The Federal Reserve is publishing a 0.8% increase from last month in in industrial production Here is a copy of the detailed report.

The breakdown in industrial production was:

• manufacturing: +1.0%
• mining: +1.4%
• utilities: -1.3%

Capacity growth is -1.3% for the year and in manufacturing, -1.5%. This means the actual amount of potential facilities and ways to make stuff has dropped. Think closed factories as you drive through the Midwest. Utilities dropping just means it's getting hotter earlier, so watch that spike in the Summer when AC comes roaring on.

For industrial production the marketing group major changes are:

• Final Products: +0.5%
• Consumer goods: +0.2%
• Business equipment: +1.0%
• Nonindustrial supplies: +1.3%
• Construction: +2.8%
• Materials: +1.0%

Recall percentages are all relative. Below is a graph of industrial production on a longer time period scale. As one can see it's still way below the December 2007 (start of this recession) level, but moving up, now hitting 2004 levels.

The below graphs show the overall decline of U.S. capacity utilization. These graphs show the U.S. is simply not producing what it is capable of, a reflection of the output gap.

Below is the Manufacturing capacity utilization graph. The financial press will report blow outs, so it's important to compare capacity utilization to pre-recession levels.