Industrial output up 0.2% in August: Rise beats expectations

U.S. industrial production rose 0.2% in August after a strong 0.9% gain in July. Production is now up in four straight months.

Capacity utilization increased 0.1 percentage point to 77.4% in August, the highest level since August 2008.

When you have Industrial production rising albeit very slowly it bodes ill for more jobs. When you can increase productivity without increasing jobs, why should you hire? Another number to look at is rising inventories. When inventories rise, that means sales are lagging and may be a predictor of more future layoffs.

I suspect that a rebound in economic activity is underway. The Fed has been allowing the money supply to expand at an unprecedented rate over the past year and economic activity should follow, along with a hell of a lot higher inflation rate than we’ve become used to, but the inflation will take longer to fully develop.

Granted, we’d be sailing along at a lot better clip without all the grit that the Obama administration has thrown into the gears of the economy, but I think economic growth over the next few quarters will be stronger than expected. I just hope it doesn’t bump his re-election chances up too much.

but I think economic growth over the next few quarters will be stronger than expected. I just hope it doesn’t bump his re-election chances up too much.

If we see stronger growth over the next few quarters it will most certainly drive up Hussein's re-election chances a great deal.

I'm curious exactly what you see in the most recent economic numbers to justify arguing a rebound in economic activity is underway. For the most part, the numbers seem almost entirely flat at best. Because one indicator beat expectations by .1% or so only means things aren't as bad as many fear. In fact, I'm just watching the Philly Fed come in negative at -17.5% which is worse than expected.

I don't see much reason to optimistic about stronger than expected growth. Sure, the market is going to love the inevitable QE3, but there is no reason to believe another round of that is going to be any more successful than the last 2.

>>I’m curious exactly what you see in the most recent economic numbers to justify arguing a rebound in economic activity is underway.<<

I’d concede that just in the past few weeks some of the numbers have turned down again, and I’m not as close to this as I used to be. That said, some of the recent downturn might reflect fear over the recent stock market performance and fear over Europe’s troubles.

Leading numbers like durable goods orders and industrial production are getting stronger though, and I think this is going to continue as inflation really starts to course through the economy. Remember when people bought early to avoid a price increase? Long time ago, but those times are coming back.

Ironically, because Obama’s regulatory attack on the economy has been so effective, inflation may be the main reason we accelerate, rather than the normal consumption increase, followed later by inflation. Maybe we’ll get an expanding economy that’s characterized by inflation rising much more quickly than it has in the past.

That is, maybe the economy should already have been expanding for a couple of years but regulatory actions have depressed it, and now we’re getting the inflationary boost to the numbers. If so, we could have, say 3% real growth going into the election, but also 5-6% inflation. With unemployment likely to still be above 8% for most of 2012, this will give the Republicans the “misery index” to campaign on (inflation+unemployment=8+6=14%) much like they campaigned against Carter.

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