Breitbart Business Digest: Durable Goods Orders Are Up 8 Percent This Year, and the Media Is 'Surreal' About It
The column cites a Census Bureau release to argue the factory rebound is real, and answers Politico and Axios. It is commentary, and the numbers are the author's reading of public data.
Breitbart's business newsletter argues that factory data keep showing a boom that Washington media will not admit. This is a commentary column, and these are its arguments.
The numbers. The column points to Tuesday's Census Bureau durable goods release. It says new orders are up 8.0 percent for the year through September, core capital goods orders up 10.9 percent, machinery up 13.4 percent and computer and related equipment up 20.3 percent. Against the first nine months of 2024, President Biden's last year, it puts durable goods orders up 15.9 percent, and core capital goods orders up 6.4 percent after adjusting for equipment prices. Shipments are also up, it says: durable goods 8.5 percent and computers 18.8 percent.
The Politico claim. Politico called the boom a "surrealist dream" and warned that manufacturing construction spending is in "free fall," down from about $250 billion a year in late 2024 to $170 billion in August. The column replies that August spending is still more than double the August 2019 pace, and that the drop is concentrated in computer, electronics and electrical equipment plants, which it says were pulled forward by subsidies from the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure law. It adds that data center construction, counted as office construction, hit an annualized $85 billion, and that factories plus data centers come to about $253 billion a year.
The Axios claim. Axios said job gains are lopsided toward advanced manufacturing. The column notes that those industries added 56,000 jobs while the rest lost 16,000, but says three traditional sectors, fabricated metals, electrical equipment and primary metals, added 47,400 jobs, more than the 40,000 net jobs added by all manufacturing. It also says some losses in paper, apparel and printing may be tied to deportations and workers moving to growing industries.
Note for readers: this is one side of an ongoing argument, and the column's own reading of the data. We have not checked the figures, and the cause of the job losses it suggests is a guess, not a finding.