We have had, in the last week, four increases in key variables in the U.S. housing market. I pick the U.S. housing market as an example because that's one of the criteria we need in Canada. We need the U.S. housing market to get back. We've had an increase in housing starts, resale, new homes, and the prices, and the media has jumped all over this, and it's phenomenal. Housing starts in the United States went up 22% from January to February. It blared on all the front pages how positive this was. They are at one-third the level they were a year ago. They're abysmally low. The only reason they went up is because they couldn't go any lower than they were in January. I could have spun that story in a totally different fashion. Look how low it is! Aren't we depressed at how low they were?
They've talked about Geithner's plan and they talked about the toxic assets. That's the second key condition. We have to get these toxic assets separated from the U.S. banks' books so they can lend it. There is a very good chance that plan won't work, yet it was given very charitable treatment by the media. The markets reacted up 6% to 8% around the world on that basis. I could have come and written a story on that thing: look, we're not even going to know until May; we know there's enough incentive for people to buy; we don't have any idea whether there's enough incentive on the bankers' side; this could fall flat. You didn't find a lot of people taking that stance. So I find it on both sides.
I myself am getting messages frequently pretending I'm single-handedly pulling down the economy because I have a negative forecast. The day I got that, it was released that the capacity utilization rate in Canada for the fourth quarter was the lowest number in the history of this country. What are you going to say?
It comes back a little bit to the aspect of that commercial paper. Do you see it the way it is in reality, or do you just sugar-coat it and end up with problems? If I'm in Ted's world and the capacity utilization number is really low, I want to know that and I want to do something about the management of my business so I don't get caught with unintended inventories. If you just put the blinders on, then you're not going to get anywhere.