NAPM sinks to 38.90 from 43.5 in September

In the last two months, business activity fell off a cliff. Hurricane Ike and the Boeing strike contributed to the sharp downturn, but the breadth of production losses across industries shows that there is a more fundamental explanation: the U.S. economy is deleveraging.

—Daniel J. Meckstroth, the chief economist of the Manufacturers Alliance

My forecast is I don’t see any economic growth through 2009. The credit crisis reached up and grabbed the throat of the global economy and choked off economic growth.

—Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas