St. Louis economy continues to weaken, Fed says
When the Federal Reserve released its Beige Book economic survey a couple of weeks ago, the St. Louis region was the only area that didn’t report stable or improving economic conditions. It should be no surprise, then, that when the St. Louis Fed drilled into the local economies within its region, it found that eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois aren’t doing so well. Today’s Burgundy Book report on the “St. Louis zone” describes conditions as weak to mixed, but most of the commentary is negative:
- Two-thirds of general retailers and one-third of car dealers reported lower sales (and note that the report is for July and August, when “Cash for Clunkers” should have been stimulating auto sales).
- Manufacturing continued to decline, “with a large number of firms reporting job losses and declines in employment.”
- Home sales and home-building permits declined, and the report noted that “there is little construction work” beyond a few large government, education and health-care projects.
- Banks reported slightly higher loan delinquencies.
If you’re looking for bright spots, crop conditions were good in Missouri and Illinois, so the farmers are having a decent year. Surprisingly, car dealers also were in an optimistic mood: Two-thirds of them expected sales to increase in September and October. Given that the clunkers rebates probably moved up a lot of consumers’ purchasing decisions, and depleted the dealers’ inventory, one wonders how they can justify that optimism.
(2 votes, average: 1 out of 5)
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
it will take a while for the full impact of the American Airlines slashing of direct flights to and from Lambert to sink in to the economic psyche. I know of one fortune 150 company who will now build a proposed expansion complex in New Jersey rather than St. Louis (which was the first site considered) based upon the disincentive to recruit specialists to move to St. Louis combined with the dificulties in getting their sales and support people to travel nationwide.
Oh yeah…who might that be?
And you do?
stl has been dyin for awhile now…1880…we were #5 in size…
in 2020…..we will be the quad cities
Maybe 50+ years of Democratic control is wrong…
How about getting rid of that 1% cash extract scheme.
Uh, St. Louis leaders, we’re not gonna make it on baseball alone.
It wasn’t 50+ years years of Democratic control that caused this, and it was more like 40 years. No it was the last 28 under the Republicans that got us into this mess. It began with Reagan and his tickledown, prison/consumer based/send our jobs over seas economy, then capped off by tax cuts for the rich and two failed, yet costly wars, under W. Off course HW screwed things up too, remember the Keating 5 and his “dealings” with Noreiga? Yes let us get our facts straight, when Reagan’s budget ax fell on education and green technology in 1981, this country began its rapid decent to where we are today. Let us not forget the $10+ trillion in debt that nearly 30 years of Republican control brought our once great nation.
VOTE! - your pocket book and your jobs and your health care and yes sports teams are’nt the answer either, the attenion span of 30 seconds and whats in it for me mentality without regard or morals is killing this America very fast, now where are those chinese lessons…..
On the bright side, I see St. Louis made the GANGLAND series on the history channel. They told all about the free fire zone, the 10,000 gang members. (one in every 35 residents).
It is amazing how people who lack basic knowledge of government, would write here with their opinions. Democrats blame Reagan for the 80’s and give credit to Clinton for the 90’s. Congress controls the purse, so if the 80’s were bad due to cutbacks, blame Tip Oneil and the democrats. Dem’s also like to take credit for the 90’s, however it was the repub’s and newt. Please take civic leason before making statements.
um…all the other cities in America were subjected to the same Republican leadership during the same time. They seem to be doing better than St. Louis (except maybe detroit). So I don’t really think that has anything to do with it. Local leadership shoulders the blame on this one.