Sticks

The 'recovery' is a product rollout campaign, it's marketed just like a car. The process builds in stages. At the beginning, they're just rubbing two sticks together to make a fire, hoping to create a buzz of positive feeling towards a product, which will then turn into a fire that casts a glow that will attract other moths.

It's natural for people to want a recovery, so it's not that hard to transition people from the 'wanting' state of mind to the 'belief in the recovery' state of mind- the architects of the marketing campaign are telling people to see something that they are hoping to see anyway. People who believe in a God will see signs of God's handiwork everywhere in their daily lives. People who think that UFO's exist will, predictably, be more receptive to reports of UFO's ( I'm not saying anything either way about God or UFO's here, just describing how wants intersect with beliefs ).

There's also a substantial amount of peer pressure at work- pessimists will be characterized as somehow 'anti-American' or 'anti-capitalism' ( which is funny, because we have statism, not capitalism ). Analysts who turn a more pessimistic eye to the economy will be treated more harshly by the dominant media . They'll be described as 'prophets of doom' as though they are scary monsters who have come to terrify us.

Basically- if reality contradicts with the message, dispense with reality and guard the message.