Same day, different spin on the economy from the White House. President Obama who is wrapping up a meeting with nations of the Americas the President said that the U.S. has a ways to go before recovery>

“We’re not out of the woods. This is still a difficult time for the economy. Credit is still contracted,” Obama told a news conference in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where he was attending the Fifth Summit of the Americas.

Lawrence Summers on the other hand prefers to see the glass as being half-full.

“We’ve seen some more mixed statistics after a period when there was no positive statistics to be found,” White House Director of the National Economic Council Lawrence Summers told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“But it is a long road and it is going to take time. It is going to take creating jobs again … it is going to take supporting the financial system,” he said.

No one is in any position to declare any kind of victory here. But the fact that no one can declare victory doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take note of developments as they unfold.”

Obama seemed to confirm what everyone else knows — some banks are going to need capital.

“Different banks are in different situations. They’re going to need different levels of assistance from taxpayers,” Obama said, and he vowed that taxpayer money would not be wasted.

“We try to use as light a touch as we can. But I am not going to simply put taxpayer money into a black hole, where you are not going to see results,” he said.

It seems that a lot of that taxpayer money, say $500 or $600 billion has already disappeared down that black hole. I’m sure that he wants to believe that more won’t disappear but based on results to date that’s more hope than plan.