Gaining traction... "U.S. Manufacturers More Optimistic: Survey (Reuters â Aarthi Sivaraman) More U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the economy, but poor demand remains a top concern, according to a survey. Forty-eight percent of U.S.-based industrial manufacturers surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers in the third quarter said they were optimistic about the U.S. economy over the next year, while only 43% had said so in the second quarter. The largest number of manufacturers polled â 45% â did not expect their businesses to regain strength until the second half of 2010, the survey showed. Twenty-three percent said they expected business to pick up in the first half of 2010 but 17% believed their companies were unlikely to recover until 2011. U.S. manufacturers have varied in their individual outlooks. Companies such as Honeywell International Inc and Ingersoll-Rand Plc have said they expect better conditions in 2010 after a year of sharp declines in earnings and sales. Caterpillar Inc forecast strong 2010 revenue growth, but United Technologies Corp was uncertain about how its revenues would turn out. In the survey, 57% expected positive revenue growth in the next year. That is an improvement from the prior quarter's 43%, according to the survey. Seventy-five percent said they were concerned about a lack of demand, down from 82% in the previous quarter, while 42% were worried about decreasing profitability â though that was 8 points down. The small improvement in optimism extended to companies' hiring and capital investment plans. Of those surveyed, 25% said they plan to hire employees over the next 12 months â an improvement of 8 percentage points from the prior quarter. Technicians, white collar workers and sales and marketing professionals would be among the top hiring categories, according to the survey. Though 28% planned to cut the number of full-time staff, that number declined from the 30% who said so three months ago. Thirty-seven percent plan major new capital investments in the next year, compared with 27% last quarter. PwC polled senior executives at 60 industrial manufacturers from mid-July to mid-October."
Alright ! Load up to the gills Ricter ! Will be interesting to see the impact when the crooks decide to release all that stimulus money theyve been holding back right in time for the mid-term elections. Betting on corrupt politicians is always a pretty safe bet; it should goose the numbers just like the cash-for-clunkers and first-tiime-housepayers b.s. - - enough to tweak things long enough for the elections, & before they come crashing down again.
He's speaking of this: Oct 29 WASHINGTON (AP) - An early progress report on President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports. The government's first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts. The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.... http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091029/D9BKMVMG0.html
My company has hired a new engineer and a new draftsman in the past two weeks. I know some of you want the economy to continue poorly, for partisan reasons, and that's a sad reminder of the nasty side of humanity. The US has been in worse shape and recovered, and it will do it again. Maybe train yourself to do something more useful than gamble and you'll be able to participate in that.
The idiot in chief and his party are the ones who are in favor of bringing this economy down. It's a grand crisis with many rewards at the end of the rainbow.
BS. Our stimulus program is the same one being used worldwide, and it's working. We vote our wallets and the politicians know it.