I haven't known what to think of the third quarter economic news. I'm not exactly a tower of economic wisdom. My judgments about economic reports tend to be sadly ad hominem. Thus with some trepidation, I thrust one toe into the subject...

Slate has easily the most schizophrenic take on the news. Gross's actual article is moderately optimistic, if skeptical. The various headlines that point to the actual article are wildly erratic:

"Bush's Bogus Boom"
"Has the Bush Economic Boom Started"
"The Bush Boomlet"

It would make sense if these are headlines in different papers or for different articles. They're links or headlines on the same "paper" (Slate) for the same article!

Dan Dresner has a useful post summing up the news. I hadn't noticed that inventories are still down. That's a pretty good sign that it isn't an isolated quarter, isn't it? I mean, it suggests that there's plenty of slack for industrial expansion if it isn't just consumer demand eating through inventory overstock. Only complaint I have is his post-title. I've got that damn song playing on auto-rewind in my head...

Even Krugman can't find anything nasty to say about the news. I'd call that a fair sweep, wouldn't you?