Word: downturn
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...more alarming, TIME'S board stressed that the developing downturn is no longer confined largely to housing and autos, but has now spilled over into so-called feeder industries like steel, machine tools, building supplies and, through them, into the national economy as a whole. Figures released last week by the Federal Reserve Board showed that industrial production dropped by 2.1% in November, the fourth monthly decline in a row. That was the largest one-month slump since May of 1980, and was a clear signal that worse difficulties are still to come. Meanwhile, the Fed also reported that...
Board Member Greenspan warned, however, that the developing downturn could prove to be deeper and longer than expected if capital outlays by business begin to shrivel in the months ahead. So far, most spending plans by businessmen on new plants and equipment have not been shelved or scrapped, and companies are generally pushing ahead with investment programs. Yet Greenspan feared that any dramatic new shock to the economy, such as an unexpected bankruptcy of a major European bank, triggered by a Polish default on its loans, could easily lead to widespread cancellations of business spending plans. But Robert Triffin...
...downturn has been most devastating in two industries particularly sensitive to high interest rates: autos and housing. Car production in December is scheduled to be 21% below last year's already depressed levels. The big automakers and their suppliers have laid off some 600,000 employees. With housing starts at their lowest level in 15 years, the National Association of Home Builders estimates that 20% of the nearly 5 million U.S. construction workers will be out of work this winter...
Several different reasons may be responsible for the decade-long downturn. The determining factor is economic, says Wentzell. "Harvard does not offer scholarships or work-study programs to its managers like some of the bigger schools, so it is understandable that in our economic climate today, not many kids can devote that much time to an activity without getting paid for it." King, who maintains that there is a dearth of managers in all the Ivy League schools, echoes these feelings: "Managing is too much of a time committment for most students with large course-loads. Many big state schools...
...Resources, Inc., a Lexington, Mass., forecasting firm. He predicts a drop of 2% to 3% in total national output, which would mean only a middling slump, "worse than some of the postwar recessions, but not as bad as others." Sinai, however, has some doubt about his forecast. The current downturn, he notes, began less than a year after the short but sharp recession of mid-1980. "A lot of corporations and financial institutions are in weak condition" because they never fully recovered from the first slump, says he, and "there is a good deal of danger that the mortality rate...