oh yeah forgot the JLTV came after the MATV...ever just want to have a surplus HEMTT...for reasons.....

This.  I can't get Sheetmetal fabricated in Texas right now.  Had to reach out to a group in TN who couldn't do it and finally got guys in PA to do it and it will be shipped to TX.

The other option was a group we worked with in CA.  Even they said it would be hard to fit in.  All their work is in manufacturing.

Ok, go back & read what I said.  It's been underperforming the rest of the economy, ergo its share of it is shrinking.  Has nothing to do with employment figures, at least until those hires start producing enough to meet demand (which clearly hasn't happened yet).  Manf. simply can't react as quickly as needed to unrestrained demand --see: Ammo/Gun Ban of 2013-3015

The problem is people seem to repeatedly fail to understand the report. Manufacturing didn't decrease nor were manufacturing jobs lost. All the report shows is that for the total GDP of the United States the contribution by manufacturing is 0.1% less than the previous quarter because other sectors grew more than manufacturing did.

“Role playing as a conservative” it’s what groups like Shareblue call their fake conservative plants within social media. There was a leaked strategy communication where this term was discovered.

Ayup.

A large part of what is propping the economy up is the record government spending.

I'm generally the last person to point the Shareblue finger (I think there's a whole lot more people on the Trump/RNC/NRA payroll here than otherwise) but there is no freaking way you haven't noticed someone calling you "rolcon" by now.  You're incessantly jumped on by Trumpers, and 'rolcon' has been their favorite new pejorative since they discovered that Brock memo defining the term.

Your reply of --I think-- feigned ignorance strikes me as fishing for negative replies; "what's that mean?  Oh, do go on..."

And to all you goofy troll-callers; the report button is right fucking there if you really think someone is doing something wrong.

Your remarks about manufacturing "declining steadily" were stupid.  Manufacturing is expanding and hiring 5,000 people per month.

Thanks for the clarification.
Seems as though these days if you are OK with some RKBA infringements—conservative, OK with record deficit growth & government spending—-conservative, OK with Patriot act statist appointments and judges— conservative, OK with stop & frisk— conservative and so on. It’s such a wide spectrum & it seems most align to the left of the conservative spectrum these days.  It’s really a shame as I would consider myself a conservative and I’m not Ok with any of that stuff & to some here that makes me a shareblue rolcon

Oh of course. I just never Really cared to find out  what it stood for.

ETA: first I’ve heard of the ‘Brock memo’.

What’s the China approval rating.  Or their governor approval ratings

Fair enough; "lagging" more accurately conveys my intention than 'decline.'  Economics is both relative and objective, after all.  I do still maintain the inability to spool up production --as attested to by practically everyone here-- will eventually cap our growth potential.  We haven't yet gotten to the end of what customers can afford to wait for, though.

When you got nothing else call out a guy for not being a team member. Lame

Perfect response to childish falsehoods IMHO

It's not that different from "yer a commie, you shouldn't even be here" --just sayin', as a freeloader

Ah.  I see you're focused on politics and not economics.

Carry on with that myopia and the world you will see will be the one you want to see, not the one that actually exists.

Notice again the US economic growth regardless who is in office, regardless of terrorist attacks, or global financial crises.

Work on your communication skills and thinly-veiled personal attacks too if you actually ever hope to even have a chance at influencing other people, because right now, you're failing miserably in that space.

They were going to ban bumpstocks whether it was by Congress or Executive action. It’s better that it went Executive action because it has a greater probability of not surviving judicial review...

Not in the least surprising.

China, Mexico, and a hundred other third-world shithole countries welcome what were once our jobs.

We loan more to ourselves than all of the foreign debt holders combined, and circulate that money back into our economy more than any other, as long as we promise to pay ourselves back.

The debt "crisis" is largely manufactured for political points, made by people who either don't understand how it works, or pretend not to for their narrative.

I'm not at all sure of this so feel free to correct me.

It's possible that many small manufacturing operations are not classified as such but instead fall into the category of "service" in these sort of data sets. In my own anecdotal experience I know of some machine shops ranging from a two man operation up to around a hundred employees that consider themselves service since it isn't "their" product. Job shops small and large perform the work (provide the service) for other entities.

I don't know if there is any sort of official classification as such that may skew the data in that regard.

There is some manufacturing slow down.

Two of my largest steel mills are shut down right now.  There is a slow down in the oil industry.  There is also a slow down in making raw aluminum right now. Plus the general defense manufacturing and automotive manufacturing is slower. GM strike. The issues at Boeing. There is a slow down on ordering of new construction equipment and trucks.

But nothing that I’d say going to make the economy grind to a halt. More just a slight pull back from the post Obama era where everyone spent a ton of money.

It will get back on cycle and be normal for a while.  I don’t feel like waiting 9-12 months for trucks I ordered.  3 months is... better. Actually 14 weeks to be exact.

@WebleyMKVI

Thread title needs to include "misleading Bloomberg article"

US manufacturing output is larger than it ever has been:



Translation in Bloomberg:  "Manufacturing is now smallest share of US Economy in 72yrs"

It's a misleading article meant to drive public perception of the economy as a whole in a negative light, for political and not informative purposes.

Presidents come and go.  We all should be gunning for a better US economy, not posting BS articles that falsely present data meant to discourage each other.

When I'm rowing as hard as I am, I want to hear Viking war chants, not the musings of some imbecile in the corner sucking his thumb and complaining about the sea spray off our oars.

Whatever gotcha moment you unleashed on me here I don't get it?

Why are most of the NeverTrump join dates 2016 or later? Did shareblue invest in China and can’t afford to buy established accounts? Nice touch splurging for the membership though since you seem to think that ups post quality. LOL Your shit is tired and every one here sees it. At least we know you’ll be around til 2024 when you try to dissuade us from Trumps replacement, that’s $96 apiece for the site. Good job! I sent my $24 to his re-election campaign so cry all you want about being a freeloader. It just makes my day watching people push your shit in with facts and expose your half truths. Entertaining as fuck! Thanks

If you're slowing down manufacturing in this economy, it says more about the company more than anything.

Boeing is landing all kinds of massive contract awards:

$14.3 billion for B-1B and B-52 upgrades/services
$9.2 billion USAF T-X program (replacement for aging T-38C trainers)
$805 million for initial MQ-25 with likely $13 billion long-term manufacturing award
$2.38 billion for USAF UH-1N replacement
$48 million A-10C re-wing program

Then look at Lockheed-Martin, with the increased numbers of JSF production and the recent announcement of a $34 billion installment for 478 F-35s.

The size of the purchases and money flowing around these days is beyond anything imagined even 20 years ago, with real products and improvements backing them up.  The downline subcomponent and services sectors are so vast and huge just for a few of the programs I listed above, it would boggle the mind.

For someone to have a doom and gloom perspective of the US economy, I know immediately that they are consuming the wrong kinds of information, which is clearly erroneous and misleading.

Cut out the false news sources and find answers using the Critical Thinking standards filter.

There were never any slowdowns in the USSR.  The communist central planners decided what should be produced.  
There are frequently slowdowns in a capitalist economy, however.  Some businesses slow down, while more efficient ones boom.

You missed the main point of my post.

That we're going from a super boom in manufacturing back down to pretty good to normal levels.  It's been well documented that companies, post Obama era and more specifically, post tax change era, spent a fuck load of money.  They either repatriated overseas cash, or they went on a spending spree as there was a 2-3 year hold during Obama era.  Now companies have bought all their durable goods, and the backlog on these goods is doing down - things will slow down to normal replacement intervals.

It's great on some level .gov is spending all that money. But I'm talking about private companies spending money. Boeing will have a slow down to the 737 Max issues - 7.3 Billion dollars just for that plane, let alone losing other customers / orders to airbus over it and loss of good faith.  GM will have lost about 5 billion or so due to the strike.  Let alone what it has done to dealers and such, brand damage, etc.

In trucking, to quote trucks .com - "Shippers and motor carriers ordered 108,665 Class 8 trucks so far this year. That is down 69 percent compared with the same period a year earlier, said Kenny Vieth, president of ACT Research.

“The Class 8 market is at a turning point,” said Don Ake, FTR’s vice president of commercial vehicles. “The economy has slowed, and there are enough trucks to handle the available freight growth.”

Truck makers are reducing production rates to replacement demand levels, Ake said."

- Key take away from the above: Enough trucks to handle available freight growth.  This is governed by being able to find people to take the seats (also a problem still.)  And the fact that they ordered a record amount of trucks in the last 3 years.   As I said before, fleets are keeping their trucks longer, because it's financially wise to do so. Average age / miles went up last month - from 6 years 8 months & 439,000 miles - to 6 years 11 months and 463,000 miles. I project this to continue to climb.  It's no longer worth while for large fleets to dump their units in 3.5 years / 350,000/400,000 miles.

This is nothing but a cycle.  Companies used cheap money, the tax code to their advantage.  Demand is going down, so supply will go up.  Trucks particularly - as that is what I know, have dropped in price. About 14.3% for the industry.

It's not doom and gloom - it's the fact there is X demand and Y supply.  As demand goes down for various reasons - economic, reliability, etc.  Supply will go up, prices will go down.  It will take another major change to shift this again.  Events such as emission standards or fuel standards can change this in trucking and off road equipment fast.  Right now, there's no major changes till 2025, so fleets have some time to breath and extend their replacement cycle.

This isn't doom and gloom - this is normal.

Are we still allowed to say “join date, post count”?

If not, carry on....

Hey we’re asking the fucking questions here. Who sent you?

lol at you and the other mods letting political trolls roam free on here.

Thanks for the clarification and polite response, with detailed explanation of what you're seeing on that end.

Looks like we're tracking.

The mobility industry is undergoing some massive shifts, which from my little segment of the market appear to be driven by:

* Advances in engine and systems durability/life cycle
* Amortization benefits in the tax code (have been there for many years already, but combined with longer vehicle life...)
* Distribution models shifting from conventional 1990s retail to more online orders with regional hubs and smaller couriers, including private contractors with personal vehicles/risk
* Electric vehicles
* Driver supply bottlenecks (much of which are filled with foreigners)

It may be smallest among the economy, but how much did other sectors grow to take up the slack?

We're on the same page.

I said for years, the next big thing in distribution will be moving away from having centralized mega warehouses with just in time delivery, to smaller regional warehouses with more inventory and operations costs.

Fact is, trucking is expensive. Trucking long distance even more so. If you look at the way fedex / UPS / even now Amazon is set up, their hubs are a lot closer.  For fedex, it's about 4 hours from big hub to hub.

With this, your trucks are running less miles.  Thus, you'll want to keep them longer.  And yes, in places like fedex or UPS, electrification of trucks or alternative fuels (CNG / LNG) - is a viable option. Because you're not needing to get fuel on the road.

But, going to the economic aspect of it - there will be some softening in the end demand.  As Amazon rolls out their own delivery force, you have the same amount of packages (thus miles run) - being handled by more units and more people. This is better for the end consumer (1 day turn around time mostly.)  But replacements of vehicles, or repair of vehicles will go down, as miles run goes down.

Even lets say the economy is expanding at 3% - and directly go to 3% more consumer spending.  We're not going to see 3% growth in transport as things are getting more efficient. Once the initial buy of warehouse / inventory is done, it goes back down to replacement levels.   Add in the fact Amazon is delivering their own goods - and now hauling a lot of their own goods - the tonnage of freight carried by UPS, Fedex, USPS will go down as there is a 4th player in the game now.  So less tonnage = less mileage = less wear and tear = longer replacement schedule. Once Amazon's buy in of class 1-3 delivery vehicles is done, it's simply replacement.  Amazon won't be ordering 20,000 sprinters like they did last year. They'll probably order 5000 for growth, the ones wrecked and ones needing replaced.

We had a great few years of a HUGE boom.  Now it's trending back to a normal replacement schedule. Maybe electrification will change that in the next 5 to 10 years.  Maybe US Tier 5 emissions standards will.   But for the moment, I think we're on track to keep units longer.

The same thing with construction equipment.  From cummins:

"“While we expected to see a moderation of demand in the second half of the year, sales have weakened even faster than we anticipated,” said Cummins Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tom Linebarger. “Cummins is taking actions to align our cost structure with the lower revenues while maintaining investment in products that will deliver sustainable growth and profitability.”

Linebarger says based on the current forecast, Cummins now expects 2019 revenue to decline two percent compared to a prior forecast of revenues being flat."

From CAT:
“In the fourth quarter, we now expect end-user demand to be flat and dealers to make further inventory reductions due to global economic uncertainty,” CEO Jim Umpleby said in prepared remarks.

“Caterpillar’s improved lead times, along with these dealer inventory reductions, will enable us to respond quickly to positive or negative developments in the global economy in 2020.”

Meaning, back to a normal replacement schedule.  If you're a big contractor, you already moved forward into intelligent machines. the I series from Komatsu.  Cat Grade control with Depth and slope. Etc.  So you won't see a huge spike in need for those machines.  You won't see huge orders like we saw in the last 3 years, because contractors modernized. They're going to hold onto their equipment for a bit, adjust to the new technology. The new technology will just keep evolving, not be completely revolutionary right now. Emissions controls are the same for the foreseeable future, etc.

I just look at this as getting back down to the 'normal' - which, will probably be above the Obama era 'normal' - just not crazy gangbusters of the last 3 years.

Decades of shit policy and a government full of paid stooges. One dude is supposed to fix it all, and in do it in less than three years? Perhaps a little discernment here folks.

King of the hill Trump is! Best manufacturing output evar. And that expenditure/ debt chart. 11% for Trump. 16% for GWB and 29% for Obama in the same time in office.

Note that manufacturing's share of nominal GDP can actually shrink even if it is growing faster than the economy as a whole if costs are falling... This has actually been the case most of the time.

Conversely, the finance sector, healthcare, and higher education continue to grow as a share of the economy entirely on the back of bloating costs. Many of those sectors have actually had negative productivity for decades.

diVeRsiTY iS oUr sTreNgTH...