As promised, here's a more well-digested take on the Nielsen consumer trend report. The basics: Nielsen aggregated consumer trend data from 11 major GDP countries to come up with the key performance indicator (KPI) chart at left (tip for how to read the thing: the greener, the better). The index was weighted based on dollar sales and unit sales, but also took into account things like how often people were shopping, how much they were buying each time, to what extent they were buying generic brands, and how confident they were that the end is near (in a good way).

See all those gray horizontal arrows? Nielsen VP James Russo sees them as a sign that we're either at or very close to a bottom in the recession. Consumer spending is leveling off from its massive drops--in fact, in Germany, it even rose slightly. It's not because people are suddenly buying up Porches again. Rather, they're snatching up essentials in bulk. "The big thing is that we're not seeing the significant swings we did before," he told me. "There is spending going on--it's restrained spending, and it's on essentials. But that's potentially a good thing. We've moved from denial and panic to acceptance. There's a new way of keeping up with the Joneses."

Certainly, some spending is better than no spending. But hinting at a bottom? Call me cynical; I wouldn't read too much into this one. Consumer tastes are notoriously fickle animals (see Exhibit A: the rapid rise and sensational fall of the Snuggie). It has been quite some time since we heard any ugly, shocking, earth-shattering news about banks and bailouts. But if stress tests were to expose emperors without their clothes, I doubt everyone will still feel as chipper about the recession's supposed bottom. At the same time, plenty of folks--including Russo--point to green shoots in economic fundamentals to support a bottoming-out argument at a more foundational level. They may very well be right. But on that, too, we're still seeing bad news decelerate more than we're seeing any good news accelerate. The usual suspects--Krugman, Roubini, et. al.--aren't holding their breath.

At the end of the day, I think FT's Chrystia Freeland has the right idea: "If ordinary Americans, whose pension savings were devastated last fall, are burned by a dead-cat bounce this spring, US faith in shareholder capitalism could be damaged for a long time."So let's manage expectations. It's fantastic that consumers the world over don't think the sky is falling anymore. But holding patterns, stockpiling, and wishful thinking do not a ray of sunshine make.

Merle Hazard is the self-proclaimed "first and only country singer to write about mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, and leveraged buyouts." His latest ditty is "Mark to Market," dedicated to "the courageous men and women of the Financial Accounting Standards Board."

Hat tip to our illustrious photo editor Kathy Jones.

Banks with Chutzpah: Treasury is up for a fight on the Detroit front, after banks and other lenders came back with a meager counteroffer on canceling most of Chrysler's debt. Word on the street is that the big dogs--JP Morgan and Citi--were convinced by the little guys to be more aggressive. Apparently they didn't get the memo about not biting the hand that feeds.

And the (Closest Thing We Have to a) Winner Is...: Mohamed El-Erian is very much looking forward to the release of the results from bank stress tests. He lays out five ways they ought to go down.

German Toxic Waste Seeking Dump: Merkel is getting moving on a plan to take care of banks' toxic assets, which will most likely end up in a series of bad banks rather than one centralized dumping ground. Analysts expect the plan to come together by the summer.

Platinum Concerns: After the polls close and celebrations die down in South Africa, the new government will inherit big troubles in the country's huge mining industry, which employs some 5 million people and has been hit hard by the slump in global demand.

Billionaires No More: Russia's billionaire club has sunk to a third of its size during the boom years, with the country's richest shedding some 70 percent of their wealth.

Who Invited This Guy?: The IMF cut its expectations for global growth--into the negative. Announcing that the world economy had fallen into a severe recession, it announced that the world economy would contract 1.3 percent this year and that financial markets would take longer than expected to stabilize.