I've written about several leading, lagging, and coincident indicators for the economy over the last year.

Stocks, real estate, jobs, GDP – each says a different thing about the economy. People get confused by all these various indicators because they don't understand the differences between them.

For example, how the hell do jobs keep growing, while retail sales go nowhere?

Some of the indicators are either lagging behind our economy's path, or are so cracked up on financial drugs they're no longer a reliable forecast of the future. Others paint a clearer economic picture. But I warn you – it isn't a pretty one!

Leading indicators are things like the stock market that normally look ahead for signs of growth or decline. They used to predict economic movement a whole six to nine months in advance – hence, a “leading” indicator.

But with artificial QE driving the economy, they've been leading by just two months at best. If that. It's like offering a lift to a drug addict you meet on the highway and accepting directions from him. It's no longer a reliable leading indicator – more of a coincident one thanks to Fed manipulation of the economy.

Then we have a host of coincident indicators that have been pretty much flat at best.

GDP still sucks at 1.45% for the first two quarters of 2015, lower than the mediocre 2% of the past six years. It was expected to be 3%-plus.

Durable goods, manufacturing output, corporate earnings, and exports aren't much better.

And retail sales have been god-awful since last November – signs that the economy is slowing as we predicted.

But at least these indicators are more reliable – just reliably bad for the future.

Finally there's the lagging indicators like hiring and job growth. But like its name suggests, they show where an economy has been – not where it's going.

Businesses have been slow to hire since the economic downturn and waited for signs of more sustainable growth before making such major long-term commitments.