At Reuters, Ryan McCarthy
writes:
It’s a holiday week, which means that you should be doing relatively little. Unfortunately, the world economy seems to be doing exactly the same.
In the US, today’s data from the [Institute for Supply Management] showed “contraction in the manufacturing sector for the first time since July 2009.″ [...] There were two particularly troubling data points. No one seemed very interested in buying things —new orders fell at the fastest pace in a decade; and people paid less for those things—prices paid fell at the fastest rate since just after 9/11. This is, as one analyst put it to the [Wall Street Journal], a bad omen: “It is only a matter of time before the service sector mirrors the real goods slowdown and overall employment gains move from sluggish to worse.”
In its own manufacturing index released today, Markit Economics suggested the US manufacturing industry is slowing, but not quite in contraction. But like the ISM report, Markit’s data also showed that new orders fell. And the company’s own economist acknowledged that "the ISM suggests something drastic happened in June."
Not just in America. Seventeen of the world's largest 24 economies show manufacturing PMIs—
purchasing managers index—in contraction.
All this adds more shadow to the monthly jobs report coming out Friday. If it's a weak one, and so far almost all data points in that direction, it will be the fourth such report in a row.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003:
We are often told that the dKos community is some sort of alternate universe, often at odds with the American people and their love affair with George Bush.
Well, every once in a while, things don't look so bleak:
For the first time since the beginning of the war in Iraq, a solid majority of Americans believe the Bush administration either "stretched the truth" about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or told outright lies, according to a new opinion survey.
The poll by the University of Maryland found that 52 percent of respondents said they believed President George W. Bush and his aides were "stretching the truth, but not making false statements" about Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
Another 10 percent said US officials were presenting Congress, the American public and the international community "evidence they knew was false," indicated the survey which was made public Tuesday.
The corollary is particularly telling: only 32 percent of Americans believe the US government was "fully truthful" in its rationales for war.
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