(What’s Left of) Our Economy: May US Manufacturing Output Figures Could Feed Optimism or Pessimism

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automotive, durable goods, Federal Reserve, Great Recession, industrial production, manufacturing, non-durable goods, recovery, {What's Left of) Our Economy

May’s Federal Reserve domestic U.S. manufacturing production figures presented a puzzling glass-half-empty-half-full picture. Overall sequential real output levels were down 0.63 percent – their worst such performance since July, 2013’s 1.06 percent decrease. Clearly playing a big role was a fire at a factory producing parts for especially popular pickup truck models, which helped depress after-inflation automotive production by 6.45 percent – its worst such performance since April, 2011’s 7.91 percent plummet.

Yet stripped of automotive’s woes, inflation-adjusted manufacturing output was still down 0.18 percent on month in May, and the month’s decline represented the third such fall-off in the last five months. Largely as a result, industry’s annual constant dollar production increase improved in May by just 1.85 percent – the slowest such rate since January’s 1.10 percent. The automotive decline helped drag down monthly production in the durable goods super-sector by 1.16 percent in price-adjusted terms – the biggest such decrease since July, 2013’s 1.42 percent. Real output in the smaller non-durable goods super-sector was off only 0.08 percent in May.

After-inflation manufacturing output is still down 3.85 percent since the start of the last recession – more than eleven years ago.

Here are the manufacturing highlights of the Federal Reserve’s release Friday on May industrial production:

>May’s Federal Reserve industrial production figures contained evidence for both optimism and pessimism about the U.S. economy and its domestic manufacturing sector.

>Optimists could reasonably blame much of the 0.63 percent sequential drop in real manufacturing output – the worst monthly decrease since July, 2013’s 1.06 percent decline – on a fire at a factory providing parts for popular U.S. pickup truck models.

>And indeed, the May overall manufacturing production swoon was led by a 6.45 percent on-month plunge in motor vehicle and parts output – the worst such performance since April, 2011’s 7.91 percent.

>But pessimists could note that even counting the automotive effect, the rest of domestic manufacturing posted a 0.18 percent dip in monthly inflation-adjusted output – the third such shrinkage in five months.

>Largely as a result, manufacturing’s annual growth rate in May was down to 1.85 percent – its weakest since January’s 1.10 percent. Between the previous Mays, real manufacturing production expanded by 1.87 percent.

>Automotive’s troubles also showed up in the results for the durable goods super-sector in which it’s found. Durable goods’ after-inflation production sank by 1.16 percent sequentially in May – its worst such performance since July, 2013’s 1.42 percent plummet.

>In addition, its 1.97 percent constant dollar May annual growth rate was durable goods’ slowest since January’s 0.94 percent. Between the previous Mays, price-adjusted durable goods production advanced by 2.18 percent.

>Inflation-adjusted output held up better in the smaller non-durables super-sector in May. Its monthly production slipped by just 0.08 percent.

>On-year in May, non-durables’ real production rose by 1.73 percent. As with durable goods, this growth rate is the slowest since January (1.28 percent), but the deceleration has been smaller. Moreover, this year’s May annual production rate for non-durables was better than that for the previous Mays (1.57 percent).

>Revisions for overall real manufacturing production were slightly negative. April’s previously 0.47 percent monthly increase was upgraded to 0.57 percent. March’s already downgraded 0.02 percent rise was downgraded to a 0.11 percent decline. And February’s downwardly revised 1.40 percent increase was bumped down again to 1.39 percent.

>Largely as a result, in price-adjusted terms, domestic manufacturing’s production is now 3.85 percent lower than at the onset of the Great Recession – more than eleven years ago, at the end of 2007.

>After-inflation durable goods output is now 0.10 percent below the levels it hit in December, 2007, and 0.13 percent less than in January, 2008 (its last actual peak).

>Despite their recent out-performance, the non-durables sector has fared much worse since the last recession hit. Its constant dollar output is down fully 8.35 percent from its previous peak, which came in July, 2007.

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(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Manufacturing Labor Productivity Growth is Looking Like an Endangered Species

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Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, labor productivity, manufacturing, multi-factor productivity, non-farm business, productivity, recovery, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stated yesterday that the U.S. economy is doing “very well.” Judging by the metrics that the central bank is supposed to focus on as a matter of law – inflation and the headline unemployment rate – that’s an eminently respectable claim. Based on another key measure of economic performance – labor productivity – it looks like whistling in the dark.

As known by RealityChek regulars, strong productivity growth is widely seen by economists as the best guarantor of sustainable future prosperity and rising living standards. And as also known, labor productivity is the narrower of the two such measures of economic activity tracked by the federal government.

But it’s the gauge that’s updated on the most timely basis, and the latest numbers – which came out last week – should be spurring alarm, not complacency.

These final (for now) results for the first quarter of this year both confirmed that output per person hour worked for the non-farm business sector (the broadest definition of the U.S. economy used in these studies) remains stuck in an historically slow-growth phase, and showed that labor productivity in manufacturing may be shifting into contraction.

The labor productivity performance of both these major sectors was revised down in the latest release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Rather than having grown by 0.70 percent on an annualized basis sequentially in the first quarter, labor productivity for non-farm businesses is now estimated to have advanced by only 0.40 percent. And in manufacturing, a 0.50 percent annualized increase is now judged to have been a 1.20 percent decrease. That’s its third such drop in the last five quarters.

A glass-half-full analysis would point out that the new non-farm business figure was better than that for the fourth quarter of last year (0.30 percent), and that the manufacturing fall-off followed a 4.20 percent fourth quarter jump.

But the new BLS report also presented manufacturing revisions going back to 2008, and they make clear that its labor productivity performance during this period has been far worse than even previously thought. (And it was already really bad.)

Let’s concentrate on how the new statistics have changed the picture for manufacturing labor productivity during the current recovery, and compare those results with those for previous recoveries – since such analyses yield the best, apples-to-apples, results.

Before the new data came out, manufacturing labor productivity during this expansion was reported to have grown by a total of 9.69 percent. That was less than a third of the rate achieved during the recovery of the early 2000s – which was also known as the Bubble Recovery that helped trigger the financial crisis and ensuing recession, and which last only six years versus. The current recovery is approaching its ninth anniversary.

And during the nearly ten-year long expansion that began in the early 1990s, manufacturing labor productivity surged even more strongly – by 45.86 percent.

The new manufacturing labor productivity growth number for the current expansion? Only 8.28 percent! That’s a downgrade of more than 14.50 percent!

Moreover, although the non-farm business labor productivity growth rate for the current recovery wasn’t revised down nearly as much – from 9.70 percent to 9.62 percent. But this figure, too, pales next to those of previous recoveries. During the bubble expansion, non-farm business labor productivity rose by a total of 16.03 percent. During the 1990s expansion, the rate was 23.25 percent.

By the way, don’t put too many hopes in the broader productivity measure – multi-factor productivity – to come to the rescue. Those numbers haven’t been much better.

Some productivity students have been arguing that it’s only a matter of time, and that recent technological advances will soon start super-charging productivity growth after a slow start just as they did in an earlier era of transformative technological change – the 1920s.

These optimists had better be right. Because if not, the only way to return American growth and living standards gains to their historic rates of improvements will be to flood the economy with credit in order to crank up spending. Feel free to scream if the date “2008” means anything to you.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Rules-Based Global Order – & Other Fairy Tales

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alliances, America First, burden sharing, China, currency, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, globalists, Great Recession, hegemony, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, offshoring, public goods, recovery, Robert Triffin, tariffs, Trade, Trade Deficits, Triffin dilemma, Trump, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Can the foreign and domestic critics of President Trump’s latest trade policy moves finally get real – and start talking and acting like adults? I’m not referring to politicians and analysts who have pointed out problems with individual aspects of the President’s recent announcements of tariffs on various trade competitors. I’ve been one of these myself.

Instead, I’m talking about those who keep whining that Mr. Trump’s tariffs and his overall – inconsistently to be sure – emerging “transactional” approach to alliances and other international arrangements are endangering a rules- and institutions-based global order that has served both America and the rest of the world unmistakably well. No description of the post-World War II world could be less accurate and indeed more childish – not to mention more self-serving for the supposed U.S. allies and multinational business interests (and their Washington, D.C. hired guns) that have pushed this canards so insistently.

For the institutions and rules so touted by President Trump’s globalist critics were simply window-dressing created to obscure a much less aesthetically pleasing reality: The postwar (non-communist) world’s success has been based fundamentally on America’s power and wealth, and the  consequent U.S. ability to provide what political scientists call “public goods” for those aligned with it. Specifically, it almost single-handedly created the conditions on which success decisively depended: the military protection that countries recovering from war-time devastation could not provide for themselves, and the credit and export markets that were similarly beyond the capacities of their crippled economies. Just as important, during the early post-war decades, the United States could play this role for the most part without excessive security risks and economic costs.

Unfortunately, even the biggest, best-run public goods-providing country will find these arrangements unsustainable, especially on the economic front, and especially if its government is substantially accountable to its people. The essential dilemma was first identified by the Yale University economist Robert Triffin back in 1960, when American power was at or near its zenith.

Triffin’s warning was narrowly economic. He argued that the very free lending and especially spending by which such a country (which political scientists call a “hegemon”) fueled growth around the world would eventually massive international deficits and a global glut of its currency – which was serving as the world’s money – and erode global confidence that currency’s value. Either the hegemon could tighten up – and likely throw the entire world economy into a major downturn. Or it could keep over-lending and especially spending. In this case, its currency would lose enough of its perceived value to end its world-money role, and the world economy would degenerate into chaos. Or the rest of the world could keep stockpiling these excess dollars – which as the French in particular noted would result in the inflation caused by the greenback’s declining value being exported around the world.

Yet in America’s case, the ultimate engines of the paradox – at least in post-World War II America’s case – were foreign policy and domestic politics-related. The over-spending, and consequent deficits stemmed from the United States’ determination simultaneously to incur the expenses of maintaining huge military forces at home and abroad (along with dispensing considerable foreign aid), and of satisfying the American public’s growing demand for social services, without increasing taxes enough to finance these programs responsibly. At the same time, the dilemma was greatly intensified by the refusal of the foreign beneficiaries of these U.S.-provided public goods to pay many more of the costs of their own defense, or to open their markets wider to American exports.

The breakdown of these arrangements in 1971 bore out Triffin’s warnings, but although major adjustments were made globally, the rest of the world continued relying heavily on American security guarantees and markets. And in fairness, a bipartisan American foreign policy establishment addicted to intangibles like “global leadership” and genuinely worried that its European and East Asian allies could not manage their own security affairs in particular responsibly, staunchly resisted any fundamental changes to the status quo.

Fast forward to the mid-2000s, and the exact same fundamental problem reemerged. Further, a Triffin-like situation was greatly worsened by two new developments. First, the Federal Reserve decided to enable reckless over-spending by American consumers by keeping interest rates at peacetime lows not seen for many decades.

Second, American trade policy swelled the international deficits by taking a new, offshoring-focused turn starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the early 1990s, and culminating with multinational companies’ decisions to focus tightly on supplying more and more American business and consumer demand from China, not from the United States.

Not so coincidentally, this trade policy shift was accompanied by the creation of an international organization – the World Trade Organization (WTO) – that was the first such body ever authorized to create both binding rules for any international policy sphere, and to utilize enforcement mechanisms in which the United States enjoys no special standing (as opposed, for example, to the United Nations Security Council, where the United States and other permanent members possess an individual veto over decisions).

A better recipe could not be created for empowering China (and the rest of the world’s major export-dependent economies) to view the United States as an even more attractive dumping ground for surplus production; for undermining America’s internationally recognized right to respond unilaterally; and for consequently enabling footloose multinational companies to supercharge the trade deficits by sending an astonishing amount of the nation’s production capacity to China and other super-low cost countries that could not or would not import remotely as much as they could or would export.

The end result: Rather than the United States winding up exporting inflation and (along with free-riding allies and trade competitors) bringing down a global monetary order, America exported financial instability, triggering the worst worldwide financial crisis, the deepest international economic downturn since the Great Recession, and the weakest U.S. economic recovery on record. And revealingly, to the cheers of the bipartisan American foreign policy and economic policy establishments, the first post-financial crisis president, Barack Obama, kept America’s grand strategy firmly on course.

Although it’s still unclear whether Mr. Trump is choosing an effective combination of trade and alliance policy tactics, his initiatives so far raise even more important questions. Chiefly, is he simply trying to achieve greater security and economic burden-sharing? And even if his aims at present are restricted to securing better deals, is he prepared to scrap American participation in current alliances and other international institutions altogether if U.S. tariffs and other America First-type threats don’t seem to be working?

Nonetheless, the President has opened the door to elevating America’s thinking about its global environment toward the adult levels that ultimately will be needed to prevent today’s lopsided unsustainable international arrangements from disastrous crackups. If his critics want to increase the odds that the best choices will be made, they’ll need to grow up, too.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Fed Manufacturing Production Figures Produce Mixed Picture

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durable goods, Federal Reserve, industrial production, inflation-adjusted growth, manufacturing, non-durable goods, recession, recovery, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Domestic U.S. manufacturing grew on month in April in real terms for the third straight month, according to the Federal Reserve’s new industrial production figures. Moreover, April’s 0.47 percent sequential after-inflation production increase was the best such result since October’s 1.31 percent – which was boosted by a bounce-back effect from last fall’s hurricanes. Monthly constant dollar output gains were recorded for both durable goods (0.42 percent) and non-durable goods (0.52 percent).

Yet moderately negative revisions generated an annual April real growth rate for overall manufacturing (2.01 percent) that was the lowest since January’s 0.99 percent, and slightly more sluggish than the previous April-to-April’s 2.18 percent. Adjusted for inflation, domestic U.S. manufacturing output remains 3.31 percent smaller than at its peak before the last recession began – more than ten years ago.

Here are the manufacturing highlights of the Federal Reserve’s release today on April industrial production:

>The new April Federal Reserve industrial production figures showed mixed results for domestic manufacturing, with inflation-adjusted output expanding sequentially for the third straight months, but annual real growth showing some signs of slowing.

>Industry’s constant dollar output improved on month by 0.47 percent in April – the best such performance since a hurricane bounce-back effect helped spur a 1.31 percent sequential spurt last October.

>April’s real monthly production improvement was broad-based, including both the durable goods (0.42 percent) and non-durable goods (0.52 percent) super-sectors.

>Yet the latest revisions were moderately negative. March’s meager 0.07 percent monthly output rise was downgraded to 0.02 percent, February’s 1.51 percent jump is now judged to have been 1.40 percent, and January’s 0.37 percent sequential drop is now reported as a 0.59 percent decrease.

>Largely as a result, April’s year-on-year real manufacturing production increase was only 2.01 percent – the lowest since January’s 0.99 percent.

>Between the previous Aprils, constant dollar manufacturing output expanded by 2.18 percent.

>In addition, the new Fed figures reveal that, in price-adjusted terms, domestic manufacturing is still 3.31 percent smaller than at its pre-recession peak at the end of 2007 – more than ten years ago.

>More encouragingly, April’s monthly manufacturing production improvement was broad-based.

>For durable goods, the larger of manufacturing’s two super-sectors, real output advanced by 0.42 percent sequentially in April.

>Nonetheless, revisions were negative as well, with March’s previously reported 0.39 percent increase downgraded to 0.17 percent, February’s 1.84 percent increase to 1.59 percent, and January’s 0.25 percent dip to a 0.40 percent decrease.

>Durable goods’ year-on-year results were no better. April’s 1.94 percent annual production increase was the lowest inflation-adjusted figure since January’s 0.74 percent. It was also significantly worse than the 2.77 percent figure recorded between the previous Aprils.

>Durable goods real production is now 0.78 percent above the level it hit at the outset of the last recession, at the end of 2007. It rose slightly the following month, and is now 0.75 percent above that January, 2008 levels.

>Non-durable goods have turned in a somewhat better recent performance.

>In April, their price-adjusted output rose by 0.52 percent on month.

>Moreover, March’s previously reported 0.27 percent sequential real production decrease was revised up to a 0.13 percent decline, and February’s 1.16 percent increase was revised up to 1.20 percent. Only January’s results were downgraded – from a 0.50 percent monthly decrease to a 0.79 percent drop.

>On an annual basis, non-durables after-inflation output rose by 2.10 percent in April – a decided improvement from the 1.54 percent increase between the previous Aprils.

>Further, although the latest year-on-year non-durables’ real output increase is also the lowest since January’s (1.26 percent), the deceleration has been smaller than that in durable goods.

>Nonetheless, constant dollar non-durables output is now fully 8.13 percent below its pre-recession peak – hit in July, 2007.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Wage Inflation is Everywhere Except the Real Wage Figures

Tags

Federal Reserve, inflation, inflation-adjusted wages, Labor Department, manufacturing, private sector, real wages, recovery, wages, {What's Left of) Our Economy

This morning was a bad one for observers of the U.S. economy who keep insisting that wage inflation is either here or around the corner. That means it was also a bad morning for American workers. For the new Labor Department figures on wages adjusted for inflation showed no change – at best – in the historically sluggish constant dollar paycheck increases that employees have seen for most of the current economic recovery.

These new data figures bring the story up through April, when the Department says after-inflation hourly wages were unchanged on month in the private sector, and slipped 0.09 percent in manufacturing. In fact, both numbers represent deceleration from March – when real private sector wages increased sequentially by a downwardly revised 0.28 percent, and real manufacturing wages rose by a downwardly revised 0.19 percent.

Most analysts take the year-on-year numbers more seriously, because they exhibit less random fluctuation. But if anything, they make the wage inflation meme look even loonier. Since last April, price-adjusted private sector wages are up a grand total of 0.19 percent, and in manufacturing, actually down by fully 1.10 percent.

Between the previous Aprils, moreover, inflation-adjusted wages improved by 0.28 percent in the private sector, and by 0.55 percent in manufacturing. For good measure, the latest April yearly decrease in constant dollar manufacturing wages was the biggest since October, 2012’s 2.09 percent drop.

And throughout the current recovery, which is approaching its ninth anniversary, inflation-adjusted private sector wages have advanced by 4.01 percent, while their manufacturing counterparts have inched up only 0.37 percent.

It’s true of course that broader measures of American worker compensation reveal greater improvement. But that’s not to say “great improvement.” Or even close. It’s also true that the Federal Reserve can cite any number of reasons to raise U.S. interest rates after many years at rock-bottom levels. The new real wage figures, however, make clear that wage inflation isn’t yet one of them.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Fed Figures Show Manufacturing’s Solid Growth Continuing – but Revisions Depress the Baseline

Tags

durable goods, Federal Reserve, Great Recession, industrial production, manufacturing, non-durable goods, recovery, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Incorporating revisions going back to 2015, the Federal Reserve’s new March industrial production figures showed that inflation-adjusted U.S. manufacturing output growth has been even weaker recently than previously reported slowed substantially.

Annual constant dollar production for 2015, 2016, and 2017 were downgraded by 1.1 percentage points, 0.4 percentage points, and 0.3 percentage points, respectively. Leading industry down was the durable goods super-sector, where annual price-adjusted production was judged worse during these years by 1.3 percentage points, 1.2 percentage points, and 0.5 percentage points, respectively.

One silver lining: Manufacturing’s overall poor recent performance has helped produce strong year-on-year after-inflation growth figures for 2018, including a 3.25 percent March read that was the best annual gain since June, 2012’s 3.73 percent.

The new figures dragged inflation-adjusted manufacturing output down to 3.27 percent below its pre-recession peak – achieved more than eleven years ago, at the end of 2007. This March’s constant-dollar sequential production gain was a meager 0.07 percent. Recent monthly revisions were positive for February but negative for January.

Here are the manufacturing highlights of the Federal Reserve’s release on March industrial production:

>The big story in today’s new Federal Reserve industrial production figures were the annual revisions, which revealed that U.S. domestic manufacturing’s growth in recent years has been even slower than reported.

>According to the Fed, after-inflation manufacturing output for 2015, 2016, and 2017 was lower by 1.1 percent points, 0.4 percentage points, and 0.3 percentage points than previously reported.

>The revisions were even worse for the manufacturing’s durable goods super-sector – which accounts for more than half of industry’s production. It’s real annual output was judged to be 1.3 percentage points, 1.2 percentage points, and 0.5 percentage points lower than previously reported during this period.

>The reduced 2017 constant dollar output figures in particular, however, have helped produce strong yearly production growth in manufacturing so far this year, as March’s 3.25 percent annual inflation-adjusted output growth the sector’s best such performance since June, 2012’s 3.73 percent.

>Between the previous Marches, constant-dollar manufacturing output rose by just 0.64 percent.

>Nonetheless, the negative revisions mean that price-adjusted U.S. manufacturing production is now 3.27 percent below the level it hit just before the last recession hit – more than eleven years ago, at the end of 2007. As of the Fed’s last pre-annual revision monthly production report (for February), industry was only 1.49 percent smaller in price-adjusted terms than at the recession’s onset.

>Despite this annual performance, after-inflation manufacturing output edged up by only 0.07 percent sequentially in March.

>February’s robust monthly real growth was revised up from 1.27 percent to 1.51 percent – its best such performance since July, 2009’s 1.61 percent – at the very beginning of the current recovery.

>Although its 2015-2017 was unimpressive, the durable goods sector has fared well this year, too.

>Its March monthly growth was a solid 0.39 percent, and February’s blistering 1.78 percent figure was revised up to 1.84 percent – the biggest such increase since May, 2010’s two percent.

>One recent blot on the durable goods’ 2018: January’s monthly output change was revised down for a second time – from a 0.18 percent decline to a 0.25 percent drop-off.

>Durable goods production has shone this year on an annual basis, too. The March 3.82 percent upsurge in price-adjusted terms was the strongest such performance since July, 2014’s 5.79 percent.

>Between the previous Marches, real durable goods production improved by only 1.23 percent.

>After inflation, durable goods production is now 1.20 percent above its December, 2007 pre-recession peak.

>Real production in the non-durable goods sector for the 2015-17 period as a whole was revised down, too, but not as significantly as in durables or manufacturing as a whole. Annual production for 2015 and 2017 by 0.8 percentage points and 0.1 percentage points, respectively. But real output was revised up by 0.4 percentage points for 2016. 

>In non-durables, a relatively poor 2017 has helped produce much better 2018 annual growth. March’s year-on-year output increased by 2.67 percent in real terms – its best such performance since June, 2010’s 2.98 percent. Between the previous Marches, inflation-adjusted non-durable goods production rose only fractionally.

>On a monthly basis, however, non-durable goods’ real output slipped by 0.27 percent. Yet February’s previously recorded 0.71 percent sequential improvement was upgraded to 1.16 percent – the best such performance since October’s 2.37 percent, which reflected a rebound from hurricane-related setbacks suffered by many key sectors highly concentrated near the Gulf of Mexico.

>Still, the non-durables super-sector continues to struggle to recover from the Great Recession. Its real output remains 8.45 percent below its pre-downturn peak, hit in July, 2007.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Strong February for U.S. Manufacturing Production – but Big Revisions May be Coming

Tags

automotive, durable goods, Federal Reserve, Great Recession, industrial production, inflation-adjusted growth, manufacturing, non-durable goods, recovery, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Thanks to an unexpectedly crowded Friday, I wasn’t able to put out a report on yesterday’s Federal Reserve real manufacturing output figures – for February. Which is really a shame, because they signaled a noteworthy reversal to the recent slowdown in manufacturing output. In addition, the American automotive sector – which had led domestic manufacturing’s strong early recovery from its deep recessionary slide – emerged from its latest technical recession.

Two important caveats, though: First, revisions weren’t great, to say the least, so part of February’s strong performance reflected a January that was even weaker than previously reported. Second, next week, the Fed will be putting out its latest annual revisions, which will give us entirely new numbers dating back to 2016. And sometimes these updated figures change the picture significantly.

But now to the manufacturing highlights of yesterday’s intriguing good news/less good news Federal Reserve industrial production report:

>According to the Federal Reserve, after-inflation U.S. manufacturing output jumped by 1.27 perceet month-to-month in February – its best such performance since October’s 1.29 percent, which was boosted by a bounceback effect from last fall’s hurricanes. Taking October out of the picture, the February monthly rise was the biggest since last April’s 1.37 percent.

>At the same time, January’s meager 0.08 percent sequential uptick was downgraded to a 0.18 percent dip, and although December’s downwardly revised monthly dip is now judged to have been a 0.04 percent advance, November and October growth figures were lowered as well.

>Year-on-year, manufacturing grew in February by 2.57 percent – the fastest annual pace since July, 2014’s 2.82 percent. By contrast, between the previous Februarys, manufacturing’s price-adjusted output increased by only 1.13 percent.

>Due to the monthly revisions, full-year 2017’s real manufacturing output growth fell to 2.33 percent. But that still resulted in industry’s best year by this measure since 2012’s 2.58 percent.

>Moreover, February’s monthly growth was torrid enough to bring domestic industry to within 1.49 percent of its last constant dollar production peak – hit at the end of 2007, on the eve of the Great Recession.

>Manufacturing’s February performance was led by the durable goods super-sector, whose after-inflation production advanced by 1.78 percent on month. This growth was the fastest since February, 2014’s 1.80 percent, which was helped by a harsh winter rebound effect.

>Yet January’s sequential production change number for durable goods received a significant downgrade, too – from a 0.15 percent increase to a 0.38 percent decrease. The cumulative December and November revisions were slightly negative as well.

>Due largely to the downward January revisions, the month’s reported annual durable goods manufacturing increase was reduced from 2.47 percent to 1.74 percent – the lowest such figure since last August’s 0.95 percent.

​>But February’s annual durable goods real production increase of 3.46 percent was the best monthly performance since January, 2015’s 3.50 percent – which also stemmed partly from a winter weather bounceback.

>The downward December revisions, moreover, reduced durable goods’ full-year, 2017 inflation-adjusted growth to 2.41 percent – a figure that is still a post-2014 (2.72 percent) high.

>For the smaller non-durable goods super-sector, constant dollar production rose by 0.71 percent on month in February– its best such growth since the 2.34 percent burst in hurricane-affected October.

>Omitting the October performance still shows that February’s after-inflation non-durable goods growth was its strongest since last April’s 0.96 percent.

>Further, in the non-durables sector, revisions were slightly positive.

>On a year-on-year basis, real non-durable goods output improved by 2.18 percent in February. And for full-year, 2017, the positive monthly revisions pushed after-inflation output production up to 2.25 percent – the best such result since 2004’s 3.95 percent.

>The star February performer in manufacturing, was the automotive sector – whose sequential real output shot up by 3.88 percent, to an all-time high.

>That monthly performance was automotive’s best since last April’s 4.16 percent growth jump, and pulled the sector out of a real output technical recession that dates from that month.

>Interestingly, though, automotive’s initially reported 0.58 percent January sequential real output advance was revised down to a 0.22 percent drop, and December’s initially reported 1.13 percent inflation-adjusted production improvement was reduced to a 0.88 percent increase.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Important New Backward Steps Revealed for U.S. Manufacturing Output

Tags

automotive, durable goods, Federal Reserve, Great Recession, industrial production, inflation-adjusted growth, manufacturing, non-durable goods, recovery, {What's Left of) Our Economy

I somehow overlooked the release yesterday of the January industrial production figures, but that’s no reflection on the results’ importance. For they not only revealed that U.S. inflation-adjusted manufacturing output growth has ground to a near halt for the last two months, and has slowed markedly after rebounding strongly after last autumn’s hurricanes. They showed that this weak performance, along with negative revisions, pushed such production farther below its pre-recession peak. Here are the manufacturing highlights of yesterday’s Federal Reserve report:

>According to the Federal Reserve, real sequential growth in U.S. manufacturing in January was a mere 0.08 percent. Combined with a December figure now revised from similar negligible growth to a slight dip, and other negative revisions, domestic industry’s expansion has now slowed to a near-standstill. Moreover, the impressive rebound from last autumn’s hurricane-related setbacks has now petered out.

>December’s manufacturing output figure was downgraded from a 0.08 percent monthly increase to a 0.02 percent contraction. November’s 0.31 percent sequential growth is now judged to be 0.25 percent, and October’s monthly post-hurricane 1.50 percent bounce-back has been reduced to 1.37 percent growth.

>As a result, whereas last month’s industrial production report, reported American domestic manufacturing as 2.25 percent smaller in price-adjusted terms than at its pre-recession peak (reached in December, 2007), it’s now 2.43 percent below that level.

>Constant dollar output in the durable goods super-sector of manufacturing advanced by 0.15 percent on month in January – meaning that its growth has slowed for four straight months. Revisions here were also negative.

>December’s real durable goods production improvement was revised down from 0.27 percent to 0.23 percent, November’s from 0.43 percent to 0.41 percent, and October’s from 0.54 percent to 0.49 percent.

>A similar story has unfolded for the non-durable goods super-sector. Its month-to-month real output was up fractionally in January, and recent months’ revisions were downgrades.

>December’s 0.12 percent monthly after-inflation output dip is now judged to be a 0.29 percent decline, November’s 0.17 percent increase is now estimated at 0.08 percent, and October’s post-hurricane rebound has been revised down from 2.57 percent to 2.34 percent. (Non-durables’ output was most greatly affected by the hurricanes.)

>Year-on-year, manufacturing’s price-adjusted January growth of 2.03 percent was its worst such performance since September’s (hurricane-affected) 1.37 percent.

>In addition, the December monthly downgrade brought the full-year 2017 real growth rate down from 2.64 percent (its best since 2011’s 2.71 percent) to 2.38 percent (now only the best since 2012’s 2.58 percent).

>Durable goods’ yearly January growth was 2.47 percent – its slowest such growth since September’s 2.41 percent.

>Further, its December downward revision also depressed its full-year 2017 growth from 2.65 percent to 2.59 percent. That’s only a post-2014 (2.72 percent) high.

>In non-durable goods, January’s year-on-year growth was 1.56 percent – its worst such performance since September’s hurricane-impacted 0.13 percent.

>For full-year, 2017, its growth is now pegged at 2.14 percent, not the 2.64 percent reported last month.

>That yearly performance is still the best for non-durables since 2004’s 3.95 percent.

>In the automotive sector, which led manufacturing’s strong initial recovery from its deep recessionary dive, real production rose by 0.58 percent sequentially in January. But that strong figure was just over half December’s 1.13 percent.

>Worse, the January figures mean that real automotive output remained in technical recession – that is, six or more months of cumulative decline. The sector is now 0.27 percent smaller than in April, 2017.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Why Investors Shouldn’t Blame U.S. Workers for Inflation

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bonds, budget deficits, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, inflation, interest rates, manufacturing, monetary policy, quantitative easing, recession, recovery, stock market, stocks, wage inflation, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Thanks to the U.S. government’s new inflation data, we can cross one often fingered culprit off the list of developments being blamed for the recent turbulence in American, and therefore global, financial markets – wage inflation. For by a crucial indicator, real hourly pay in the United States is not only failing to lead prices upward – it’s been trailing overall inflation recently and indeed has been in recession lately by one commonsense standard.

Of course, market turmoil (like most big developments) springs from several, overlapping reasons. The first is one I discussed last Friday, and which I consider the most important: Investors fear that the Federal Reserve and other world central banks will start tightening monetary policy faster than expected, in order to prevent (more of) the kinds of reckless investments that tend to mushroom when credit is super cheap, and that can often trigger financial crises like the near global meltdown roughly a decade ago. (Happy Anniversary!)

If credit becomes more expensive, then economic growth and corporate profits will struggle to maintain their current rates of increase, and stocks will become less attractive investments, all else equal. In addition, the very increase in interest rates almost certain to result from such central bank “tightening” heightens the appeal of bonds and dims that of equities.

To complicate matters further, another engine of higher rates might be a combination of the great increase in federal budget deficits likely from the new tax cuts proposed by the Trump administration and passed by Congress, and the big-spending budget deal reached by the lawmakers and the President. The consequent budget gap will boost federal borrowing needs (and all else equal, push up the rates Washington will need to pay lenders for all this new debt) at a time when the U.S. central bank has started selling the ginormous amount of government bonds it’s been purchasing and holding since late 2008 (a practice called “quantitative easing) in order to halt the Great Recession and speed up recovery . This version of tightening – which also stems from financial stability concerns – will raise the supply of bonds even further.

The second reason for the turmoil is investor concern that rising inflation will spur central banks to raise rates regardless of the above financial stability concerns – because excessive inflation can produce its own economic disaster. And in fact, the proximate cause of the current bout of market instability seems to be those very inflation fears, and in particular, the possibility of wage inflation.

Higher compensation costs could deal their own blow to stock prices by reducing corporate profits; or by sending upward price pressures rippling throughout the entire economy (as companies tried to pass higher costs on to their customers either elsewhere in the business world or in consumer ranks); or through some combination of the two. (Interestingly, the chances seem pretty low that companies could absorb higher wages through greater efficiency, as productivity improvement has been very slow at best recently.)

So that’s why today’s widely anticipated (to put it mildly) U.S. government inflation data is so important. The inflation figures were somewhat “hotter” than most investors were predicting. But it couldn’t be clearer that wage inflation has nothing to do with these higher prices.

The numbers that most observers – whether investors or not – are looking at are the year-on-year numbers, and they do seem to signal some wage inflation. From January, 2017 to last month, the Labor Department’s headline reading showed a 2.14 percent rise in prices nationwide, and a 1.85 percent increase in “core” prices (which stripped out from the headline food and energy prices because they’re considered so volatile in the short-term that they can generate readings regarded as somewhat misleading).

During that same year, wages adjusted for inflation for the overall private sector were up 0.75 percent – which means they rose faster than overall prices. Moreover, between previous Januarys, real wages actually declined fractionally (by 0.09 percent). So in principle, investors (and other economy watchers) have reasons to be nervous about wage inflation.

But a more recent time frame tells a very different story. For since last May, private sector wages have been down on net. Although the cumulative decline is only 0.19 percent, this means that on a technical basis, real wages are in recession. (I feel justified in using this term because when economists talk about growth, a decline for two consecutive quarters is defined as a recession. So a six-month cumulative downturn seems close enough.) Indeed, more accurately, real wages are still in recession, since this development was apparent last month, too.

And the latest month-to-month figures indicate that real wage pressure is weakening, not strengthening. From December to January alone, they dropped by 0.19 percent, after rising by that amount from November to December.

The picture looks even grimmer when you go back to the start of the current economic recovery – in mid-2009. Since then, real private sector wages have risen by only 4.07 percent. And that’s over more than eight years!

But private sector real wages are practically torrid when they’re compared with inflation-adjusted pay in manufacturing. Such compensation has been in technical recession for two full years, as it’s fallen by 0.09 percent since January, 2016. On a monthly basis, after-inflation manufacturing pay plummeted by 0.46 percent in January, its worst such performance since August’s 0.64 percent tumble. At least the December figure was revised up – though only from a 0.09 percent dip to a 0.09 percent increase.

Over the current economic recovery’s eight-plus years, real manufacturing wages have risen by a mere 0.37 percent – less than a tenth as fast as those of the private sector overall.

Yet although inflation – and especially wage inflation – doesn’t seem to warrant a quicker pace of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes (or even the current, “gradual” pace), a case can still be made for tightening on a financial stability basis. And those massive federal deficits, which will need to be funded by equally massive increases in bond supplies, seem here to stay for many years. So as has been the case for so long, assuming these moves do slow U.S. economic growth, American workers appear certain to pay many of the costs for disastrous policy mistakes they never made.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: What’s with Those Financial Markets?

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bonds, bottom-line, budget deficits, central banks, correction, debt, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, financial markets, Great Recession, interest rates, leverage, monetary policy, profits, stocks, tax cuts, top-line, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Heckuva week on the world’s financial markets, eh? This post isn’t intended to provide any investment advice, but rather to shed some light on what strikes me as the most interesting question posed by the stock market correction and the related spike in bond yields: Why is it happening as evidence keeps emerging that the world economy (including America’s) is entering its best stretch of growth since the last (Great) recession ended in mid-2009?

Right off the bat, in the interests of full disclosure, the vast majority of my investments are in bonds (mainly munis) and bond proxies (high-dividend stocks whose share prices are relatively stable, so that their main value is spinning off income). This means that my main hope is that bonds keep doing well (notwithstanding their recent slump).

That said, it seems clear to me that the answer is that investors are worried that the stronger growth seen globally isn’t sustainable. Indeed they seem fearful that it’s about to come to an ugly end because the world’s central banks look more determined than in many years to at least limit the easy money conditions they created to fight the financial crisis (and ensuing recession), and to try to spark something of a recovery.

This kind of monetary policy tightening – or even a further slowdown in or halt to the loosening, which is what’s most likely in the near future – could create a pair of closely connected economic and financial dangers. First, slower growth could imperil the sales and profits of companies that issue stocks, which could depress their prices. And P.S.: Despite the record central bank stimulus, growth has been unimpressive enough. How much tightening is needed to tip the economy back into recession?

Of course, businesses all around the world have performed magnificently in boosting profits in a slow-growth environment, and this also goes for non-financial companies that haven’t been able to enjoy the full benefits of borrowing from central banks at super-cheap rates and lending at higher rates. But precisely because growth even during the recovery’s best periods so far has been sluggish despite the gargantuan stimulus, much of the profit improvement has come from improvements in the bottom line, keyed by cost-cutting (including keeping the lid on employee paychecks). Top-line growth – that is, stronger sales of products and services – has been more difficult to come by.

Since costs can’t be cut completely, and possibly not much further, a growth slowdown could greatly reduce these firms’ potential to increase profits going forward, and turn them into much less attractive buys for investors. And tighter monetary policy, including raising interest rates, historically has been pretty effective at slowing growth.

Just as important, low interest rates per se have super-charged stock prices. The reason? They greatly depress the total return on bonds, and thus greatly boost the appeal of stocks.

Of course, this raises the question of why central banks would take such actions, or even think (out loud) about them. The reasons are that they’re worried that all this easy money will ignite a new round of dangerous inflation, and that they’re concerned that, because money has been so cheap for so long, borrowing consequently so easy, and mistakes therefore so easy to withstand, too much capital has been poured into risky investments. Central bankers are rightly concerned that this “mal-investment” eventually could imperil the entire financial system and hence the real economy just as it did during the previous decade. So they’re hoping they can wean the world off this sugary diet.

The challenge they face is making sure “the patient survives,” or doesn’t become gravely ill again. After all, the previous decade’s financial crisis showed that when dubious investments reach a certain level, creditors can start doubting borrowers’ ability to repay or even service their debt even when the cost of money is very low. When they start to pull in their bets, panic can easily set in – and did.

These dangers become much greater when the cost of money starts to rise, which is exactly the situation the nation and world are in now. Just one indication of heavily indebted businesses are: According to Standard & Poor’s, one of the financial ratings agencies, in 2007 (just before the global bubble burst), 32 percent of the world’s non-financial companies were “highly leveraged” (i.e., up to their ears in debt). The latest figure? Thirty seven percent.

This corporate debt, of course, is relatively easy to service and manage when interest rates are very low. In a higher rate environment? Not so much. And don’t think creditors don’t know this. So that’s another reason that companies could start looking less appealing to investors, and if major debt servicing (much less repayment) problems emerge, credit channels could start seizing up just as they did ten years ago. On top of this prospect, all else equal, rising rates tend to be trouble for stock prices, as more and more investors decide to opt for (higher) guaranteed returns on bonds rather than riskier equities.

P.S. If you’re wondering whether higher rates could significantly increase the debt burden on the U.S. government, even without the immense new borrowing that will be needed thanks to the Trump administration’s tax cuts and the new big-spending Congressional budget compromise, the answer is, “You bet!”

Not that reasons for optimism about stocks in particular can’t be identified. Because the big ramp up in federal budget deficits that’s on the way will inject massive new resources into the economy, more growth will result. In principle, that new growth could convince the Federal Reserve to speed up its tightening – but perhaps not enough to offset the fiscal boost. Moreover, anyone who’s positive that the Fed will keep tightening in the face of either future stock market turbulence and/or weaker economic growth hasn’t been paying attention to its record in recent decades. The central bank has been, in the view of many, all too willing to keep the economic party going at all costs, and may well do so again.

One more bullish possibility for stocks – as they did during the previous decade, the leaders of stock-issuing companies decide to use most of their tax cut windfall to buy more shares of their own stock. The result would not only would prop up the share price, but in many cases boost their own compensation (which not so coincidentally is often based on that share price).

The most vexing aspect of both the investment and the economic situation is that, even though both may suffer in the short run, both urgently need to end their addiction to central bank stimulus and create the kind of foundation that will promote healthier, and thus longer-lasting (even if not faster) growth. Moreover, the longer the addiction lasts, the worse the cold turkey experience.

Because I doubt that either the Federal Reserve or the rest of the U.S. government has the spine to administer the needed policy medicine, I remain pretty bearish long-term on both the markets and the real economy, and will stay very conservatively invested. But the short term can be surprisingly long lasting; in fact, I’m surprised that the Fed’s high wire act has lasted this long. So I’m anything but an infallible guide to either. I’m just trying to be prepared for major trouble – whenever it decides to arrive.