U.S. economy continues to grow, but at a discouragingly slow rate

Several other new indicators confirm the message from the Q2 GDP report: the U.S. economy continues to grow, but at a discouragingly slow rate.

Perhaps the most disturbing release last week was the ISM manufacturing survey, whose July index of 49.8 indicated that reports of contractions outnumbered expansions in manufacturing for the second month in a row. But fortunately, there were some other indicators also released last week suggesting things weren't universally that weak.

Source: Calculated Risk.

Autos continue to sell reasonably well, by recent standards anyway. Sales of cars manufactured in North America were up almost 19% from last year and close to July 2007 levels.

rest at http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2012/08/is_this_as_good.html