<new orders part, which was weaker with the price paid jumping higher - this spells stagflation >
Not exactly much more serious than that, look at the inventories numbers too, extremely low, that signals bottleneck and input goods shortages and inflation all up and down the supply chain. This genesis of this situation is on the supply side, not end demand side. End demand is quite robust. These outfits need the workers now, they have orders to fill, but can't hire as much as they'd like, because input goods aren't available or are being priced rationed. In otherwords the orders are there, workers are available, but you have to have affordable raw and intermediate goods on hand to produce, and that's lacking now. In a month or two this will be so critical that a large portion of the world's industrial base will collapse in a classic supply chain boom-bust. Obviously monetary policy can't print copper, iron ore, soybeans, lumber and on and on either. In fact too loose and inflationary monetary played a key role in the cause of this Train Wreck, and as of this morning there is absolutely no effort (China may have something up their sleeve, I think a re-peg) to counteract it. Choo choo choo.
Train Wreck component du jour. February's true inflation number (if reported) is going to be HUGE!:
biz.yahoo.com |
