Question: When is a New York Times "Manufacturing Recession" not a recession?
Answer: When the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) keeps on issuing monthly reports, such as the one yesterday covering April, telling us that manufacturing is in expansion mode.
On February 28 (second item at link), Times Business writer David Leonhardt wrote the following:
For Manufacturing, a Recession Has Arrived
The nation’s manufacturing sector managed to slip into a recession with almost nobody seeming to notice. Well, until yesterday.
To this day, Leonhardt appears to be the only person to "notice" the recession in manufacturing -- because it doesn't exist.
The TimesSelect current tease for Leonhardt's article, which is now behind the Times' subscription firewall, is even worse, leading one to think that it tells us that the whole economy is in recession (bolds are mine):
ECONOMIX; Manufacturing Slips Quietly Into Recession
David Leonhardt column on Commerce Department report that durable goods plunged 8 percent in January, pushing country into recession; says report seems to focus on investors' attention on problems in manufacturing and became one more reason for people to sell stocks .....
(Aside: Great call on the stock market, eh?)
Fortunately for America's real economy, the Times, and Leonhardt, were wrong on February 28. They have been wrong ever since. In the ISM's report on manufacturing for April, its closely watched Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) came in at 54.7. Any reading over 50 indicates expansion.
April was the third straight month of manufacturing expansion, after two of the previous three months (Nov. 2006 and Jan. 2007) had shown slight contractions.
The habit of reality beating analysts' predictions continues. The Associated Press reported that expectations had been that the PMI reading would come in at 51, barely above March's 50.9. The April result blew away those forecasts.
See for yourself: The PMI has been in expansion mode in 45 of the past 47 months. You would have to go back to the mid- to late-1970s to see a period of greater manufacturing strength than this economy has exhibited in the past four years.
Maybe the problem at the Old Grey Lady is that it can't see past the "recession" taking place in its own business. The Times' daily and Sunday circulations fell 1.93% and 3.37%, respectively, in the six months ended March 31. Maybe a big reason for those declines is that the paper continues to pretend there's a recession when there isn't one. From all appearances, based on this search, the paper has never retracted Leonhardt's claim.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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Gloom
May 2, 2007 - 12:00 ET by cvgbuckeyeTHE MSM montra when it comes to describing anything to the RIGHT of Joe Stalin:
Gloom dispair and agony on me,
Deep dark depression, excessive misery,
If not for bad things, the CONSERVATIVES would have nothing at all,
Gloom dispair and agony on me.
Quote the chorus on HEEHAW
If not for bad things
May 2, 2007 - 12:35 ET by JDWIf not for bad things
D&G rules. The DOW is 13,2XX. Housing is above ten year average. Deficit could be below 200B. Unemployment... So?
JDW
News media: Scoreboard for terrorists
Snotty Grey Lady is a seditious rag!
May 2, 2007 - 12:49 ET by PlaceboSo the snotty Grey Lady continues her slapdash and, most importantly, unprincipled journalism. Nor, sadly, is she alone, however, is at the summit of the slag heap of newspaper journalism. It is all becoming reminiscent of the old Bolshevik rags that, once, kept the proletariat informed, er… ill-informed.
American, western journalism, on the whole, has become a voice for those of a touting and in want of Absolutism – communist, of course.
To some this may appear a tad outrageous; yet, the proof is in the pudding’s recipe. There are those of the fifth-column, of which the Times is one, whose desire is the dismantling of America’s democracy.
We have already experienced the emasculation of our president and his office. True, some of this, undoing, has been of his making. However, most is the seditious endeavours of the leftist mass-media’s fabricating and then disseminating, overt, falsehoods.
These are perilous times that will only grow bleaker; even more so, if non-Absolutist Americans do not take this threat seriously.
Government data showed new
May 2, 2007 - 13:57 ET by JDWGovernment data showed new orders at U.S. factories rose at a greater than expected pace in March.
JDW
News media: Scoreboard for terrorists
Meanwhile, American investor
May 2, 2007 - 13:36 ET by Prester JohnMeanwhile, American investors are in such despair that today the Dow Jones is up 100, the NASDAQ is up 27, and the S&P500 is only 30 points from its all time high.
One of the things that most p
May 2, 2007 - 14:23 ET by PKOne of the things that most people do not know or just plain ignore is the fact that safety features and other "bells and whistles" required on machine tools sold in the united states raises the price about 250% from what the same machines are sold for in third world countries.
in those third world countries labor costs are about 20% wages and 0% benefits of what we pay in the united states in union shops.
another thing that is not widely known is that machine tools are so expensive that they cannot show a profit in the quarterly system that we use.
a computer controled lathe, of sufficient size and heft to manufacture power plant steam turbine rotors, costs about $1.4m, takes another $1.6 m to install. this, in a building that already has at least 50 ton bridge cranes.
it also takes about two years from contract signature until the first chip is made.
no wonder these installations are mostly in very low wage countries. corporate headquarters in the united states are in to much of a hurry to show profit and so have moved, since the middle 70's, most of the work off shore.
also the manufacturing industry because of the expense of capital investment is uniquely prey to technological advancement. in 50 years productivity can advance 800% without much of a problem.
these are three of the reasons that manufacturing in the united states is seen to be shrinking.
c
Corporate tax v. VAT and a
May 2, 2007 - 14:53 ET by JDWCorporate tax v. VAT and a more equivalent VAT.
JDW
News media: Scoreboard for terrorists