Graphicast just closed the books on the incredible month of November 2011. Our shipments were among the five best months in the last 10 years, and our bookings exceeded our previous best month by over 35%! Our backlog is at its highest level in five years and we’re running 7 days per week. We’re planning a plant expansion, and we can’t get equipment in fast enough as far as we’re concerned.
We’re hearing similar stories from other companies in the state. Although unemployment remains high and the overall economy is slowing growing, there is a major expansion underway in some parallel economy that’s not showing up in the normal data. One explanation is that the manufacturing economy is driven by global economics, not national economics. As there are parts of the world nicely expanding, those of us in manufacturing are expanding as well. I wonder what things would be like if the US economy really took off?