Thursday, May 28, 2009

No recovery yet in capex

New orders for capital goods—the seed corn of future productivity gains—have been flat so far this year. One good thing we could say is that, like unemployment claims, they haven't gotten worse. The free-fall last year was arrested by the end of the year, just as happened with commodity prices and high-yield bonds. Until we see some growth in this series, it will be tough to get excited about the economy's growth potential.

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