Durable goods dropped sharply, and the data on manufacturing was also disappointing.
Durable goods purchased dropped 1.7% in May, compared with a 0.3% decrease in April.
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Orders for defense aircraft and other military goods also dropped.
Go back just a few more days, to last Friday, and there was another report that the Obama campaign would like to crumple up: U.S. durable-goods orders dropped by 0.4 percent in July, excluding the volatile transportation sector.
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Employment in the service-providing sector of the economy grew 64, 000, while employment in the goods-producing sector dropped 54, 000 for its 17th consecutive monthly decline.
Even though durable goods orders have now dropped for seven of the last eight months, Friday's report does indicate that the economy's downward momentum is waning.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which measures the output of the country's goods and services, dropped an annual rate of 1.8% in the latest quarter - a much steeper decline than even the most pessimistic economists had predicted.
The supply has dropped, since suppliers tend to produce goods whose prices are unregulated.
The latest batch of durable goods data revealed that orders for military aircraft dropped 63.8% in January, as the government tightened its defence spending, while orders for non-defence aircraft fell 34%.
If you doubt that the economics of the university system are broken, consider this: Since 1960, the real cost of goods in nearly every other sector of American life has dropped.
In sector terms, the goods-producing businesses cut 72, 000 from their payrolls and manufacturing businesses dropped 48, 000.
In sector terms, the goods-producing businesses cut 72, 000 from their payroll, and manufacturing businesses dropped 48, 000.
Michigan's unemployment rate has dropped in recent months, thanks to the addition of 10, 000 jobs in durable-goods manufacturing.
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One distributor in Dubai shipped goods to Iran, flouting the rules of its contract. (Pera quickly dropped him.) The U.S. Department of Commerce issued Ubiquiti a warning letter asking the company to upgrade its systems so it can better track where shipments are going.
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Last year, the overall cost of food dropped 0.5%--the largest decline since 1961, with the price of dairy goods falling by 7.6%, their biggest drop since the Great Depression.
Corresponding to the decline in luxury consumer confidence, the average amount spent by affluent consumers on luxury goods and services in the second quarter 2011 declined by 8.4 percent from the first quarter and dropped 18.4 percent over same quarter last year, according to the survey.
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