Pity the poor salesman, driving from factory to factory across America only to be told, “Sorry, we’ve got 10 perfectly good machines already and we’re not even using three of them!” For almost 40 years capacity utilisation has averaged about 80 per cent in the US. That has now fallen to below 70 per cent, according to Census Bureau data for April released last week. Certain sectors, such as steel, are operating at a third of capacity.

No wonder Thursday’s durable goods orders numbers, also for April, were so dreadful. Some took heart from a small increase in orders month-on-month. But the 1.9 per cent gain was mostly due to a boost from defence spending while March’s revised fall of a similar magnitude was twice that previously estimated. Oops! Comparisons versus a year ago, far from being less bad, actually show an accelerating downward trend. Check out the monthly progress of declines since manufacturing orders went negative in October last year: 6 per cent; 14 per cent; 20 per cent; 21 per cent; 20 per cent and 22 per cent. If that keeps up, nobody will be ordering a single widget by Christmas.