IDLING

Economy is set on idle: Nation's use of capacity is nearing a modern low (JOHN SCHMID, June 28, 2003, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Airlines these days fill little more than half the seats on their planes, leaving hundreds of the world's aircraft sitting idle.

America's automakers have the capacity to build 2 million more cars each year than people buy.

And in 2001 and 2002, the nation's paper-making heartland - concentrated in Wisconsin - decommissioned 104 paper-milling machines, each the length of a football field.

From greasy tool-making machinery to high-speed fiber-optic data lines, the United States has mothballed more industrial equipment this year than it has since 1982.

The shuttered offices and factories - some mutely awaiting an upturn and others closed for good - are a legacy of the longest economic expansion in post-World War II America. The giddy years of the late '90s,before the boom abruptly turned to a bust, left the economy saddled with more capacity than the marketplace can absorb.

And in the view of economists, the years of over-investment are now impeding a broad-based economic revival.

"If you have 26 percent of the capacity of the economy sitting idle, it is hard to sell to your board or your bank that you need to invest in new capacity," said Charles W. McMillion, chief economist of MBG Information Service, a forecasting firm in Washington, D.C.

The reference to "1982" is cause for hope, as we've enjoyed 20 years of uninterrupted economic expansion since that year. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 29, 2003 8:29 AM