No, really?  Gee, who saw this coming?

And what foreshadowed this report?  Why this Ticker and the article that spawned it.....

Remember, this is the time when Christmas goods are on the way.  You can't order something from China, have it produced, and then have it sent in a ship in a week.  Uh uh.  Those goods have been ordered now, they are in the pipeline for delivery now, or they're not coming.

They're not coming.

Flat to down 1% is insanely optimistic folks.

"Hoofs on the ground" say its even worse than that.

The facts are that in order to get product here you have to order it and it has to be manufactured.  There is simply nothing to indicate that final demand, which is the ultimate arbiter of whether the economy is turning around, has begun to swing upward.

The problem remains clogged credit systems, which cannot be unclogged until the defaulted debt and fraudulently-inflated asset valuations are recognized for what they are and written down to actual value, forcing those defaults through the system and clearing the excessive debt load.

But every action our government has taken thus far has been hell-bent to do exactly the opposite - "extend and pretend" - in the hope that a magical fairy will appear and make it possible for borrowing to restart.