From Tony Sagami at theburningplatform.com:
There are thousands of economic and business statistics that you can look at to gauge the health of the US economy, but at the economic roots of any developed country is the prosperity of its “makers” and “takers.”
The “makers” are our factories, and the “takers” are the transportation companies delivering those goods to the stores.
I have devoted several Connecting the Dots issues (see the July 14 issue here and the August 4 issue here) to the clear warning signs that are coming from transportation companies.
This week, I’m going to focus on the “makers” because this basic building block of the American economy is looking very sick.
The US manufacturing industry has been under attack for decades from cheap overseas competition, but it is now falling like a rock.
De-industrialization Sign #1: The latest report from the New York Federal Reserve Bank shows that manufacturing activity in New York has dropped to the lowest level since 2009. Yup, just as bad as during the depths of the Financial Crisis.
The New York Fed’s Empire State general business conditions index plummeted from 3.86 in July to negative 14.92 in August. The Wall Street crowd expected the index to rise to 4.5; boy, were they wrong.
That is the largest one-month decline since November 2010, the sixth-largest monthly drop in history, the biggest miss relative to expectations since June 2011, and the crappiest reading since April 2009.
To continue reading: The Declining Health of American Factories
