Tuesday, January 28, 2014

A Workin' Man's Growth, Stagnation, and Crash Model

The following chart shows real monthly manufacturers' new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft per civilian employed (December 2013 dollars). I am using quarterly averages to smooth things out a bit.


Click to enlarge.

Green trend lines represent growth.
Yellow trend lines represent stagnation.
Red trend lines represent "soft patches."

What's the worst that could "unexpectedly" happen again?

January 28, 2014
Durable goods orders unexpectedly plunge in December

(Reuters) - Orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods unexpectedly fell in December as did a gauge of planned business spending on capital goods, which could cast a shadow on an otherwise bright economic outlook.

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
at

3 comments:

  1. CPJanuary 28, 2014 at 4:22 PM

    Wow - so the "recoveries" are like the troughs of the previous recessions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stagflationary MarkJanuary 28, 2014 at 4:38 PM

    CP,

    You make it sound like that's a bad thing.

    (And people wonder why I'm a permabear? ;))

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stagflationary MarkJanuary 28, 2014 at 4:40 PM

    In all seriousness, that's a great observation.

    You've managed to make an ugly chart look even uglier.

    ReplyDelete