The utilities index hit a new record high.
Industrial Production Month-Over-Month Details
- Industrial Production: 0.7 percent
- Manufacturing: 0.6 percent
- Motor Vehicles and Parts: 1.3 percent
- Consumer Durable Goods: 0.5 percent
- Utilities: 2.1 percent
Industrial Production Index
Industrial Production Index Details
- The utilities index hit a new record high of 113.8 in January.
- The overall index is 102.3 compared to the pre-Covid peak of 104.1. It’s about where it was just prior to the Great Recession.
- The manufacturing index is 98.2 compared to the pre-Covid peak of 101.7. Manufacturing hit an all-time high of 106.4 just prior to the Great Recession.
EV Production
The US lags China and the EU in production.
The US even lags Canada in adoption as Trump looks backward to internal combustion engines and coal.
For discussion, please see February 18, 2026: Chinese EVs Will Soon Come to Canada. How Much Will They Cost?
Popular Chinese EVs expected to arrive in weeks.
I have no use for an EV right now, personally. But those who seldom escape metro areas do.
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Fox pundits are gloating over the Jan 0.7 % increase in IP touting success of the tariff policies. (Sell the news.) Terminal 3-phase 7 April 2025 fractal growth of global composite equities is 53//107//(19/42 of 48 days). After today, there will be 5 trading days of sharply lower trending valuations for equities, crypto, and gold. DJT, the president’s media and fusion equity powerhouse … hit a recent low of 9.88 with only four trading days lower in Sept and Oct of 2021 in its trading history. The next 6 trading days will see a new all-time nadir valuation … correlating to #45-47’s trending popularity.
IMO the big difference in competition between the US and China is in fact power generation.
China is building massive amounts of renewables or nuclear generation. A moderate amount of gas and coal by 2030. I counted over 9,000 of new GW’s feeding Chinas new, modernized or old power grid. Another 3,500 by 2033.
The Trump administration has scrapped most plans for renewables. My AI source cites the fact that the US has only 172 GW of all types of power generation currently planned to feed into our aged grid by 2030. 70% of our grid is obsolete, inefficient and needs replacement
Our cost of power will be going up dramatically and dependence on oil deepened under the current governmental regime.
China’s progressive and command economy power generation will eclipse the US’s and they will be largely independent of oil imports. Power will be far cheaper for their consumers, businesses, factories and AI centers.
Who does Trump work for?
I thought American auto cos would be all over evs. I would think less moving parts and easier to assemble. Ie less labor.
The unions are dead set against fewer jobs.
Contracts prevent job cuts
Will happen eventually anyway
EV’s are useless without power generation or a grid that can support them.
I saw a video of Chinese robots doing kung fu during their Chinese New Year celebration. https://youtu.be/R40IDdAkRZM?si=0dIhxr_5vC65FNZJ
Doing backflips is truly amazing.
Meanwhile in the United States we are good at printing dollars, doing financial deals (moving money around), social media (moving bits and bytes around), and making the average person poorer. In China they are producing real things and apparently are willing to take a lower return on investment to produce things than the higher return on investment of moving money and bytes around. Competition is fierce in China. In the United States competition is dead due to regulatory capture.
Constructing 31 nuclear plants. We’ve retired 40 in recent decades and have plans for ONE. All despite the AI energy demand incoming, which has been known for a while now. Our pants are down.
China’s plan is to innovate. America’s plan is to attack countries to cut off China’s oil and talk our Asian vassals (Japan, Philippines, S Korea) into dying first in a war with China. Brian Berletic gets into it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbjsagsiWls
But we are gonna make coal great again! Can’t wait for the soot and smoke! Maybe we can all get black lung too!
Well China quadrupled theirs, right? We’re gonna need something to bridge the gap thanks to not building nuclear for decades, shuttering others, rapidly trying to restart some, etc. I live near a currently functioning coal plant–produces lots of electricity, no major smoke/soot concern at all. Also live near a nuclear plant, VERY productive. We need all hands on deck, including coal.
… and trumpstien is selling what’s exposed.
Three Mile Island. Nuclear power in the U.S. has never been the same since.
Americans are more affraid of Nuclear power than they are of a $38.7 Trillion national debt. We are in big trouble and no one can see it.
(Except Mish and his readers) And what are we doing about it?