Don’t feel embarrassed if you can’t figure out where the American economy is headed. I don’t. After all, Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee last week that the economy is sending “somewhat different signals” about growth. The good news is that the signals seem to differ only in the speed and strength of the economic recovery that now seems to be underway.

A survey of business conditions around the country by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis concludes, “overall economic activity continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace…. Manufacturing continued to expand at a steady pace across the nation … [with] increases in new orders, shipments or production … [and] gains in capital spending.” Good news, too, from nonfinancial services industries and on the consumer front, with “the sales outlook for the near future … mostly optimistic.”