Price rises are gradually feeding down the production chain. This is starting to affect consumer prices and would make the exit from deflation more solid.

It's a sign that the cycle is starting to turn. The job offer ratio improved for the second month, and that's usually a fairly reliable measure of market conditions.

I continue to believe that the effects of higher gas prices on the consumer are overestimated. Most of the important measures of discretionary spending such as furniture, lawn and garden and food sales held up nicely.

Prices are much firmer in the high-end product arena than in the moderate price discount arena.

It is difficult to find any part of the economic puzzle that would lead you to be less confident about the full-year 2006 outlook than you were six months ago.

If you look not just at the headline rate but also at the underlying rates, you are seeing a gradual climb away from zero and that has to be seen positively.