Factory Orders Rise, Sales Jump Most in Two Years

[NJmaverick]

Source: Bloomberg

Orders placed with U.S. factories unexpectedly rose in March, propelled by demand for capital equipment and petroleum that signals the U.S. expansion gained speed at the end of the first quarter.

The 1.3 percent increase in bookings matched the prior month’s gain, which was more than twice as large as previously estimated, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Sales climbed 2.2 percent, the most since November 2007.

Texas Instruments Inc. and Caterpillar Inc. are among companies ramping up output to meet rising foreign and domestic demand as the global economy rebounds from last year’s recession. Inventory replenishment and more jobs in the U.S. may prompt factories to keep boosting output in coming months.

“A lot of manufacturers may be struggling to keep up with demand,” Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit, said before the report. “We’re seeing clear demand improvements from both consumers and businesses that should provide a strong tailwind for several months at least.”

Read more: http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-04/u-s-factory-orders-unexpectedly-rise-1-3-as-sales-jump-most-in-two-years.html

[Lochloosa]

1. Unrecs? Please just go away.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. They did it on the cross-post as well. WTF? Is this not good news?

[liberal N proud]

7. There seems to be a group that want to crap all over any good news

Some because the good news has not touched them personally yet. Others, I have determined are simply whiners and will crap on anything that isn't negative.

[impik]

13. Sad, miserable people

[hayu_lol]

2. Sorry, all smoke and mirrors...

lets see a breakdown of the companies who are gearing up for increased sales by what they produce.

If it is just tooling/production machinery doesn't mean much.

Whirlpool is gearing up...but in Mexico, not here.

Economists are office pukes in ivory towers. What the hell do they know?

[dmallind]

14. Production machinery doesn't mean much???

Production machinery is probably the best indicator of a healthy manufaccturing sector! When you are buying raw material it can be to replenish inventory or keep up with even very low demand. When you are buying new machinery that means you a) need more capacity and b) can afford capital spending and consider it a good risk based on future production needs.

Whirlpool incidentally is also absorbing a huge amonunt of new production from closing plants in their two absolutely massive OHio facilities. Just got a couple of US-made Whirlpool appliances delivered today as it happens.

[amandabeech]

25. Any improvement is welcome.

However, if the production machinery is packed off to Mexico or China to work, then the improvement here will not be nearly so great.

As to Whirlpool, I'm not sure that they will have any U.S. manufacturing operations after this latest move. Production may be consolidating in Mexico, not here.

Low wages and lack of regulation, or enforcement of regulation, wins every time. Mexico and China have an absolute economic advantage, not a comparative one.

[dmallind]

28. Nope -they are increasing production in OH too as we speak.

And what's wrong with making capital equipment? Is that not manufacturing? The Germans have made that the cornerstone of their economy for decades.

FWIW I work at a place selling engineered compnents to OEMs. It's not capital equipment but it is directly tied to manufacturing downstream. 90% of our shipments go to US companies here in the US A9s opposed to US companies' foreign locations or to forign companies). We can't keep up, and almost all our suppliers are saying the same.

[amandabeech]

29. Please provide cites.

I am very happy to see any manufacturing. Read my post slowly just one more time.

[dmallind]

30. Sure...

http://www.wistv.com/global/story.asp?s=4886138&ClientType=Printable

Salient quote (bold mine)

The Maytag plants slated for closure include a washer and dryer plant in Herrin, Illinois, which employs about 1,000; a dryer facility in Searcy, Arkansas, with 700 workers; and a washer and dryer-making plant in Newton, Iowa, which employs about 1,000.

Production at the three Maytag plants will be consolidated into Whirlpool facilities in Marion and Clyde, Ohio.

[NickB79]

31. Doesn't a consolidation of 3 seperate plants imply layoffs? NT

[dmallind]

35. It can imply what you want but it DEFINITIVELY means you wer e wrong with this claim:

"As to Whirlpool, I'm not sure that they will have any U.S. manufacturing operations after this latest move. Production may be consolidating in Mexico, not here."

The article not only points out consolidation in the US, but also shows Whirlpool retains and in fact expands at least two US production facilities.

Why change the topic to layoffs when that's not the claim you made?

[NickB79]

36. Check who you're talking to; I made no such claims

That was my first post on this thread. You have me confused with someone else.

[dmallind]

38. Agreed. My bad. Sorry bout that. NT

[WI_DEM]

4. If there is any economic bad news expect some around here to unrec.

[dmallind]

18. ...and expect ten times as many to cheer and anounce a new pre-industrial age around the corner. NT

[Change Happens]

5. Excellent, thank you for the good news!

[liberal N proud]

6. Factories? we still have factories?

Great news for those few remaining factories in the country.

[dmallind]

17. ...boy can I call it or what?

Sometimes satire isn't even necessary....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=286873&mesg_id=286950

[defendandprotect]

20. We lost 50,000 manufacturing plants over the last 10 years -- !!!

[dmallind]

23. ...and gained $390B in manufacturing output over the same timeframe. NT

[defendandprotect]

24. Is that all you are supplying on that claim . . . ???

[dmallind]

27. I supplied same cite you did. I will however remedy that - will you???

Second Excel sheet down is what you need - then look at US and Manufacturing (ISIC D) $1.44T to $1.83T = $390B

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp

Your turn from such an unbiased and official source?

Now let's guess your reponse.......

1) Well output doesn't matter! Only plants matter!
2) The UN is a biased source
3) Oh OK I guess you are right

Based on usual DU doomcheering I'm guessing 80 19 1% probability respectively......

[defendandprotect]

32. What I cited came from Congress . . .

Who are you saying "manufactured output" . . . ?

And why are you so aggravated at my question?

[dmallind]

34. Well let's see

You demand a cite for a perfectly normal and widely understood data point when you do not provide one yourself (and still didn't -"Congress" is not a cite).

And then instead of accepting the data provided you ask a question which I assume to mean "what do you mean by saying manufacturing output?" when they are two very common words that mean....well the output of manufacturing activity, right?

Alternatively of course you could be asking "who came up with these manufacturing output numbers?" but I already answered that and the cite is obviously identified. Surely you followed it after that demand?

I do tend to get aggravated at needless demands that could easily be met if the demanders cared by a three second Google search, especially when I can almost always corerectly predict, as I did in your case, that such a cite will not be accepted.

Some people are obviously emotionally invested in the US being in the worst possible shape in all areas and tend to be very reluctant to accept correction even from unimpeachable sources. I have long ago lost patience with such whiners and post corrections only for people who may be genuinely uninformed, not those who choose to be wilfully ignorant.

If you wanted to be classed in the first group it would have been better to have
a) provided your own cite before asking for mine
b) asked without hyperbolic punctuation and with phrasing that actually implied curiosity rather than disbelief.. An example might have been "Not seen that before. What's a good source?"

[fasttense]

8. I'm not going to rain on your parade but

I'm not going to join in it either. I wont believe in a recovery until jobs created equals or exceeds the number of new weekly claims in the unemployment office.

[dmallind]

16. Why? The two are completely unrelated

Initial claims are a measure of GROSS layoffs that always need to be (but never are) balanced against people hired that week. Jobs created (or lost) is a measure of NET change in employment level. They never should be compared against each other, and it would be incredibly unusual for them even to be correlated.

The typical trusim seen here and elsewhere that initial claims need to be <425K to be a positive job growth scenario tells you all you need to know - while it's never calculated as a discrete measure or even communicated as abn abstract, it means the number of people hired every week is over 425K.

[amandabeech]

26. Plus new workers entering the workforce,

be they young folks getting their first jobs, people returning to the workforce (like full-time Moms or discouraged workers) and immigrants getting their first jobs here.

That ups the ante considerably.

[FSogol]

9. Good news. K & R. n/t

[Kahuna]

10. Oh no, NJM! Not MORE good news!! You bastard!

:applause:

:popcorn:

[NJmaverick]

12. I'm sorry, it's not my fault. Blame President Obama

:-)

[Kingofalldems]

11. K and R to counter the freeper un-reccers

[global1]

15. All This And The Market Is Down Over 200 Pts Today.... nt

[NJmaverick]

21. Blame the Greeks, they have been hurting the market for months

with their debt crisis

[defendandprotect]

19. Here in NJ, there is a noticeable uptick in housing being built . . .

presumably some of it might have been delayed and just getting built now --

and in houses coming on the market for resale -- more optimism?

At the shore, they say that some where some homeowners wanted to sell, they

are renting them for the summer.

[defendandprotect]

22. No doubt, however, that this has been the most severe "recession" in post-WWII years ...

and I'd say it is probably a depression we may be coming out of --

Obama said "depression" in a slip quickly washed away --

and Sen. Byron Dorgan came close to using that word recently --

We can't go back to looking at normal as homelessless and poverty --

we have to overturn the trade agreements --

and overturn the Reagan/Bush tax cuts on wealthy/corporations --

otherwise, our states/towns/cities will continue to go bankrupt --

[ipaint]

33. Oh good, what is the estimate now about 30 years to get back to

a level that would employ enough americans to make a difference.

"Manufacturing employment in the U.S. peaked in June 1979 with 19,553,000 jobs (data here), and by July of this year manufacturing employment had fallen to 11,817,000, the lowest level of manufacturing jobs since April 1941 (see chart above).

As a percent of the total labor force, manufacturing employment fell below 9% in July (see chart below), the lowest level in BLS history (back to 1939)."

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/manufacturing-employment-drops-to.html


I'll be 82, something to look forward to, I'm sure if I'm alive I'll be looking for a job.

[Steerpike]

37. Numbers are always open to interpretation...

How many of these new jobs are jobs that pay enough to support a family? Or is the reconstituted economy merely part of a continuing cultural shift to working longer hours for less pay? I see this society shifting to an economy that only allows a smaller amount of people to live the American Dream. In order to be competative in the global market wages need to be kept low...in order for shareholders to profit, wages are kept low...in order for CEO's to recieve their bonuses wages are depressed...

A real job is a job that pays a wage you can support your family on...otherwise it's just economic slavery.

[TomCADem]

39. I Guess When You Burn Through Inventory...

You have to start making stuff to meet growing demand. Whose going to perform all that work with the people they have laid off?