[JohnnyZ]

WILLIE! Getting pretty desperate for bad news articles these days, aren't you?

Let me help:

NY Empire State Index (Manufacturing), April (4/15/04)
Prior: 25.3
Consensus: 29.0
Actual: 36.05

Philadelphia Fed (Manufacturing Index Philly Area), April (4/15/04)
Prior: 24.2
Consensus: 26.0
Actual: 32.5

Looks like the economy is booming all around! Thank goodness for free trade!

[Willie Green]

Looks like the economy is booming all around! Thank goodness for free trade!

Yeah, it looks like Hillary Klinton and Ed Rendell worked miracles for the manufacturing sectors of their respective states. </sarcasm>

... or could it be that there's something extremely misleading about the statistics you cite?

[ninenot]

Actually, while the numbers for manufacturing (NY State, Philly Fed, Virginia Fed, KC Fed, and PMA) all look VERY good (thank God...)

There's a bit more to the story.

China's industrial sector has been having double-digit gains straight through 'the recession' and yesterday's newspaper advises that they are running out of capital to support the growth.

NOW we begin to see increases in activity in the USA.

2+2=4???

Occurs to me that the USA may be the "marginal producer;" our factories gear up only when China's factories run out of capacity. IOW, we are the high-cost production plant, which is shuttered except for cases of dire need.

Hmmmmm?