Manufacturing Forecast and Executive Agenda for 2013

Factories will fare better in 2013 than they did last year, but that's a pretty low hurdle to meet. Manufacturing production finished 2012 with a gain of 2.7 percent over December 2011. That might sound decent, but the prior years had shown gains of 7.5 and 4.7 percent. Last year's increase would also sound better if we were nearing full capacity, but capacity utilization remains below normal.