NYT: For Manufacturing, a Recession Has Arrived

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/business/28leonhardt-web.html?ex=1330318800&en=a4d12b50a77ee006&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The nation’s manufacturing sector managed to slip into a recession with almost nobody seeming to notice. Well, until yesterday.

Wall Street was caught off guard when the Commerce Department reported yesterday morning that orders for durable goods — big items like home computers and factory machines — plunged almost 8 percent last month. That’s a big number, but it really shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise. In two of the last three months, the manufacturing sector has shrunk, according to surveys by the Institute for Supply Management that have been out for weeks.

But the new report seemed to focus investors’ attention on the problems in manufacturing and became one more reason for people to sell stocks. By the time the market opened in New York, stocks in almost every industrialized country had already fallen sharply. The trouble began in Asia, where the Chinese stock market plummeted, before spreading to Europe and finally this country. The Standard & Poor 500-stock index ended up falling 3.4 percent, its fifth straight daily decline and its worst since 2003.

All of which raises a question that would have sounded strange even a month ago. Is the entire United States economy in danger of going the way of the manufacturing sector? Is it possible that we’re headed for a real recession?

For months now, the economy seemed to shrug off the forces weighing on it and just kept on growing. But those forces never went away. If anything, a number of them have gotten worse. And that’s the most worrisome part of the bad news from the nation’s factories: it fits into a larger story.

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[PDJane]

1. While everyone's attention was turned

on dead blondes and the war in Iraq, the manufacturing sector has died, the country can't feed itself, and the criminals have taken over the government.

[kirby]

2. I disagree

This erosion of the manufacturing sector was in full swing during 90's. NAFTA did not help either. The problem is that 'conventional wisdom' is
that it just naturally evolved rather than it being the result of policy (and lack of) decisions.

[ryanmuegge]

5. Exactly.

This sector has been raped since 1980 by Reaganites and Clinton.

These conditions are the results of policies; they did NOT just fall from the sky.

Wall Street was caught off guard? No they weren't! They made things this way.

[Toucano]

3. There's manufacturing in the U.S.? Who knew? n/t

[OhioChick]

4. Isn't that the truth. n/t

[CountAllVotes]

6. revoke NAFTA and the WTO

and bring jobs back to America!

No one makes things as well as Americans do anyway! :patriot:

:kick:

[brentspeak]

7. Gee, who would have ever have seen this coming?

I thought that moving all our manufacturing overseas was going to result in an explosion of manufacturing activity here at home.

:sarcasm:

[Vincardog]

8. Right ya are Bresnspeak. Remember when outsourcing was good for America?

Face it the economy has been in the tank since jr seized control.
The Enron accountants have been cooking the nation's books and they can no longer hide the fraud.

Who would have thunk it?

[madrchsod]

9. home computers?

we do not make them we assemble them. i doubt there is any part that is actually made in the usa with parts made in the usa. factory machines? most of the high tech machines are made in germany or assembled in the usa with german or asian components. we do not make things from start to finish we assemble.