{"id":2258,"date":"2007-11-28T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-28T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/the_winnebago_b\/"},"modified":"2007-11-28T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-28T05:01:00","slug":"the_winnebago_b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2007\/11\/the_winnebago_b\/","title":{"rendered":"The Winnebago Bellwether"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve read (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/2005\/03\/24\/cz_js_0324soapbox_inl_print.html\">here<\/a> and elsewhere) that economists have collectively failed to accurately predict a recession in the past 40 years.<br \/>\nSo where should we turn to peer into an economic crystal ball?  Perhaps the nimble <a href=\"http:\/\/www.winnebagoind.com\/\">Winnebago<\/a>.  Yes, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601109&#038;sid=a6uLxnGM9nDA&#038;refer=home\">seriously<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Winnebago Industries Inc., Thor Industries Inc. and other U.S. recreational-vehicle makers will probably say shipments fell in 2007 for the first time in six years, a sign the U.S. economy may be headed for a recession.<br \/>\nFor the past three decades, deliveries of motor homes and travel trailers have dropped before each decline in the U.S. economy, giving the $15 billion industry a reputation as a bellwether. As the U.S. housing slump worsens, gasoline prices rise and consumer confidence wanes, RV sales are forecast to slide this year and next.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I wonder how much gas prices are a factor here.  It seems to me that if you are a baby boomer who can afford to shell out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for an RV, a $1 increase for a gallon of gas might not be a deal breaker.  But that&#8217;s just hypothetical thinking.  I suspect anxiety generated by <a href=\"http:\/\/bigpicture.typepad.com\/comments\/2007\/11\/case-shiller-ho.html\">this trend<\/a> is a bigger culprit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2007\/11\/the_winnebago_b\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to The Winnebago Bellwether\"><p>I&#8217;ve read (here and elsewhere) that economists have collectively failed to accurately predict a recession in the past 40 years. So where should we turn to peer into an economic crystal ball? Perhaps the nimble Winnebago. Yes, seriously: Winnebago Industries Inc., Thor Industries Inc. and other U.S. recreational-vehicle makers will probably say shipments fell in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}