Everybody not living under the overly cliched rock knows that things in the financial crisis are not as bad as they were before and we can justifiably say that we are heading towards a really slow and torturous road towards economic recovery but what if somebody told you that the really slow and torturous recovery is even slower than we expected?A private forecast of economic activity over the next six months has come up with a rather sorry report that says recovery was even slower up than expected in October, signaling slow growth next year. The Conference Board says its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.3 percent last month. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had expected an 0.5 percent gain.The index climbed 1 percent in September.The Conference Board forecasts economic activity by measuring current jobless aid claims, stock prices, consumer expectations, building permits for private homes, the money supply and other data. While some measures may be getting better (consumer expectations??) and some getting worse but at a smaller rate than before (jobless people!!), the future still is uncertain about the exact magnitude of recovery and all we can do is wait and pretend that everything is just fine.