US manufacturing sector growth speeds up in March

[DavidDvorkin]

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK – The U.S. manufacturing sector expanded in March at its strongest pace in 5 1/2 years, a private trade group said Thursday, as industrial companies continue to lead the recovery from the recession.

The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its gauge of industrial companies rose to 59.6 in March from 56.5 in February. It is the eighth straight month of expansion and the fastest growth since July 2004, when the index was 59.9.

Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had expected the measure to read 57.

A level above 50 indicates growth.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100401/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_economy

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This is the fruit of George W. Bush's policies! Fox News will tell us that.

[Lost4words]

1. well lets go party......

what a load of crap

[Moosepoop]

2. What makes it a load of crap?

Sounds like good news to me.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Yes, as Moosepoop said, what makes it a load of crap?

[krispos42]

11. I work in a factory. March was overtime-heavy for me.

I worked probably 50 hours worth or more that month. Hell, I have 23 hours of OT due up in tomorrow's paycheck.

A year ago it was 32 hours a week, and trying to stretch the work out.

[Lost4words]

12. wow things really are better for everybody.

[krispos42]

13. Not for Capital One...

...paid of my balance after months of dealing with it, and absent a crisis, I ain't going back!

:woohoo:

[NJmaverick]

3. Wow! So many unrecs by rec didn't change a thing

why are so many DUers rooting against our Country and its people?

[DavidDvorkin]

4. That seems to be a very popular attitude on DU nowadays

I find it bewildering.

[dmallind]

7. It's the silly shortsightedness

In that nothing can be recovering if unemployment is still high. That's the typical claim of the doomers, and ignores the inevitable flow that you have to buy more before you make more before you sell more before you need more permanent people (the survey after all is of purchasing folks).

[Lost4words]

8. shallow

[dmallind]

15. Yes I agree - the constant doom only no good news shortsightedness is shallow indeed. NT

[Lost4words]

19. oh grow up

[Moosepoop]

6. That reminds me, I forgot to rec it.

Rec'd now, thanks for the reminder. :)

[seabeckind]

9. We have a manufacturing sector?

I noticed in the pic in the news story that it was a Sears store's mowers.

Where are they made?

No wait, never mind, I forgot what day it is.

And while I'm at it...just what the hel's a "jobless" recovery?

[DavidDvorkin]

10. We have the largest manufacturing sector in the world

These are the numbers from 2008, the most recent I found:

http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2009/12/07/the-biggest-manufacturing-countries-in-2008-with-historical-data/

[seabeckind]

14. Interesting chart

According to that, if I walk into a BestBuy store where appliances, electronics, DVDs, etc, are sold then I should see lots and lots of Made in USA stickers. But I don't.

I'm in the market for a new washer and dryer. My current ones are pretty dated and both are made in the US. One was in Iowa, the other Kentucky. So I went into Lowes and HD asking for ones that are made here...I'm willing to pay more. Nada. Then I looked at refrigerators...only the low end ones are assembled here.

The next point about the charts are the origin of the components for our "manufacturing". Recently I had an exchange about the 787. Here's where its components come from. Is the 787 included in that manufacturing sector? 50 years ago all of these would have been manufactured here.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002486348_787global11.html

Here's another interesting link. Navistar (I think that's the spinoff from International) is finally closing its plant in Indy and moving to Mexico. Would its output still be considered part of the US manufacturing sector? This is a plant that had 2200 workers in 2001, where are those jobs today?

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100322/LOCAL18/3220332/Indy-defense-work-heads-to-Mexico

And then you might check on the status of the Whirlpool plant in Evansville IN. The workers were unsuccessful in preventing its move to Mexico.

And this story is happening and has happened all over the US. Oh yeah, we have to compete in the global economy... How can we compete with a worker who makes 50 CENTs!! an hour?

[dmallind]

16. Only if you have a very narrow view of mfg

Manufacturing does go beyond consumer goods ya know. And anecdotes are not data. I might as well cite you any of the plants owned by the $2.5T of foreign investment in US based production (which after all is "outsourcing" to those companies' home countries.


US mfg output is not only the highest in the world, but our overall percentage has not dropped by much, and what drop it has seen has been almost entirely driven by the soaring output of China, where the central government in the last couple of decades created millions of entrepreneurs by uncontestable fiat. It's unrealistic to expect they would not grab share of total output.

[seabeckind]

17. I think we've had this discussion before...

And anecdotes ARE data...they are observed facts.

The growth of the middle class is what drove our whole economic engine from WW2 on -- and it was driven by consumer demand and all the infrastructure necessary to satisfy that demand.

Long ago I read a description of a korean's attitude toward this "globalization". He said that if he buys something not made in the factory where his brother-in-law works, soon his brother-in-law will not have a job anymore. And then he'll move in... It's better to buy the something from his brother-in-laws factory. Cheaper in the long run.

[dmallind]

18. Possibly, but facts remain

If a handful of companies you are aware of are closing and a slightly larger handful of which you are unaware are hiring larger numbers, overall manufacturing employment will improve. You simply cannot extrapolate national data from local examples. Observed facts are only useful if you observe equally a large enough sample of facts representative of all facts. Not a single person is capable of that. Neither me nor you.

[seabeckind]

21. But the empirical evidence is pointing differently

We have record high unemployment. Middle class buying power has been flat for quite a while. Foreclosures are up, even more than bad borrowing practices can explain.

We are hurting all over the US, bleeding jobs to outsourcing, H1Bs. In another thread corporations are being blamed for not creating jobs:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4328664

We cannot sustain the current trends for much longer. Local and state gov't are liquidating assets that should be part of the commons to avoid bankruptcy and provide operating capital. Our local electric utility is now owned by foreign investors.

The most disgusting part of all this is that "our" corporations love the situation. They can extort anything they want from workers and local gov't and make record profits. I absolutely believe they would reinstate slavery if they could.

[UndecidedGuy]

20. What exactly do we make anymore?

Seriously, everything's from China. Except Chinese food.

[DavidDvorkin]

22. See Post #10.