Total new orders for durable goods, including orders for new transportation equipment, were estimated to have been $238.7 billion in March 2017 on a seasonally-adjusted basis. That is 9% better than the most recent low point figured for June last year. It remains substantially less than the record high reached in July 2014, though an anomaly in Boeing’s order history accounts for that one month being so far out of line. March’s estimate is more comparable to the one for June 2013, which is precisely the problem.

The entire world has focused on the first part with once again no appreciation for the second. It truly is 2014 all over, where so long as the numbers were generally positive QE had to be working. Only this year there are no more illusions about QE, or very few that remain rational, leaving expectations for a growth surge to be based on the non-specific overcoming of inertia, if only by sheer will of positivity.

Year-over-year, the numbers are all again positive. Total durable goods orders were up 4.5% in March, while those excluding transportation rose 4.9%. Even capital goods shipments were positive compared to last March (+2.9%), only the second annual increase of the last eighteen months. But these are all just small positives and give off no sign of momentum and acceleration. They merely recall, again, 2014, and even to a lesser degree.

The true nature of our current economic condition is not defined by the narrow comparison to the worst point or points of last year, but instead by wider reflection of what clearly is still missing. Though total durable goods are up 9% from the 2015-16 (near recession) trough, this high point in March is still less than the one in the middle of 2013 almost four years ago. Worse, however, the latest figure remains less than the one for December 2007.

What is revealed by these comparisons is not an economy poised for growth but one stuck between varying degrees of contraction and not contraction. As in 2014, we happen to find the current economy in the latter condition, though without a QE to attach it seems so by mere accident. And like 2014, the mainstream is poised to make far more out of it than is legitimately indicated (especially by sentiment).