Production should be up, and it should be up fairly strongly,

It contradicts it fairly strongly.

There is no doubt that the street was expecting the worst and they were prepared for the worst. Once the numbers came out a rally ensued and it trickled over to the equity market... The domestic economy is just honey.

This is almost the best of all possible worlds, where labor is making money, and yet corporations have been able to offset that with productivity, and keep it themselves in terms of profits. It reminds everyone of the important contributions technology has been making to increased productivity in tight labor markets.

Business confidence is very low, and thus they're maintaining as cautious an approach as possible to their activity, whether that's hiring, building inventory or anything else.

This year, retailers probably hired a normal number of people. We'll wind up with a large seasonal factor boosting a normal number, and end up with a large gain in retail help.