FuzzCharts: Is the US Now Just a Service Economy?

Jerry Bowyer mocks the recessionistas:

Monday’s data from the Institute for Supply Management is our first real glimpse at the second quarter of 2008 — you know, the one we’re in now. The above chart shows that the service sector — which is by far a better guide to the ebbs and flows of our economy than the manufacturing one — bottomed in January and has been recovering steadily ever since. It is now at an expansionary 52 percent. (Anything above 50 is positive growth territory.) When you hear a recessionista say, “Yes, we grew in the first quarter, but since then . . . blah, blah, blah,” show them this ISM report. The service sector has only gotten stronger since the first quarter ended. The recession that never was seems to be over.

I’m not sure I qualify as a recessionistas and quite frankly I’m not sure anyone does. But I certainly have not been saying we were about to head for a recession for all of the past five years. But it is true that the service sector enjoyed an increase in employment equal to 90 thousand last month according to this source. But then the manufacturing sector suffered an employment reduction equal to 110 thousand. But hey – why work in a factory jump if you can flip hamburgers for Burger King?

Look, I realize that the National Review staff thinks that its readers are really stupid. But c’mon, the garbage put out by Mr. Bowyer is so dumb that it has to been insulting to the dumbest of their readers.