Fedex (NYSE:FDX) said it expects shipping traffic to move up during the holidays. One executive at the company said, “The levels of expectation are a bit higher.” But, that is only a bit
ABC News said on Tuesday that its weekly gauge of U.S. consumer confidence rose for the second straight week, edging up from a recent three-month low.
All of these signs and the news about them neglects one critical reflection that consumer activity is still startlingly below levels in 2007. The current recovery, and it is a very modest one, in buying activity is almost no recovery at all. It is barely climbing out of a very deep hole and getting to the top of that hole may still take years.
There is a temptation among corporate executives and government officials to talk up the prospects of the economy. That is only natural. CEOs and cabinet members are paid to be optimists. It would not do well for the Treasury Secretary or the head of GE (NYSE:GE) to say that the economy was falling apart again and the a market collapse and double dip recession were just around the corner.
A three-foot tall man who grows an inch is still only 3’1” in a world that recently was, until last year, populated by men who were six feet tall.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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