The collapse of manufacturing

by: Brian Meents

We all know that the economy is bad and that the industrial industry in particular has been hit very hard. This article provides some very interesting statistics that show just how bad some areas have been effected. Some examples include : In Germany December’s machine-tool orders were 40% lower than a year earlier. Half of China’s 9,000 or so toy exporters have gone bust. Taiwan’s shipments of notebook computers fell by a third in the month of January. The number of cars being assembled in America was 60% below January 2008. Industrial production fell in the latest three months by 3.6% and 4.4% respectively in America and Britain (equivalent to annual declines of 13.8% and 16.4%). But on the bright side I am guessing that air pollution also declined pretty significantly.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13144864&source=hptextfeature