Posted on 01/02/2009 1:39:46 PM PST by shielagolden
Manufacturing slows to lowest level since 1948, the ISM Survey showed
By
(AXcess News) Houston - The Institute of Supply Management (ISM) December Survey revealed that the manufacturing sector continued to show no sign of growth for the fifth consecutive month while the overall U.S. economy shrank for the third month in a row.
ISM chairman of the Committee Survey Norbert J. Ore said manufacturers across the entire spectrum of companies saw a "significant decline" in activity during the month of December.
"The decline covers the full breadth of manufacturing industries, as none of the industries in the sector report growth at this time," said Ore.
The ISM noted that the Performance by Industry index (PMI) shrank 3.8% in December over the prior month to 32.4 from 36.2 in November.
New manufacturing orders shrank 5.2% in December with the ISM Survey's index of New Orders at 22.7 compared to 27.9 the previous month.
The ISM said production fell 6% in December to an Index reading of 25.5 from 31.5 the prior month.
The Survey indicated that employment was also down. The Employment Index in December was 29.9 compared to 34.2 the prior month, a decline of 4.3%.
Manufacturers inventory levels shrank 0.3% to 38.8 in December compared to 39.1 the prior month, though customer inventories rose 2% to an index reading of 57 in December compared to a reading of 55 the prior month, indicating that goods were piling up and that new orders in January would likely continue to decline.
Overall, the ISM indicated that the U.S. economy was continuing to slow. The ISM said that New Orders shrank for the 13th consecutive month to their lowest level on record since January 1948. Order backlogs have fallen to the lowest level since ISM began tracking the Backlog of Orders Index in January 1993.
"Manufacturers are reducing inventories and shutting down capacity to offset the slower rate of activity," Ore indicated.
Free Trade has allowed Americans to grow multiple times richer than they were in (e.g.) 1950.
Protectionism is toxic. A protected industry is just a welfare project.
Of course Perot was right about NAFTA and free trade and that’s why I voted for him warts and all in 1992
She's 8 days old. You should be looking out for her.
Oh, wait, you are.
Well said.
The variant of your question that zooms in on the matter is this:
How is “free trade” really free when governments can (and do) play games with the value of their currency?
eg, China’s peg of the Yuan to the dollar. After years of absurd import/export imbalances to China, we had jawbones the Chinese to relaxing their peg against the dollar to allow the Yuan to increase in value.
In the last month, as soon as it became apparent to the Chinese that this “decoupling” theory was nonsense, and that their economy depended (critically) upon the US consumer buy, buy, buying their crap... they reversed all the gains that the US dollar had made against the Yuan and announced their intent to devalue it again, which makes their exports to the US artificially cheap and the competition by US manufacturing against ChiCom manufacturing very difficult.
This is not “free trade.” It might be in the fevered minds of people like Alan Greenspan and his idiot cohorts in world finance, but it is not free trade in the sense that the US manufacturing sector has a fair and free playing field against ChiCom manufacturing. The ChiComs are stacking the deck for their entire economy.
In reality, the ONLY thing that made the ChiComs raise the value of the Yuan vs. the dollar was the price of oil in dollars. Now that oil is cheap again, we’ll be barking up a bamboo stalk trying to get the Yuan strong again.
The inevitable result of free trade and capitalism. You can’t blame the capitalists for being capitalist — profit trumps patriotism every time.
We are free traders in a Mercantilist world. Add to this the fiction our elites have swallowed that the FIRE economy could support us all, and you see what you get.
Even strategic industries are pretty much nonexistent.
God help us if we need to fight another mass war.
Government tampering with free trade causes depressions.
He’s right. B.S. Free trade hasn’t killed the economy. Fifty year of bad Federal policy and high taxes have killed the economy.
</sarcasm>
I wonder then how the US is the largest manufacturer on the planet. Double that of China. Along with being the largest exporter on the planet.
Ross Perot, Mr. Anti NAFTA, who then proceeded to move the world headquarters of Perot Systems too.... MEXICO!
Still lying I see.
Why the snide remark “Thanks free trade”? Given that free trade has not even been tried how do you make such a remark?
It would be nice to have free trade. What is the alternative? Would you have the government forcing us to buy products from each other? Please name the industries that have been successful when the government decrees that we have no choice but to buy their product? Education? Steel? Cars? Sugar?.
Why is manufacturing always the favorite child? Using the same anti free trade logic lets restrict ourselves to only domestic energy sources. Let's restrict ourselves to only domestic investment (no foreign capital).
You will really enjoy an economy ran by union bosses and political apparatchiks.
Was Ronald Reagan wrong to protect Harley during the 80’s?
“I’m confused. US GDP is 6 times what it was in 1948 (in real terms- It is >50X what it was in 1948 in nominal terms.)”
These arent recession numbers, not even depression numbers. We’re watching a full scale worldwide economic collapse.
If you remove food from the numbers where are we in the rankings?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.