Industrial Production

By Spencer

Industrial production fell 2.8%in September. But about 2 and a quarter percentage points of that was due to hurricanes. If you back the hurricane impact out, September output would be about where the X is on the chart. This implies that manufacturing output is continuing to demonstrate roughly the same type of declines it has all year — neither accelerating nor improving. This data and the employment data imply that the economy is continuing to act as if it is in a moderate recession. But on the other hand there are no signs that the bottom is approaching. We could just continue to see this same type of moderate declines for a long time.