Today's economic data

Mixed. Challenger layoff announcements climb, but I don't consider those particularly meaningful.

Car and truck sales were mixed. It looks like the hoped-for recovery from June's slump happened, but at the cost of more and more incentives -- the U.S. consumer is like a junky for zero-percent financing. Good luck selling them a car without it.

Speaking of the consumer, personal income and spending were lower than expected in June. Income put in the lowest gain since April 2003. Wages and salaries were flat, the worst performance since December 2003.

Consumer spending, meanwhile, fell 0.7 percent, the worst performance since a 1.2-percent drop in September 2001.

You read that right: June was the worst month for U.S. consumers since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Still, the Pollyannas on Wall Street continue to maintain that this was a one-shot deal, that the consumer demand is rebounding to a healthy level and that business spending will carry us to the promised land of above-trend economic growth. A rebound in car-and-truck sales would seem to justify this view.

But oil prices set yet another record on Tuesday. Gasoline prices haven't crossed back above $2 a gallon yet, but they won't fall very far, either, with crude prices at this level. How much demand will there be for those SUVs if that's the case?

The economy will likely put in a second-half growth rate far south of the 5 percent or so implied by the Fed's recent prediction that GDP would grow between 4.5 and 4.75 percent in 2004 (given the sub-4-percent growth in the first half, you'd need something north of 5 percent growth in the second half to arrive at the Fed's magic full-year number).

Something closer to trend -- about 3 percent -- is looking much more likely. That won't eat up the labor force. Hopefully, it won't get Dubya re-elected, either.