Don't let the mixed signals confuse you

First you have CNNMoney.com running an AP article "Economists See Credit Crisis Nearing End" backing up the headline but noting that it may still take a bit, and ending with the suggestion that the Federal Reserve will have to raise rates in 2009 to beat back inflation. While over at the Wall Street Journal you have an equally interesting piece "This Stock-Market Rally Is a Keeper ... or a Tease" quoting analysts from Lehman and Goldman worrying whether the summer will be a rebate injected bounce followed by another dip.

Don't get frustrated just yet because you are going to have many more articles that are - on the one hand, on the other - oriented. This is because no one REALLY knows what is going to happen. That's why Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke talked about the "fragility" of the markets last week.

An unscientific poll of weekend cocktail and bbq chatter in DC seems to indicate that the public thinks maybe we're out of the woods. We say, remember Bernanke's comment last week? Take a look at the what the folks over at Lehman and Goldman are willing to be quoted on today.