![[Valid Atom 1.0]](valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
PROGNOSIS * USA - Road to US recovery likely long
The worst will likely be over by the time 2008 is done, but there's still no quick fix for the American economy and freight volumes
Las Vegas,NV,USA -Today's Trucking (Toronto,ONT,CAN) -22 Jan 2008: -- ... a group of economic forecasters told a theatre full of truck manufacturing execs yesterday... Speaking at the Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association's (HDMA) Heavy Duty Dialogue conference here in Las Vegas, Martin Regalia, chief economist for the US Chamber of Commerce predicted a 45 percent chance the U.S. economy doesn't get out of 2008 without being hit by the dreaded R word -- recession. The good news, though, is that there's a better than 50 percent the eye of the storm could be avoided... "The economy is not hitting on all cylinders and there are significant weak spots," Regalia said, pointing out housing and lending sectors as two of the more obviously troubled industries... The first truck sales predictions for 2008 were also thrown around at Heavy Duty Dialogue... Generally, Brady, Kenny Vieth, partner with A.C.T Research, and ML Associates President Martin Labbe, suggested between 230,000 to 250,000 North American class 8 factory sales in 2008 and up to 270,000 in 2009. The animated Stu MacKay of MacKay & Co. was more pessimistic, suggesting a "base core" demand of only 200,000 U.S. sales this year... "The market will be based on not much more than replacement demand," he said... All the panelists acknowledged that an array of "wildcards" -- the price of oil and the scale of another pre-buy in advance of the 2010 emission regulations, for example -- could quickly change those projections... Looking beyond this decade, Regalia warned of the possibility of more volatility even if the economy starts to recover in the short-term. He noted that about $3 trillion in tax cuts expire between 2012 and 2014, and if something's not done to preserve them, then "that's $3 trillion in tax increases"... That kind of added cost on taxpayers -- plus inflation and the burden to fix U.S. health care and a crumbling highway infrastructure -- could seriously corrode consumers' ability to buy goods, and therefore, trucking companies' ability to ship them, Regalia says...
Labels: markets prognosis
posted by Unknown @ 9:49 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home