Economic indicators looking up ... and down COMMENTARY Reading the financial tea-leaves makes one thing clear right now: The U.S. has multiple economic personality disorder. The signs are good! The signs are bad! We could call it A Tale of Two Cities Economy, except no one is mistaking this for the best of times. So here's a brief run-down on recent economic indicators that don't really seem to know if they are coming or going: We're keeping up with our credit-card payments: Credit card write-offs were down 32 percent last year because U.S. consumers were able to make payments on time, according to Equifax. Bank credit card write-offs dropped 39 percent from 2010 to 5.53 percent , while retail credit card write-offs dropped 26 percent, to 8.4 percent. We're buying more stuff than we can afford: We kept up with our credit-card payments by dipping into our personal savings, not by buying less. The U.S. personal savings dropped from about 5.5 percent at the start of 2011 to about 4 percent by the end of the year. At the same time, consumer credit card borrowing shot up. In November, U.S. consumer revolving debt, including credit card loans, rose by $5.6 billion. The previous month it had risen by $7.65 billion, according to the Federal Reserve. Companies are stocking up: The value of U.S. business inventories rose 0.3 percent in November from October to an estimated $1.55 trillion, according to the Census Bureau. That marks the second consecutive monthly increase after inventories held steady in September. Stocking up is all that propped up the U.S. GDP: Because increasing inventory counts as an economic activity, all that stockpiling is a major reason the U.S. managed its anemic 2.8 percent growth in GDP for December. Consumers believe things are looking up: The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index for early January increased to 74.0 after ending December with a reading of 69.9. Consumers have changed their minds: Apparently it depends on who is doing the asking because The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index is down to 61.1 for January from 64.8 in December. In this system 1985 = 100. How well do you remember 1985? Foreclosure filings hit four year low: The number of U.S. homes receiving a foreclosure filing fell to a four-year low in 2011, according to RealtyTrac. This was because of the robo-signing fiasco, which forced banks to see if they actually have the legal right to foreclose on homes. Home seizures may jump 25 percent this year: RealtyTrac expects a huge increase in foreclosures in 2012. This is because banks may have figured out legal strategies to address problems unearthed in the robo-signing fiasco. CEOs are almost optimistic about the future: The Conference Board's Measure of CEO Confidence improved in the last quarter of 2011 to 49, up from 42 in the previous quarter. A reading of more than 50 points reflects more positive than negative responses. Most U.S. corporations are lousy credit risks: So why should we trust the CEOs, anyway? More than half of the U.S. companies rated by Standard & Poor now have junk ratings, up from 24 percent 30 years ago. Over the same period the number of triple A-rated non-financial US companies dropped from 61 to four.