Many people confuse the words.
But it appears the Federal Reserve may look for anecdotes to concoct an antidote for this ailing economy. Anecdotal evidence might be cocktail talk about weakening auto sales, or several chief executives in the same industry warning about upcoming weakness. Actual corporate earnings reports fall somewhere between anecdotal evidence and hard macro data. But government statistics have become politicized, or biased to the rosy side. Many executives I speak with cannot understand how the Fed didn't realize until very late last year that the economy was weakening noticeably.