No, the weight of the evidence is inconclusive. Too many 'big things' have happened in the interim to make month-to-month fluctuations (especially massaged ones) a reliable indicator of "underlying trends". One can say, reasonably, that the inconclusiveness is at least an improvement over evidence of deterioration. But not much more. There is, after all, a war going on.
As for 0% financing auto sales, the interpretive slant seems to favour the story that the sales "borrowed" from future auto sales. I have no doubt that's part of the story. However, another part of the story would be, I presume, some substitution of autos for other purchases, so the rebound in non-auto sales may also reflect to some extent the end of such substitutions. How much of one or another kind of substitution is going on is clearly beyond the ken of the numbers. I don't advocate ignoring "evidence", but I distinguish between what is actually evidence and what is interpretation. Doug Henwood wrote, >The weight of the evidence is that the U.S. economy is troughing, or >did bottom out around December. This could be a false bottom, a pause >before another downleg; the recovery could be weak, and might feel >little different from recession. But there's not much point in >ignoring the evidence. Tom Walker
