There’s an old joke about a headache going away because you stopped hitting your head with a hammer. That’s one way to view the few pieces of good economic news trickling out over the past four weeks. Most analysts are getting excited because certain economic indicators are not falling as fast as they were.
 
Whether we have hit bottom is still wild speculation. The important thing is that these signs of hope are necessary precursors to a recovery. We have to wait to see if they are real. It’s encouraging that the first wave of good and less-bad news at the end of March has been more or less sustained into mid-April. Even the steel industry and the deep pit it has been in has started to look better. And this week’s market and positive earnings reports …