Dallas Fed Survey Unexpectedly Drops: Respondents Warn “Biden Political Mentality” Means “Recession Being Planned For And Acted Upon”

The headline Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey disappointed in December, falling to -18.8 (from -14.4 and expected to rise very modestly to -13.5)

Interestingly the outlook for six-months ahead improved (but remains negative), but you wouldn’t know it judging by the responses that The Dallas Fed decided to release for publication… notice a pattern?

Food Manufacturing

• Business has picked up from a lull in October/November. We’re expecting a strong first quarter 2023.

• Late-year seasonality affects our business. We generally see a slowdown from Thanksgiving through the end of the year.

• The combination of increased costs of raw ingredients, illiquid consumers and the need to retain employees via increasing benefits has created a difficult environment. Couple that with the Biden political mentality of things, and it is unhealthy for business.

Paper Manufacturing

Printing and Related Support Activities

• We can feel things slowing down. Estimating activity is really down from previous months, and incoming orders have dropped off as well. It seems that our material vendors are getting items out faster, and all talk about how the activity level has slowed down from earlier in the year.

• I think we are experiencing a year-end lull in business activity. We actually have no idea what to expect for 2023.

• We are seeing more and bigger orders recently. Oil companies are spending money on projects that they have held back on this past year. We expect 2023 to be a very good year. Our backlog of orders is growing to a record.

• Never doubt the ability of the Federal Reserve to crush the economy when they intervene to stop inflation.