Until recently it has been fashionable to denigrate the U.S. economic recovery: “America is the best house in a bad neighborhood,” sniffed many analysts. No longer. America is now a very good house in a terrible neighborhood.

·     “Domestic factories buck global slowdown,” headlines the Wall Street Journal’s report of the increase in new orders and production in the U.S., and the weakening of manufacturing activity in Europe, much of Latin America, and most of Asia, including China.