So much for catastrophe. (Comment).

CONVENTIONAL wisdom has taken it on the chin -- again.

The week before last the government revised its fourth quarter economic growth numbers to a 1.4 percent annual rate, up from the previous estimate of 0.2 percent and, more importantly, light years ahead of earlier estimates by private forecasters of negative growth. In January, orders for manufactured goods rose 1.6 percent -- coming on top of a 0.7 percent gain in December.

What this means is that by the traditional definitions, the United States did not have a recession after all. "It was probably a profound stumble," Comerica Bank's Chief Economist David Littmann told the Wall Street Journal. "But to date there was no national recession."

On the part of economists who had projected, en masse, that a recession would last well into spring and perhaps early summer, this is not just an "excuse me" miss. Ever since September, Americans have been reminded, again and again, that the recession was here and it would be substantial. It became a part of the political and corporate lexicon.

Here's how Business Week put it in its Oct. 1 edition: "The economic picture seems increasingly foreboding and uncertain... Now it looks like the U.S. could be in for a rougher ride than anyone imagined in the next six to 12 months."

I don't mean to pick on Business Week -- everyone, including us, was saying much the same thing.

Curiously, we're now beginning to see the formation of a new round of conventional thinking on what went wrong with the earlier round of conventional thinking. It centers on the post-Sept. 11 presumption that consumers would stop buying houses and SUVs and instead hunker down in their homes watching videos and eating comfort food. As it turned out, the retreat lasted all of a few weeks, at which point Americans pretty much went back to their daily grinds -- including spending money. Given that consumer spending represents two-thirds of the U.S. economy, the early predictions of frugality and caution turned out to be a blunder of monumental proportions.

And it affected American business in a profound way. Faced with ominous projections for 2002, companies scaled down their budgets accordingly -- resulting in a self-imposed growth freeze that's been abetted by the unwillingness of banks and other lenders to stick their necks out. And on what basis were those lenders holding back? Conventional wisdom pointing to a long and ugly recession.

Before casting any stones, imagine being the one who decides whether to write a check for some cockamamie business in the midst of all those grim projections. I know what my answer would be -- and it wouldn't end with a handshake.

There's always a perverse satisfaction when conventional wisdom is proven wrong because it affirms that those pontificating know-it-alls on CNBC and CNN who help establish that day's conventional wisdom really don't know much more than anyone else. In the months to come, other presumptions will be proven incorrect, such as Gray Davis' cakewalk to reelection, the Lakers march to the third world championship, and Jack Welch's Midas touch at General Electric.

Matters of the economy, however, are more than just passing sport. When an economist posts his or her projections, they take on a currency that influences decision-making at all levels. In this case, the good news is that the earlier warnings turned out to be premature. The bad news is that most of us believed them.

Mark Lacter is editor of the Business Journal.