Right hand, left hand

If you're going to insist on the Big Picture in your streamer heds, you might want to be sure you're looking at the Big Picture through the Same Eyes.

Here we have the Freep's interpretation of the economy from Thursday's 1A* ("full swing") and biz front ("gradual recovery"). Both stories are a little shaky to start with; the second is more or less the notional continuation of the first, and both chunks bounce back and forth between being about the auto industry and the national economy in general.

It's not fair to pick on the Freep for not looking into the future -- specifically, for not seeing Friday's employment numbers on Wednesday night. The cure for that is not predicting gloom, pain and woe rather than puppies, kittens and birthday cakes; the cure is staying away from predictions.

* The cutoff rule is there so you don't confuse the Rosy Scenario with the day's fractional developments in the Missing Boys story.