"<i>(Economists get more excited than the rest of us when happening on a potential new indicator.)</i>"<p>Then again all of us professionals get excited when we happen upon something that helps us do our job better.<p>In this case, this indicator may have substantial predictive power of something we are very interested in during the Great Recession as we wonder if it's going to be V, W, L or whatever shaped (W is a double dip recession, L is what Japan's been experiencing).