What are Economic Indicators Really Indicating?

Doug Rushkoff makes an interesting point about economic indicator's over at his blog: "My point is not gloom and doom. Rather, it's that the "signs of economic growth" stimulating the speculative economy and DowJones average have little or nothing to do with the prospects for real people to make ends meet, find gainful employment, or - more importantly - create and exchange value back here on earth." "In fact," he continues, "the vital signs of the speculative economy might better be understood as the health points of the monster whose very purpose is to extract value from the real, and inject it into the virtual, derivative economy." Now I'm not totally sure I agree with him (partly because I don't know enough about markets or economics to say for sure whether I believe it), but it does make sense and at the very least makes you think about what indicators are really indicating.