“Manufacturing is sputtering in the world’s largest economies,” says a CNN story on Sunday, June 11, actually a collection of reports. “Factories in the U.S. and across the Eurozone reported a decline in new orders for manufacturing goods in May,” according to the data firm S&P Global. The U.S. manufacturing sector “fell into contraction territory in May,” despite escalating defense orders showing up in durable goods manufacturing. “The Institute for Supply Management showed the industry contracted for the seventh consecutive month in May, and at a faster pace than in the prior month.”
As for orders, the Commerce Department reported on June 5 that if military ("defense") manufacturing orders are exempted, U.S. factory orders were down in four of the six months of 2022-2023, from November to April. The figures for durable goods in April were typical of the war economy taking over. April is one of just two months out of the last six when U.S. manufacturing production and orders did not contract. Durable goods orders in April were reported up 1.1%, a big “surprise” when another decline was expected. But this was entirely defense orders; without them, durable goods orders were down −0.6% in April.
