The economy's traditional foundation is solid:
The 10.9 percent rise in [factory] orders for all of 2004 was helped by a 0.6 percent gain in December, which followed an even bigger 1.8 percent November increase as the year ended on a strong note."Manufacturing came back later in this expansion than it normally does. But last year, it looks like it finally came back," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York.
The annual increase in orders was the biggest since an 11.8 percent jump in 1994 in the midst of the booming economy of the 1990s.
How is the news being reported in some quarters? Productivity, the amount of work accomplished per unit of labor, has been increasing remarkably over the last several years as technology simplifies business, beefs up industry bottom lines and lowers consumer prices. A streamlined operation, of course, requires fewer hands than with superceded equipment — so comfortable obsolescence being more important to the press than usefulness, we read about "slow hiring."
Next headline? "Country Reaches Full Employment, Companies Desperately Understaffed."