Time for those media brows to furrow deeply again, as the Associated Press reports an important metric of future growth falling right off a cliff, on the eve of the State of the Union address:
Businesses cut back sharply on their orders for long-lasting manufactured goods in December with a key category that signals business investment plans falling by the biggest amount in five months.In the great airport lounge where America waits for Recovery to come trundling down the concourse with her suitcase full of jobs and prosperity, every flight status just flipped to “Delayed” again. Oh, well, might as well mosey over to the Starbucks and grab a frappucino while we wait for her. They take EBT cards, right?
Orders for durable goods fell 4.3 percent in December compared with November, when orders had risen 2.6 percent, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday....
There was widespread weakness in a number of categories including a 1.3 percent decline in demand for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft. This category is viewed as a proxy for business investment plans.
Some of the December weakness probably reflected a temporary dip following November’s big jump which had been driven by businesses rushing to take advantage of expiring tax breaks.
The December decline came as a surprise to economists. The consensus view among economists was that orders would post a moderate rise reflecting what they believe is an improving outlook for U.S. manufacturers
...The danger zone would be for things to pick enough for the Federal Reserve to discontinue its bond-buying stimulus spending spree – which has been pumping a lot of money into Wall Street, in a process that would be denounced as “trickle-down economics” if it wasn’t authorized by a Democrat – but not enough to survive the resulting sugar crash. The notion of anyone talking about “recovery” when a stimulus program of large-scale federal bond-buying is still in effect seems dishonest to me, but that’s the world we live in....
◼ THE KING IS NAKED - Jeffrey Lord/American Spectator
◼ The Lie that Hangs over the State of the Union - Ed Driscoll/PJMedia
It’s State of the Union night.
And the state of Obama’s America is not good.
The news is out. The king is naked. The Emperor has no clothes.
Jobs: Ninety-two million Americans are out of the workforce.
Health Insurance: Five-plus million Americans who had health insurance have now lost that health insurance. As many as 25 million more could lose their insurance this year. All of it due to Obamacare.
Poverty: Fifty million Americans now live below the poverty level, a number which has risen to the highest level in American history since the 1960’s as calculated by the US Department of Labor.
Food Stamps: A recordforty seven million Americans are on Food Stamps.
U.S. Debt: Now stands at a first-time record of over $17 trillion. The national debt has increased by $6 trillion under Obama, surpassing George W. Bush’s eight years back in 2012 — after just three years and two months in office.
Energy: And as the cold grips America, energy costs soar....
