Truckers and Food Prices

Freakonomics blog talks about the role truckers have in the American economy, from the author of Trucking Nation, a book I am soon going to read.


From the article

Q How have truckers’ attitudes toward their jobs affected food prices?

A The key connection between trucker culture and food costs in the mid-20th century was the deep-seated resistance of many independent truckers to labor unions. Most truckers who hauled farm products, rather than general freight, were not members of the Teamsters’ union — even though the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was the nation’s single largest and most powerful union from the 1950’s into the 1970’s. This was in part a product of truckers’ sense of independence — as Rubber Duck played by Kris Kristofferson in the 1978 movie Convoy declares, “The Teamsters ain’t my damn union!” But this ferocious anti-union stance was also encouraged by federal policies that exempted farm and food truckers from the regulatory oversight of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Unlike the regulated, consolidated general freight sector, farm and food trucking was largely carried out by unregulated small firms. These small companies, often owned and operated by a single individual, were extremely difficult for the Teamsters to organize. In the decades from the 1930’s through the 1970’s, agribusiness firms relied on these non-union truckers to dramatically transform the way food moved from farm to fork, lowering the prices of key foods such as beef, milk, and packaged produce for supermarket shoppers.

In the case of milk, for instance, milk processors relied on non-union truckers to deliver cheap milk in paper cartons and plastic jugs directly to supermarket loading docks beginning in the 1950’s, rather than deliver milk in glass bottles to consumers’ doorsteps via Teamster milkmen as had been done since the late 19th century.

So independent truckers’ willingness to perform sweated labor without union representation (and the high wages and pension benefits that went along with membership) played a large part, I think, in the decline of food costs as a portion of the average American family’s budget in the second half of the 20th century.

They are just figuring this out?

Hat tip to my fellow researchers

Could This Happen Here?

An Amazon book distributor closes shop on its 55,000 SF warehouse in England and abandons 5 million books. I guess it was just cheaper to give the books away rather than move them and try to sell them.

Used books seem like a pretty low margin item, but why didn't the landlord try to sell them to try to recoup some losses? Or sell the whole lot to another bookseller?

This sets a scary scenario of firms just going out of business and not bothering to clean up after themselves, leaving the landlords with the abandoned inventory and the costs associated with its disposal.

The Recession In Perspective

Neat little tool from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. Basically it allows you to compare various economic statistics for past recessions.

In terms of employment, it looks like the current recession is only trumped by the 1948, 1953, 1957 and the 1961 recessions. The recessions from the mid 1960's onward look pretty tame by comparison. I wonder what the fundamental difference between these two time periods could be. Perhaps it is a greater reliance on agriculture and manufacturing (goods production) or less action taken by the Fed in those early years. Maybe it was the removal of the gold standard in 1973 that allowed more freedom in dealing with monetary problems that made latter recessions milder by comparison. Who knows?

The somewhat disheartening thing is that most recessions have rebounded or flattened out by the 12th month or so. Just on the basis of employment, the current recession looks on par with the 1961 recession, which did not begin to recover until the 18th month.

I suppose the problem with this reasoning is that we don't know if we ended a recession yet, do we? I mean it took the NBER 12 months to announce that we were in a recession, we might be out of the woods already and not even know it.

Yeah, I am not convinced either.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized - Part 2

Part Deux:

I.E. Industrial's Absorption of Spec is Immediate Concern

The article for the Ca Real Estate Journal was finally published.

Here is the link

A couple of thoughts:

1. It is hard work to be a journalist. Kari interviewed at least 7 people and combined published information from at least 4 published sources for information for this piece. That is a lot of networking, coordinating and communicating between many different entities.
I wish I could do that for my monthly pieces, it would definitely take the loftiness down a notch or two and I would definitely meet more people.

2. Be careful what you say. The reason why I am quoted so much in this article is that I sent a lot of information. I debated what to send and I am always a little bit nervous in how I will sound and be perceived in an article.
I guess I am just sensitive to trying to come off as smart and insightful. When I read the pieces I always feel like I came off as bumbling incoherently through the piece. In comparison, I do not have as many insightful zingers or sound bytes because I did not focus my message to one or two carefully worded talking points.

Things to work on in the future I suppose.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized - Part 1

Wow. If you did not know by now how everything fell apart in the housing bust, this movie sums it up nicely.

As the problems get more complex, at least there are people out there willing to simplify things. And more tools exist to explain this crisis than the dot com bust.

M&M Fraud Watch: RICO Edition

From Examiner.com

According to a civil lawsuit filed on February 9, commercial titan Marcus & Millichap, its own agents, two of their associates and several subsidiaries of Marcus & Millichap and the associates perpetrated a massive real estate fraud scam against more than a dozen victims beginning in 2004 and continuing until 2008, when the scheme collapsed. Collectively, they are accused
of causing losses that exceed $50 million involving 22 properties.

The associate-defendants are Paul A. Morabito and Jack Waelti. Their “alter ego” shell companies are too numerous to list, but include Eureka Petroleum Inc.; Tibarom LLC; Tibarom NY LLC; Tibarom PA LLC (Morbito’s firms) and QSR Group LLC; QSR Group One LLC; and QSR Group II LLC, aka QSR Group Two LLC.

In a nutshell, attorneys for the victims-plaintiffs claim that the various defendants set up a sophisticated “real estate scam” that began with contacting the owners of Jiffy Lube and Church’s Chicken franchises around the country and offering to purchase both the franchises and the properties. The sold properties were put in the name of shell companies controlled by Morabito or Waelti, which were then “flipped” into Marcus & Millichap subsidiaries such as Sovereign Scranton. Dummy sale/leaseback agreements were then written that inflated both the value of the properties at sale, as well as the leasebacks.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs are accusing the defendants of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, unjust enrichment and imposition of a constructive trust, money had and received, and violation of two sections of California’s Business and Professions Code.

What is more troubling are the consequences of others who were not in on the deal but third party companies indirectly involved in the scam. Here is the follow up article on the role appraisers played in perpetuating the fraud.

Appraisal fraud is just not given the attention it is due. In fact, without an appraiser willing to violate the code of ethics to which licensed appraisers must adhere, a large percentage of real estate fraud crimes would not have been possible.

This highlights the importance of doing your due dilligence and not blindly accepting what the person selling you the asset is promoting.

I work with many appraisers who are always seeking information on rental comps, sales prices etc. We are in the same business of information.

Before you buy commercial real estate you would be wise to hire your own appraiser, especially when prices are changing as drastically as they are.

Riverside Sues LA Ports

Says too many trains are moving through the city of Riverside.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Trains were going to create a problem for the developers of the Interchange Business Park in San Bernardino. They estimated that the number of trains that were going to move through the site would create a problem for distribution tenants, who do not want to wait for trains.

Their solution?

The developer just built an overpass so trucks would not have to wait for the trains.

Riverside has a large number of rail crossings, and everyday more than 100 trains roll right through the city, delaying traffic and increasing pollution.

Who pays for these negative externalities? Well, whenever there is a cost, there will also be an economic model.

One can think of this in classic environmental economics terms. Most people are easier with the "polluter pays" principal, meaning that Riverside (the victim) wants the trains (the polluter) to pay for the infrastructure.

Or, Riverside could pay the trains not to pollute, essentially bribe the polluter to pollute less.


The crux of the issue is property rights. If the property rights were very clearly established, it would be evident who should foot the bill.

In economic reasoning, it does not really matter who pays what, since the outcome will be the same. Who pays really depends on if the rail company has the "right" to pollute or it does not.
Which is what Riverside is trying to figure out.

CMBS, Lenders, Foreclosure and You

Wells Fargo sues owners of Riverton Apartments, a 1,230-unit complex in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood, because the owners have not made payments since October.

Wells Fargo is acting on behalf of investors who bought CMBS in which the property is included.

From the article:

The loan is serving as an indicator of how mortgage holders will handle delinquencies on commercial real estate that’s “underwater,” meaning the property value has fallen so much that it’s worth less than the outstanding loan. If Riverton is sold in a foreclosure, it will also help investors estimate the market price of similar properties.

“Market participants want a gauge of recovery value for CMBS bondholders on other multifamily loans predicated on performance projections that now appear untenable,” said Andy Day, a commercial mortgage-backed securities analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York.

This may prove to be a test case for how this whole CMBS system will unwind. CMBS may prove to be to commercial real estate what sub-prime loans were for residential properties. The concept is similar, in that many loans (mortgages) are packaged into one security with pieces bought and sold.

What happens when the whole system collapses because the underlying security is worth less then the loan has been a huge question that needs to be answered before the market can hope to recover.

Why are prices so high in Japan?

Perhaps their distribution system is partly to blame.

The Bulky, Rigged Distribution System
(Or: Do you really need 3 people to
wrap your hamburger?)

For a business to succeed in Japan, it needs at least 2 essential things. One of course is capital. The other, however, is control of the distribution channels, and this is where many foreign firms fall short.

Japan's distribution system is a complex maze and their are thousands of regulations to follow. This system is currently strangling the domestic economy. After WWII, Japan had millions of people who needed work fast. So a system was made that employed lots of workers, though many of the jobs were (and still are)redundant. Also there are often several wholesalers sitting between the producer and retailer, each taking their cut. This is one of the principal reasons why just sending the value of the dollar through the floorboards didn't work. From Sept. '85 the value of the dollar vs. the yen fell by more than half. Yet products in Japan made from imported parts/ingredients didn't budge. The real reason was that the middlemen were eating up nearly all the savings. When the dollar hit 100 yen, the Japanese booksellers still used the old 175 yen/dollar rate, and didn't pass any savings on to the consumers. (You'd be wise to buy whatever books you want in Japan before you come, since the very same books in Japan will cost 2 or 3 times more). In 2000 Merill Lynch economist Jesper Koll noted that Japan has 392,000 wholesalers -- a staggering number. Yet two-thirds of them just sold things to eachother and not retailers or producers, and four-fifths of Japanese wholesalers have less than 10 employees each.

Distribution channels in Japan are extremely exclusive -- usually an arrangement to carry your goods also means only your goods and no competitors. Then they have to fight it out with eachother for the store owners to carry their products on the best shelves; space being extremely limited. For decades Japanese people were told (and they accepted) the notion that higher prices were necessary to keep the whole nation employed--and Japan has had the lowest unemployment rates in the industrialized world. Also with land prices so high storage costs are also wildly expensive, and with Japan's narrow, poky streets large and cheaper distribution is impossible. Docking fees for ships and planes is also insanely high, and it can cost more to ship something across Tokyo than to ship it across the world. High gasoline taxes and expensive electricity also make transport more expensive. In many ways Japan's distribution system makes up the largest Non-Tariff Barrier (NTB).

So it looks like we could cure deflation and increase employment by creating a hugely ineffective distribution system.

Developer Services Blog

A friend of mine recently started his own blog. He is also a member of the commercial real estate world. He works at Coldwell Banker, the original CB.

Check it out

Stimulus Watch

Interesting site tracking what mayors are asking the government for.

Below are the "shovel-ready" projects for which this city has requested federal stimulus funding.

You can click on a project to read (and add to) its description. You can also discuss the project and vote on whether you believe it is critical or not.

The total cost of all the projects submitted by San Bernardino is $617,767,700.


Light Rail Service from San Bernardino to Redlands
Construction of San Bernardino Downtown Transit Center
Metrolink Line Extension and Platform Relocation to San Bernardino Downtown Transit Center
Relocation and Construction of Administrative Annex Building for San Bernardino City Unified School District and San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools
City Hall and Parking Structure Seismic Retrofit and Rennovation
New Community Center in Verdemont
sbX Bus Rapid Transit Project - Additional Funds to Complete Project and Provide Additional Center Running Lane Area
Local Street & Public Alley Improvement Projects: street reconstruction and repair; bridge repair; ADA improvements, traffic signals; sidewalk repairs and additions
Mountain View Avenue Bridge Project (Central Avenue south to I-10), including reconstruction and expansion of 1.7 miles of roadway and a new bridge spanning the Santa Ana River.
Third Street and Fifth Street aterial roadway, drainage, and infrastructure improvements (from Tippecanoe Avenue east to SR-210)

Question & Answers on IE Industrial

I received an email from Kari Hamanaka of the California Real Estate Journal asking some questions on the Inland Empire industrial market.

I had to preface it with the disclaimer that the thoughts and views expressed on my blog are not exactly that of Colliers International.

Developers have been the best clients for my brokers, and their fates are closely intertwined. As such I was put a little on the defensive with some of these questions.

Developers are the agents of supply in this business, who are tasked with trying to gauge the demand for their products and plan accordingly. We could argue that greed took over their better judgement in the past few years, and that they overshot supply. In retrospect, we did not need as much leverage, we did not need as many buildings, we did not need to make as much money as we did when the times were good. We recommended the boom and we should own up to the bust.

Perhaps the silver lining is that now research, whose job it is of measuring demand and keeping track of supply, will be in higher demand. Research: when the s$*! hits the fan, you want to know how fast it is spinning.

Inland Empire Forecast Article Questions:

-You refer to the eastern Inland Empire region as a "flaming wreckage" in your blog post ("Inland Empire Industrial: Worse in 2009?," posted Jan. 14) – how would you describe the west?

The East Inland Empire was the hottest market in the United States for 2004-2007, leading the nation in both construction and absorption, but flaming wreckage is a bit of hyperbole. During that time it made sense to build these large speculative buildings because supply chains were long, there was tremendous demand for high velocity distribution centers and the only place near the San Pedro ports to build them was in the Inland Empire.

The West did not have the supply boom and related problems that the East had, so in that regard the West is in much better shape. Tenants in the West have been in their buildings for a number of years, and they are stable credit tenants (the definition of a credit tenant is changing now, however). The problem the West is going to have is to try to keep these tenants, to go into damage control and focus on retention.

And they are having a tougher time; in 2008 the West had -7.8 million SF of negative absorption. Tenants are leaving for other markets, downsizing, or going out of business. And the West in not only competing with the East anymore, tenants have the whole Los Angeles Basin to choose from as rents are coming down and vacancy rate are increasing basin-wide.

-What factors have caused the conditions in the east – was it all the spec development?

Supply and demand. At the top of the market, the only real constraint was land. Demand was more or less an afterthought in many of these properties as optimism ran high. This can be seen in many of the pro formas that were used to justify the spec developments, assumptions on rent growth and occupancy rates that no longer hold true.

This would not be the case if the demand side of the equation had held up, which it has not. Now is a scary time to be a tenant as business conditions are very shaky. So supply has increased, while demand has decreased and the only way to reach a new equilibrium is for prices (rents) to decline.

This problem is that a lot of institutional landlords are very sticky on their rents. These firms have diverse portfolios and incentives that go beyond the local market, they have investment criteria to meet and shareholders to account for so they are not as flexible as an individual landlord with a mortgage payment might be.

Spec development, the recession / reduction in tenant demand and the expectations gap between landlords and tenants have caused the current market conditions in the East.

-Do we just chalk up all the spec development built in the last few years as victims of poor timing, or should developers have been more cautious - or, did all signs, both from the standpoint of the economy and from user demand, point to yes, the region could support all of that industrial space?

I would say that the industrial building boom in the East Inland Empire is analogous to the office building boom that happened in the mid 1980’s and many of the factors that applied then also apply now.

For one, you have buildings that serve as investments for large institutions. The “value” of these (permanent) buildings to these investors is the rates of return these buildings deliver, which depend on market prices (which change based on supply and demand). These institutions do not need the space for their own use, they are at the mercy of the market and used significant leverage to increase their rate of return.

The problem occurs because unlike other investment vehicles (stocks etc), there is a significant lag between supply and demand, real estate cannot be moved, and it is difficult to distinguish between permanent and transient changes in market conditions. People assumed that what occurred in the past few years would carry forward for all time. A transient increase in lease rates (tight market conditions) sent the signal that additional investment was needed. It was unknown how much new space would be needed and developers built in anticipation of increasing rents and tight market conditions.

The problem is that real estate is not a perfect market; there is a lag time between when the signal to build more buildings occurs and the 1-2 years it takes to actually entitle and construct a building. All these developers were looking at the same information and drawing the same conclusions.

I cannot fault these developers, the signal to build existed very strongly in 2004 as trade exploded and firms looked to expand into the Inland Empire. The problem did not occur until conditions changed dramatically in 2007. This is the nature of the real estate business; this is an industry prone to booms and busts. There is tremendous potential during the booms, and cheap money then made it really easy to build more than we should have, but unfortunately we have to live with the busts as well.

The information in 2004 did support more construction, but imperfect information and imperfect markets led us to overshoot supply.

-Is this the end of spec development at least for the short-term?
Yes.

-Based on what you're seeing in the market, are we seeing a return back to regional distribution centers and a move away from the big box industrial that the region is known for? If so, is this a short-term trend, or something that will impact development patterns long-term?

Gas prices had me really worried that we would see more of a regional distribution model (smaller, local warehouses). There is a tradeoff between transportation costs and warehousing costs and any saving companies had in a reduction in warehousing costs via a regional distribution center (economies of scale, modern facilities, cheaper rent, etc) were being destroyed by $140 a barrel oil. Companies were rethinking their supply chains and many less than truckload companies (which are more fuel intensive) went out of business.

I think the long supply chains that made the Inland Empire market possible, goods being manufactured in China and shipped to Inland Empire centers, peaked and will not return for some time. I think volatile fuel prices and falling demand have suppliers thinking about their profitability and margins more than in the past. When the economy was about consumption and the velocity of goods was high the regional distribution center made a lot of sense, since these centers were built to move good and not to store them. Now that goods are not moving at the same pace as they were in the past, the demand for these centers has fallen.

Hover, I think the regional distribution model is here to stay and here is why. Trade will remain focused on several global hubs, and Southern California is not only the largest trading hub in the United States, dominating US trade with Asia, but Southern California is a final destination for many of the goods entering the country. Southern California is also the largest manufacturing center in the US, and also has a very large apparel component, and those goods need to be stored and shipped elsewhere.

-What about factors such as activity at the ports and the environmental regulations for the trucking industry - how has that impacted industrial?

The Clean Truck Program, TWIC, and container fees can all be seen as taxes on the trucking industry. They raise the cost of business. This will further squeeze the margins of independent trucking firms who pass on the cost.

In a larger context these taxes make Southern California less attractive for importers, but with few other options in terms of importing goods, firms have to absorb or pass on those costs. We have to be careful, there is competition from Canadian and Mexican ports as well as the threat of container traffic passing through the Panama Canal to the East Coast ports.

-Is there anything to be learned from past recessions' impacts on I.E. industrial that can be applied to our current situation?

The early 1990’s is a good example for the Inland Empire. The West Inland Empire was the fringe of development at that time and when the recession in the early 1990’s started, buyers and users were nowhere to be found. It was normal to have a vacant building for 2 years at that time as demand for large warehouse space was non-existent. The market was prolonged negative absorption for big box space until around 1995 when momentum started to pick back up. Brokers survived from 1991 to 1995 by leasing small tenants and small owner users. It was not until 1999 that construction started to come back and the next cycle started.

The brokers who started out in the early 1990’s are some of our most successful brokers, due to surviving in these adverse conditions.

The lesson is that things will be tough as the market corrects, but those who can make it in this market will be in a very good position when it recovers. And it will recover.

-In your Jan. 14 blog posting you wrote, "I disagree when people say that this recession will be over by such and such a date. They do not know, and their guess is just as good as anybody." Rather than ask you when you suspect we will hit the bottom and when the recession will be over, what factors will it take to get I.E. industrial back up and running again?

For a large part, the Inland Empire industrial base is concentrated in logistics/ distribution. There are a lot of industrial users in construction related industries. To get these industries back up and running housing construction would have to return and the American consumer will need to get back to spending and imports will need to rise.

17.2 percent decline in Railroads

The decline in intermodal containers probably has a lot to do with declining imports.

Railroad shipping: AAR reports January volumes are off by 17.2 percent

Jeff Berman, Group News Editor -- Logistics Management, 2/6/2009

WASHINGTON—Railroad traffic had another tough month in January, volumes down across the board for the third straight month, according to data from the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

The AAR said that United States rail carload traffic declined 17.2 percent—or 221,426 carloads—to 1,067,548 carloads during the first four weeks of 2009 compared to the first four weeks of 2008. Intermodal traffic, which is not included in carload volumes, fall 12.9 percent—or 116,823 trailers and containers—to 788,115 units in January, and total January volume was estimated at 113.3 billion ton-miles, which was off by 15.9 percent year-over-year, said the AAR.

Of the 19 commodities tracked by the AAR, none saw a monthly gain in January. Motor vehicles and equipment and metallic ores were down 63.0 percent and 55.5 percent, respectively. Coal was off by 3.3 percent, and lumber & wood products saw a 37.7 percent dip.

In an interview with LM, AAR Director of Editorial Services Tom White said there are clearly not a whole lot of positive takeaways that can be gleaned from this data. And the last time a recession with double-digit declines impacted railroad volumes to this extent, said White, was in 1982.

“Hopefully things will pick up later in the year, but I don’t know when we are going to be at the bottom or if we already are,” said White. “We still may have a little further to go…it is still hard to tell.”

And the severe recession is now negatively affecting every major rail market, said AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray, in a statement.

“Nevertheless, railroads are planning to maintain a strong level of re-investment in 2009, as they have for the last several years,” said Gray. “Actual re-investment levels will depend to some extent to how deep the recession goes and how long it lasts, but railroads know that they have to invest today to have the rail capacity America needs for tomorrow.”

White said it is likely that capital expenditure spending may be down by as much as ten percent in 2009, but he added that is still fairly high especially when compared to 1982, when capital expenditures by AAR members was down about 30 percent.

This shows that major railroads are all still very positively thinking towards the future, and they think that the trends that led to increases in railroad volume before the economy dipped will continue, and that is one reason you still see railroads investing in things like double tracking, working on clearances, building more passing sidings,” said White. “Long term initiatives are what we are investing in.”

Even with the economy having a sharp impact on declining railroad volumes, the railroad industry in actually better positioned to absorb the negative impacts of a recession than it ever was in the past 50 years, White told LM in a recent interview.

The reason for this, explained White, is that because over the past number of years railroads have been able to invest a great deal of money into infrastructure and things that strengthen the industry long-term.

“That is all very positive, as well as the fact that balance sheets headed into the recession were very strong,” said White. “This speaks well to the railroad industry’s ability to weather the recession and be in a strong position once the economy really does turn around.”

Unemployment & Wages

Well, the bad news is that almost 600,000 Americans lost their jobs in January. The unemployment rate is now 7.6%, a 16 year high.

The good news is that average hourly wages has increased to $18.46, up 5 cents.

My guess is that people are really not being paid more. My guess is that most of these 600,000 Americans made less, far less, than the $18.41 average wage. Thus wages are not really increasing but fewer poor people are employted to drag the average down.

M&M being sued for fraud

Innocent until proven guilty, I guess.

Small investors accused a prominent California real estate brokerage and a former Orange County businessman in a lawsuit Wednesday of taking part in an elaborate scam that fleeced individual investors out of millions of dollars in recent years.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Jose, alleges that brokers at Marcus & Millichap allegedly took part in a conspiracy to buy small commercial properties, artificially inflate their values and sell them to
unsuspecting investors.

The lawsuit was filed as a class action on behalf of 16 investors, mostly Californians, who bought 22 properties in four states. The suit seeks as much as $70 million in compensatory damages and up to $200 million altogether with punitive damages and treble damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law.Also named as defendants were Paul A. Morabito, 45, a former Laguna Beach businessman and state official who now resides in Nevada, and Florida businessman Jack Waelti.Representatives at Marcus & Millichap, based in Encino, said they wouldn't be able to comment until they had reviewed the lawsuit. Morabito and Waelti could not be reached for comment.

"This scheme was employed with nearly mathematical precision and demonstrates a formula of fraud," said plaintiffs' attorney David J. George, a partner in the San Diego law firm Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins.The lawsuit alleges that Morabito and Waelti bought small franchises of Jiffy Lube and Church's Chicken, among others, and the real estate where the businesses were located.They then sold the properties to a subsidiary of Marcus & Millichap and leased them back at rents well above standard market rates, the suit contends. Based on those rents, the brokerage sold the properties to investors at inflated prices, the suit alleges. Morabito and other tenants then closed the businesses, leaving the investors with greatly devalued real estate, according to the suit."

Factory Orders Down, Supply Chain Trickledown in Effect

December new factory orders down 3.9%

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Showing persistent troubles for the manufacturing sector, new orders for manufactured goods fell 3.9% in December for the fifth consecutive month of declines -- the longest downward streak since comparable data was first published in 1992, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Economists polled by MarketWatch were looking for a decline of 3.3%. New orders for durable goods fell a revised 3%, compared with a prior estimate of a 2.6% decline. New orders for durable goods also reached five consecutive months of declines for the longest streak since comparable data has been published.

Nondurable goods orders in December fell 4.8%, compared with 8.7% in the prior month. Core capital equipment orders fell 3.2% in December, compared with a gain of 1.1% in the prior month. Shipments of manufactured goods in December fell 2.9%, declining for five consecutive months in the longest streak since 1998.

Inventories in December fell 1.4%, the largest decline since comparable has been published.

As new orders decline, shipments will also decline and inventories will then decline. Remember that the buildup in inventories is what kept GDP higher than thought. This may or may not be the case going forward.

A decrease in demand will lower the quantity demanded, putting downward pressure on price. (Deflation?) A reduction in the supply of goods will mean less will be produced (what this information suggests). A reduction in supply comes at the expense of jobs, since less is needed, fewer hands are also needed. This will cause layoffs and falling stock prices (and then more layoffs). This in turn will lower the demand for goods (More Deflation?), meaning that less will be produced ...

This to me looks like a drop in aggregate demand. I remember a video one of my professors used to illustrate the effects of a drop in aggregate demand.

There was a farmer with a basket of little chicks (that would normally end up as chicken dinners) and he was pouring them into bucket of water to drown them (I hope this practice is illegal now). The guy was pretty upset about the whole thing, but it would cost more to raise the chickens than to sell them, so he was only acting in his own self interest.

Two things:

1. I was surprised they could show this on television, it was pretty gruesome.

2. It hit home the fact that economic incentives can make for some pretty hard choices. I am not sure what the farmer will do next: if it is more expensive to work than to not work, what do you do? Where does it end?

ISM Index down but still up

The PMI numbers for January are in.

PMI at 35.6, up from 23.1 in December.

The industries reporting growth in January — listed in order — are: Textile Mills; and Petroleum & Coal Products

The industries reporting contraction in January — listed in order — are: Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; Paper Products; Plastics & Rubber Products; Transportation Equipment; Printing & Related Support Activities; Fabricated Metal Products; Computer & Electronic Products; Primary Metals; Chemical Products; Wood Products; Machinery; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Furniture & Related Products; and Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products.

Will have to wait for Feb numbers to see if this is a trend or just noise.

Feeling Poorer? Personal Income and Outlays December 2008

BEA just released December numbers for disposable personal income.

Personal income decreased $25.3 billion, or 0.2 percent, and disposable personal
income (DPI)decreased $25.1 billion, or 0.2 percent, in December, according to
the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Is this good news? Maybe, when you look at what happened in November.

In November,personal income decreased $44.0 billion, or 0.4 percent, DPI
decreased $33.9 billion, or 0.3 percent, and PCE decreased $77.8 billion, or 0.8
percent, based on revised estimates.

Why is disposable income important?

Well, one of the most fundamental and strongest relationships in economics has to do with income and consumption. This is the consumption function which we all learned way back when in into economics.

It basically states that the more money you have, the more money you will spend. Pretty self-explanatory.

So if the DPI decreased by $25 billion in December that means that your average American could have spent $81 fewer dollars this month, but did not. Which means that businesses need less people, so more are unemployed, which reduces the DPI further, which leads to more layoffs etc.

There are a couple of things that the government can do right away to increase DPI (theoretically).

1. One is to lower taxes. Fewer taxes means that the average consumer would have more money in his pocket to buy things. This may not work simply because people who have more money may choose to save this money rather than spend it. Compared with other investment option available to the average person right now, the best way to save money may be to pay down debt. Deleveraging is not only for corporations.

2. Government transfer payments (unemployment, etc.) The government gives money to people who in turn spend it. Again the problem might be that people save the money rather than spend it.