RV Sales Shift into Gear!!
Mon Dec 28, 2009
Author: Greg Burns
Source: Chicago Tribune
Dec. 21--Before housing hit the skids, credit got crunched and the unemployment rate shot into double digits, the market for recreational vehicles started to plummet.
Economists view RVs as an early indicator of where the economy is going, and, as it turned out, the rest of the planet followed motor homes and travel trailers right over the edge.
Now comes word that RV sales have started picking up. Airstream Inc. is boosting production of its iconic caravans and expanding its work force by 50 percent.
"Airstream is back on the road to recovery," Chief Executive Bob Wheeler declared. "We can expect to see significant growth."
As decades go, the 2000s ended with such a bust that the 2010s almost can't help but look good in comparison.
With the economy lurching from housing crisis to credit crisis to its ongoing job crisis, it might seem premature to declare a recovery in the offing.
Yet most forecasters expect at least some growth ahead. And by a few measures, the good times already have started rolling again.
Just look at a chart of stock market performance since the bottom in March: Megabucks are being made, and no matter how hard a sheepish Wall Street tries to hide it, bonuses will be enormous.
Conventional wisdom holds that the rich will get richer -- surprise! -- and everybody else in a winner-take-all economy will be downwardly mobile.
But if the assembly workers at Midwest RV plants can stage an unlikely comeback, anybody can. It's just going to take time.
In fact, some of the most optimistic economic experts expect only a slow turnaround in the job market. James Smith, chief economist at Parsec Financial Management Inc., predicted at the low point last winter that the recession would be over as of May 15, a prediction that could turn out exactly on target in the final analysis.
Yet, Gordon believes the U.S. economy will be "really lucky," he said, if it can create enough jobs by the middle of 2013 to equal the level of December 2007.
In other words, catching up will take five and a half years.
"When you lose 7 million-plus jobs, it takes a long time," Smith said. Any economist who expects much better would have to be "a raving maniac," he said.
At the American Seed Trade Association conference in Chicago this month, J&D Construction set up a booth in the hopes of attracting new customers for its agriculture-related building services.
A few years ago, Minnesota-based J&D had more work than it could handle as orders poured in from the ethanol boom. At one point, building biofuel plants accounted for half its business.
"We were spoiled," noted Scott Mitlyng, a veteran sales manager.
