Remember the recovery? It officially began way back in the middle of 2009, 18 months after the financial system--and then everything else in the American economy--fell apart. Given that nobody has gotten much of a raise since then and that unemployment is still above 8%, you'd be forgiven for not noticing that there's been a rebound--until, maybe, now.
In the past few weeks, signs of economic expansion have been everywhere. Factory managers' purchasing orders, one of the most closely watched economic indicators, reached a bullish six-month high in January. Weekly out-of-work claims have fallen to four-year lows; the stock markets (led...