If you're making fewer things, then you need fewer people to transport them, and fewer people to finance them, and fewer people to distribute them down the line. So it's important, and it's key to the current state of the economy.

A lot of people are surprised. I am too. I hesitate to read too much into one month's number, but certainly it does indicate that the worst may have passed for factory activity.

There used to be a lot fewer people and you tended to know them all. I don't know who and the [heck] all these people are. When I started coming here there weren't the agents, there weren't the gurus, there weren't the equipment salesmen. There were members and press and players and families.

This would be an indication that activity is increasing at more than half the manufacturing firms in the survey, and another sign of growth.

Businesses are simply not able to pass any additional costs through to final consumers. They were bargain hunters in good times, and now they're really bargain hunters . This says there is room for the Fed to do whatever it needs to do to maintain growth.

It is outstanding to see such growth with not even any inflation,