Like A Thief in the Night ...

Daniel Gross writes these nice columns for Newsweek and Slate, and he is often a pretty good corrective to what passes for economic analyis on the nightly news. Here, he follows one of the rules of economic reporting: Be contrarian!

This column does, for all its virtues, remind me of the weatherman's 30% chance. That's the CYA position taken when the weather pattern isn't clear. 30% is a low enough number that the weatherman can claim he didn't commit to snow, when no snow eventuates, but high enough that he can claim that he did, in fact, anticipate the snow, if it does fall.

Similarly, the statement that the economy may unexpectedly improve, is pretty much an act of hedging one's bets.