Summertime....and the livin' ain't easy. The economy's in worse shape than the administration thought, even after pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into it. More people are losing their jobs. Unemployment's at 8.5% and according to many economists will go higher, maybe above 10% before the layoffs stop. Gas at the pump has gone above $3 again, even with the price of oil starting to show some weakness. Home prices are still going down and foreclosures continue to rise. Defaults on consumer credit is at all-time highs. When will it ever end?

Don't know. No one does. But that isn't a reason to stop investing, to quit preparing your portfolio for the next big upward move that will surely come. You doubt that? Just look at a price chart for the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last 100 years. It's full of periods where the line is going down, only to be followed by large increases on the upside. Unless the whole capitalist system is gone forever, history will repeat. There will be an upward swing to this market, and it's more likely sooner rather than later.

There is more conflicting data on the unemployment front. The good news is that new jobless claims fell by 52,000 to 565,000 in the past week. The four-week average fell to 608,000, down 10,000.

Now the bad news. The number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits rose to 6.88 million, a new high.

These numbers are confusing to say the least, leaving open speculation on both sides that the recession has ended. Economist John Ryding at RDQ Economics says that the recession may have ended in the second quarter.

There has been a lot of chatter lately about the possibility of a second stimulus package for America, and now it has received the blessing of Warren Buffett.

On this morning's Good Morning America (on ABC), Buffett said, "I think that a second one [stimulus package] may well be called for ... you hope it doesn't get watered down in many ways." Buffett leveled criticism at the first stimulus bill, calling it "sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having a bunch of candy mixed in."

Apartment vacancies in the United States hit their highest level in 22 years in the second quarter of 2009. Job losses are to blame, according to Bloomberg, as tenant demand falls when people don't have any income. Vacancies rose to 7.5% from 6.1% year-over-year, according to Reis Inc. But this still doesn't reach the 1987 level of 7.6%. In June, the U.S. unemployment rate hit a 26-year high, with payrolls dropping faster than expectations.

Conventional wisdom has it that potential homebuyers turn into renters when the job market softens. The rental pool is shrinking, however, leading to the high rate of apartment vacancies as landlords struggle to fill units. Asking rents for apartments fell 0.6% last quarter (for the second in a row), according to Reis, the largest fall since the company started to track this measure in 1999. Overall, asking rents (including other types of residences) were off 0.7% year-over-year, down to an average of $1,040 a month.

My final all-American brand is Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL). The company is well-known for its toothpaste and toothbrushes. But Colgate-Palmolive also owns dozens of strong brand names, including Irish Spring, Speed Stick, Ajax, and many others.

Some investors may think of Colgate-Palmolive as a dull stock. That's fine by me.

The shares are far less volatile than most stocks on Wall Street. Even though the market overall is well below the highs it reached in the third quarter of 2007, shares of Colgate-Palmolive were never punished nearly as hard.

Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), a retailer whose competitive colleagues include Target (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), wants to improve its brand equity and find a new path to growth. As such, it's willing to employ all kinds of initiatives, especially ones that will form a nice image with the consumer during this dreadful economic contraction.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Sears is trying out a program that offers protection against the risk of investing in an expensive appliance during a time when job security is not as secure as it used to be.

The program will run for a specified time period beginning next week, and the basic gist is this: buy an appliance priced $399 or higher on a Sears credit card and, and if you lose your job, Sears will credit one twelfth of the cost every month. Still no job after one year? Keep the appliance, your debt will be forgiven.

Auto sales continued to drop in June, but we are starting to see signs that sales may be beginning to stabilize a bit.

The auto industry is still in deep trouble. It is going to take a while before things get back to normal, but before things can even start to improve, they have to stop worsening, and that's what may be happening.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the jobless number shows the folly of thinking we can get through on what we have.

Tough data point, the employment number. Lagging. But when you see it, the number doesn't feel like it's lagging. In fact, it is thesis-busting, as in, "We aren't getting better, let's stop fooling ourselves." It just feels like, "Come on, we know the truth, we need to have a second stimulus plan."

That will be the battleground for the second half of this year: further budget-busting vs. putting more people to work, because we sure aren't doing a great job of putting them to work.

Nike (NYSE: NKE) has thus far navigated this downturn exquisitely. It has maintained sales overseas, in particular in Asia. Nike's legendary supply-chain mastery and inventory management skills have likewise served it very well. So it was a shock when the shoe giant announced Wednesday that future orders had dropped by 12%, according to Bloomberg. Bummed out investors bid down Nike share's by nearly 5% in after-hours trading.

Granted, Nike faced difficult comps. During the Beijing Olympic Games last summer Nike togs were selling like hotcakes around the globe. And a chunk of the reduction in order value came due to currency fluctuations. But it's hard to deny that this quarterly earnings announcement was a bleak reminder that the "green shoots" may be more of a Washington creation than a reality in the global economy.

Oil moved up above $70 early in the session, but was unable to hold that momentum through the day. After its strong start to the day, prices dropped $2.19 to $67.83.

A major reason for the drop in prices can be attributed to the World Bank. The World Bank slashed its forecast for this year's global economic growth, and reported that the current recession is deepening.

On Monday the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 200 points before closing a little better. No real reason for it. Pundits suggested the drop in commodity prices (oil and gold were down a little, not enough to comment on) were the reason for the dip, suggesting the economy may not be as robust nor inflation as big a problem as thought on the Friday before.

But here's the real scoop: the market has rallied well beyond a level where economic numbers justify.

Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'

Case in point: U.S. continuing claims for unemployment. They fell by 148,000 to 6.69 million, the U.S. Labor Department announced Thursday. If the downtrend in 'CCs' is sustained, that would represent another 'green shoot,' -- or sign that the U.S. recession is bottoming.

Retail sales took an unexpected downward turn in May in the United Kingdom -- for first time in three months. Cautious banks appear to be the problem, as their rationing of credit is impeding broader economic recovery. Retail sales fell 0.6% from the previous month, while economists had predicted a 0.3% change in the other direction.

Year-over-year, retail sales were off 1.6%. Sales for the year are down 1.1%, the greatest decline since score-keeping began in 1988. Of course, there's plenty of fodder for rationalizing the results. The annual change was affected by an "unusually large" retail sales estimate for May 2008. Clothing, textile, and footwear retailers and department stores led the plunge, with nonfood store sales off 1.4%, compared to a 0.3% increase in food retail sales.

The Iranian government hand counted tens of millions of presidential election ballots in a couple of hours; less time than we count ours by computer -- an Ayatollahs' miracle for sure!

These results indicated that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was able to garner two-thirds of the vote. Given the Ayatollahs miracle, the public viewed this result as anything but.

Protesters expressing their extreme objection to the election results then created a miracle of their own when up to one million marchers hit the streets forming a 5 to 6 mile parade of discontent, claims of fraud, and in some cases calling the government a dictatorship.

Meanwhile Ahmadinejad who made references to disgruntled fans after a football game in slighting the protesters, hung around for a couple of days before appearing a day late for a conference in Moscow. He missed some of the key events but he did get a chance to mention how bad the US economy was doing, neglecting to mention that Iran's economy is showing signs of falling off a cliff. If he remains president that is a real possibility.

Meanwhile the pragmatist in me knows that the greatest miracle of all would be a recanting of the election results and the president stepping down. The Ayatollahs have asked for an investigation of the election results to appease the fuming population.

The results of this investigation being conducted by the same folks that created the fraud in the first place are easier to determine than any of my stock picks. Look for the results of the investigation to acknowledge that the vote count was off by some meaningless percentage, not affecting the outcome and leaving the results as they stand.

The Ayatollahs are all for democracy as long as they get to choose who wins. Perhaps in the future they will simply default to the patterns of authoritarian rulers before them -- massive election rhetoric, with only one candidate on the ballot.

Related stories:
Iran's great potential and its challenges!
Iran will waste four more years

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money.

In order to keep income trickling in, companies the likes of Avon (NYSE: AVP), Mary Kay, and Tupperware are seeing a flux of salespeople -- including professionals forced to take a second job thanks to the recession.

Becke Alexander, the sales manager for Avon, noted that she hears from laid-off bankers and stay-at-home moms every week, but the company is seeing a recent boon from "gainfully employed people worried how long they'll stay that way." In fact, Alexander said, "There are no hobby seekers coming in here. It's people with a legitimate need." This pop in makeup peddlers stems directly from the current economic crisis, but not just from unemployment. A common complaint is that bonuses have disappeared, as have hours, which have forced people to turn to direct sales to make up some cash.