US Economy May Have Bottomed

       Despite the ISM manufacturing numbers which contracted for the first time since June, 2009 this may be true.

      As far as the manufacturing numbers go, just about every major industrial power was down. The US contracted but only slightly at 49.7. Actually that was still better than the readings of the other major powerhouses except Japan who still technically contracted at 49.9.

     Germany actually had a major contraction at 45.0. China was at 48.2 The only one to rise was Britain that was up 2.7% to 48.6. I'm sure that's more than enough for Sumner to declare the UK a Market Monetarist success story.

      However, there is good news for the US: the housing market is believed by many economists to have bottomed. May construction numbers beat to the upside and had the best numbers in awhile. Sales figures last week suggest that the home buying we saw at the start of the year was about more than warm weather.  And Auto makers posted a 26% jump in U.S. sales of new vehicles despite increasing problems in the global economy.

      And this morning US stocks have risen on a rise on factory orders:

       "Stocks climbed Tuesday after a weak open as investors cheered a better-than-expected factory orders report, but volume is likely to remain thin ahead of a shortened pre-holiday trading session."

        "On the economic front, factory orders rose 0.7 percent in May, according to the Commerce Department. Economists had expected a gain of 0.2 percent, according to a Reuters poll."

         "Stocks recovered most of their losses in the previous session to end flat amid hopes that the Federal Reserve will take more action to support the economy following a manufacturing report that showed an unexpected contraction for the first time since July 2009."

          http://www.cnbc.com/id/48057575

         Of course the Fed hawks will view action like this morning as meaning they don't have to ease further.

         P.S. Happy upcoming 4th. I say this now as I may not have my computer available tomorrow-there are wi-fi connection problems at home which may or may not be fixed by then-the library is close on the 4th of course. So if I want to post tomorrow-and I always want to post, I'll have to do it from MacDonald's.

         I got to say I feel pretty good coming into our Nation's birthday this year-John Roberts deserves much of the gratitude. No matter how much crap your conservatives are going to give you forever about this you're aces in my book.

        And just to add to my good cheer my spell check has unaccountably started working again as mysteriously as it had stopped for the last 6 days. That experience probably made me a better speller and proofreader but I really hated it!