Reports of renewed consumer confidence and increased consumer spending have done much to bolster a stock market hungry for good news.

But can the market really expect continued high corporate performance after a surprisingly positive second quarter? After slashing costs at the end of last year and in the first quarter of this year, it could rightly be expected most companies would perform better on flat revenues and reduced overheads. The question becomes, how do you grow profits while still maintaining this lean and mean, survivalist posture?

Look still closer, and one finds most companies are still down by double-digit percentages compared to prior years. Rises in stock prices, then, weren’t ever driven by stellar performance, but rather by the fact that, while still poor, earnings simply weren’t as poor as predicted.

Is that really good news?

On the manufacturing side, durable goods orders have been up lately, perhaps suggesting pent-up demand for big ticket items like appliances and automobiles is finally finding an outlet.

But we think those numbers suggest recent spending on big ticket items was motivated more by government cash than true consumerism. Folks that needed a new car anyway found a perfect excuse with $4,500 of Uncle Sam’s clunker money in their hands. In this case, consumer confidence seems to have been replaced more by plain old consumer pragmatism.

And when defense spending is removed from the equation, durable goods orders have remained flat at best, if not still slightly down. Turns out our durable tanks and jets aren’t nearly as durable as the Pentagon had hoped.

We recently reported in our own pages (happily, might we add) that housing sales were up in July in Massachusetts for the first time in far longer than we care to remember. And yet, we can’t quite escape the nagging feeling that still more handouts from our favorite Uncle had something to do with it.

Again, we question the cries of “consumer confidence” and instead look to common sense – if the government is willing to give you $8,000 and you’re already close to buying, why pass that up?

It bears remembering that the credit is set to expire in a few months. What will the government do after realizing its unenviable Catch-22 – that it may not be able to afford not to have the credit, but may also not be able to afford paying for it?

In more bad news, Massachusetts ranks 16th in the country in terms of states with the most expensive closing costs, according to a recent national survey by Bankrate. Last year, the Bay State ranked 21st.

Already known as a sometimes prohibitively expensive state, it doesn’t bode well that Massachusetts is moving up in closing cost rankings, especially as some neighboring states (Rhode Island and Connecticut) move down.

Pundits and politicos have gone to great lengths to trumpet “improving” jobless numbers as signs of recovery lately.

But as with the stock market, a more measured look at the numbers reveals the so-called “recovery” to be frighteningly hollow. New unemployment claims reached a months-long low recently of 250,000 in one week. While certainly better than the peaks of 500,000 or more new claims just months ago, an economy that is shedding a quarter-million jobs per week is altogether terrible.

We don’t want to be accused of raining on the recovery parade. We want very badly to believe the spin, to be able to look at raw numbers once again and be encouraged, not dismayed.

But we’re not at that point. Like consumers, we’re simply being pragmatic, not confident.

What we see is a badly wounded economy, limping along on a crutch of funding generously supplied by Uncle Sam. And while that crutch is not necessarily a bad thing, it cannot possibly last forever. Already mired in historic debt, the spending cannot continue.

And when the spending stops, the true test will begin.