RAIL INDICATORS: The Economy Continues To Soften

TBI - Pragmativ Capitalism ^ | 12-16-2012 | Cullen Roche

[blam]

RAIL INDICATORS: The Economy Continues To Soften

Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism
Dec. 16, 2012, 10:39 AM

More weakness in this week’s rail traffic report. The AAR reported a -0.3% reading in intermodal. This is the second consecutive negative weekly reading. This brings the 12 week moving average down to 1.3%. That’s about in-line with the consensus Q4 GDP predictions and indicative of an economy that is growing, but just slightly.

Here’s more via AAR:

“The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported declines in weekly rail traffic for the week ending December 8, 2012, with U.S. railroads originating 292,206 carloads, down 1.6 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 240,098 trailers and containers, down 0.3 percent compared with the same week last year.

Twelve of the 20 carload commodity groups posted increases compared with the same week in 2011, with petroleum products, up 59.5 percent; lumber wood and products, up 18.6 percent, and metallic ores, up 16.6 percent. The groups showing a decrease in weekly traffic included grain, down 15.3 percent; metals and products, down 11.9 percent, and coal, down 9.7 percent.

Weekly carload volume on Eastern railroads was down 0.5 percent compared with the same week last year. In the West, weekly carload volume was down 2.4 percent compared with the same week in 2011.

For the first 49 weeks of 2012, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 13,888,035 carloads, down 3.0 percent from the same point last year, and 11,619,432 trailers and containers, up 3.2 percent from last year.”

[Buddy Sorrell]

Can’t be. The MSM tells me that things are getting better and better. It’ll all be over once Boehner sees the light and agrees to a 91% tax rate. /s

[blam]

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEFICIT: It's Not Very Big, And There's Only One Way To Close It

[dearolddad]

Oh goody! Lets go out and build a bunch of bullet trains, that’l fix everything.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Yes, bullet trains and more welfare benefits!

[nascarnation]

Baraq’s “new normal” where college grads aspire to be a 29er.

[cookcounty]

The only caution on this is that rail traffic is a measure of heavy industry and industries reliant on bulk. That has been a shrinking proportion of the economy for fifty years, even in good years.

[BfloGuy]

The only caution on this is that rail traffic is a measure of heavy industry and industries reliant on bulk. That has been a shrinking proportion of the economy for fifty years, even in good years.

Its share of the total economy has shrunk, but heavy industry has grown nonetheless. It's become a smaller part of the economy because services and finance have grown: the former because we could afford them, the latter because inflation makes playing with money more profitable than investing in production.

Despite its smaller relative weight, industry and production still underpin the entire economy. It is the production of tangible goods that creates wealth and all the rest depends on that.