Tuesday, October 04, 2005
August Printing Shipments Down -$297 Million
The Commerce Department released August printing shipments data today. They were down -$297 million less than 2004. For the year to date they are down -$1.4 billion, a -2.3% decline for the year. On an inflation-adjusted basis (I updated the CPI adjustment, which made the situation look worse, unfortunately), August was down -$586 million, and is down -$3.77 for the year. I'll discuss it more in my Friday WTT column.
Want to see disturbing? Look at the chart that shows the monthly comparisons of 2004 to 2005. The last few months have been awful, and of course get worse when you adjust for inflation. Some of these disappointing data developments were foreshadowed by the Publishers Information Bureau and American Business Media releases I mentioned in this blog a few entries ago. Is there a chance that the rest of the year is really headed down the toilet? There's an unpleasant thought. Hunker down. Reality eventually confronts all budgets; better to do it now.
