My friend (a shipping broker) tells me that equipment going to South America is booming. He's getting high dollar to ship there these days. He said speedy delivery was more important than price.
So? I'm still paying $3.80 per gallon. This is not comforting.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Robert Wenzel
The Fed said in its report, known as the Beige Book said that all 12 of its banking districts reported some level of growth in January and the first half of February.
Manufacturing output rose in all districts. Auto manufacturing, steel makers and other metal producers all reported solid growth.
Home sales increased in at least half of the districts.
The Beige Book is released eight times a year. The findings from each of the Fed's regional bank districts are all anecdotal; there are no numbers.
I urged my subscribers at Capital & Crisis to buy ...
All I had to see to know the entire article was BS. “My friend (a shipping broker)....”, more of the sell. Save your bucks and invest in pixie dust .... you’ll probably get better returns!
What we have lost in the interim is the vertically integrated infrastructure that won WWII. We have pieces in place, but we need the continuity from the mines to the steel mills and the machine shops; from the farms to the railheads to the ports. From the cottonfields to the fabric mills to the seamstresses to the retail outlet. Too many pieces of the puzzle have disappeared, atrophied, outsourced or been denigrated as beneath us.
Self-sufficiency and security start with vertical integration; then we move to strategic alliance with like-minded freedom-loving countries next to fill the gaps (rare minerals, safe passage, etc.)
Lastly we negotiate with unfriendlies to accomplish goals.
The Beige Book is released eight times a year. The findings from each of the Fed’s regional bank districts are all anecdotal; there are no numbers.
Note the “there are no numbers.” part of the statements ... kind of hard to prove or disprove without numbers, but I would lean towards “disprove” based upon the sterling past performance of the FED and the Food Stamp President’s administration.
I spoke to my niece in MN today. The Caterpillar plant there is expanding and is so short on workers that they’ve added a bus route to bring in workers.
Right! That’s why durable goods dropped 4 percent last month./
The wage gap is getting smaller, true, but US regulations, legal and political environment still substantially hinder investment in manufacturing.
Could be they KNOW a new President is on the way.
I think they are going to find it a lot harder to talk the economy up, than it was to talk it down.