In the meantime, if the numbers keep rising, the debate over what they mean will continue.
While wholesale energy prices rise, the debate will get noisier.
At times Mr. Thune tries to rise above the debate over who has secured more for South Dakota.
But rising above the debate was a clarion sympathy, hard as metal and tempered by experience, for those who suffered most keenly on Sept. 11.
As farmers cope with the dual crises of a changing climate and rising population, the debate rages about the future of agriculture, with large-scale agribusiness being pitted against smallholders.
Having remained calm in a debate with Mr Garcia, who is a polished orator, he then spoilt matters by interrupting a television interview with his opponent with an irate telephone call.Support for Mr Garcia began to rise after the debate, particularly among those who had earlier said they would cast blank votes.
But consumer confidence is growing, durable goods sales are rising and the debate now is shifting from when the recovery will begin to how strong it will be.
Some of Switzerland's lower-paid workers have already seen their wages rise as the debate over pay intensifies although employers do not acknowledge a direct link to the proposal.
As U.S. government officials continue to pressure China to allow the value of its currency to rise, the stakes of the debate may have become overblown.
As the income gap between the richest and the poorest widens, the importance of monitoring health disparities across the income spectrum rises, and the debated amount of appropriate government spending on health care makes income-related health inequality an even more relevant subject to study.
On the Champs de Mars, where the Eiffel Tower rises, the symbol of that debate is not so much the skyward ascent up the tower as the downward plunge in elevators that deposit visitors in a scrummage of vendors selling trinket replicas of the tower as key-rings and decorations.
