and construction business (residential and commercial) has been operating at its lowest level since the Great Depression and unemployment in the industry accounts for an outsized proportion of the suffering in the nation. It's important that we try not consider the possibility that the recent uptick in the ABI, which follows more than three years of fairly consistent declines, is a temporary phenomenon that reflects misplaced optimism at the beginning of the summer in the private sector. This optimism is now under assault by the continued depressed state of the economy, mild inflationary pressures, the Euro crisis and the realization that we still have unusually high amounts of architectural inventory in the form of retail, residential and office space.
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