Posted on 05/20/2013 10:52:46 AM PDT by blam
Caterpillar North America Sales Collapse Suggests US Economy Back To 2010 Levels
Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
05/20/2013 11:50 -0400
While we have wondered on numerous occasions previously if the collapse in lumber prices is the far more accurate indicator of end demand for housing (as confirmed by the recent collapse in multi-family housing starts), perhaps an even better indicator of trends in housing (and by implication the broader economy) is private sector intermediate end demand, such as Caterpillar North America sales, which unlike government data, are far less subject to political intervention, interpolation, guesswork, seasonal adjustments and otherwise, general manipulation.
And even though we have previously reported on the woes ailing the world's largest seller of bulldozers, excavators and wheel loaders, such focus was primarily targeted in the offshore markets, and especially China (the abysmal European market needs no mention). So maybe the time has come to shift attention to the US, where as Caterpillar just reported, not only are all foreign markets still trending at several impacted levels, but where US machine retail sales just saw the biggest tumble in three years, falling 18% Y/Y: the most since early 2010. What is more disturbing is that CAT equipment is used in far-broader economic activities than merely housing, and likely is a far more accurate indicator of true industrial end-demand than any other number cherry-picked by the government.
Whether one can extrapolate general trends in the US economy based on how Caterpiller is doing in its North American market, is an open-ended (rhetorical) question which we leave to readers.
However, maybe a far better question is whether CAT NA sales is the same true proxy for the state of the US economy, as electric consumption - that Achilles heel of Chinese economic data manipulation - is to China.
Compare and contrast the chart above, with the chart below, showing the collapse in Chinese electricity consumpion.
If the answer is yes, and if indeed both the US and Chinese economies are now operating at a true level not seen since 2010, then just how bad is the rest of the world, if somehow the US continues to be perceived as the cleanest dirty shirt while the world's fastest marginal growing economy is in fact, crashing to earth?
They need to get out of IL ASAP to cut their costs to offset the drop in sales.
Staying in IL, even with the bribes Gov. Quinn has doled out, is way, way too expensive for this company. Overpriced union labor and high corporate tax rates are killing CAT.
With small to medium size contractors, it sits unused, you eat it and you can't afford to do that very long.
Funny, China slaps a 30% tariff on Caterpillar products. Free Trade isn’t.
"...and we can make these solar ahhh ah tractors ahhhh here, right here in the ahhhh USA with ahhhhh gobment backing."
Funny, I remember protectionists arguing against a FTA with Colombia, even though it made Cat products manufactured in the U.S. and exported there 30% more expensive.
So yo are defending the ChiComs. Your handlers must of paid you for May.
This entire sick economy is being held up by the Federal Reserve’s pumping $85 billion a month into the stock bubble. When it bursts, everyone will be running to the Fed to bail them out, and the beat goes on until it stops.
Somehow he looks even more gay standing besides a bull dozer.
No, I am not defending the ChiComs. You are projecting. (I’m simply tired of pointing out to you that we don’t have a FTA with China).
Let me hear you say it, in direct contraction to the Chinese machine, that China practices unfair trade with the USA. Say it, once.
(For those not students of Soviet/Russian history, the Soviets used to say no one is hungry and the economy is well because they produced more and more tractors. The tractors were crap, lasted about 2 years, and were forced on countries the Soviets conquered, often for free just to say tractors sales were up. The "Tractor Report" became a running joke.)
Designed, engineered and built in the USA. Exported and promptly measured and copied.
And flattening terrorist sympathizers, since 2003.
If you take your statement to its logical conclusion, we shouldn't manufacture a thing, because someone will copy it.
No, say it in the first person you child.
Idiot.
You are a child. Worse yet a traitor.
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