From the Times….

The depth of the downturn in Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, emerged yesterday with industrial production showing a record 9.6 per cent decline last month and unemployment up by 0.5 per cent to a three-year high of 4.4 per cent.

Output fell at its fastest pace since records began in 1953 and it was considerably worse than the 9 per cent consensus forecasts expected by the market and up from a previous record of 8.5 per cent a month earlier. It is particularly worrying for a country that relies heavily on global exports of cars, electronics and machinery.

Needless to say, this is a lot worse then what America is experiencing even if you account for the build up in inventories. An almost 10% drop in one quarter is a 40% annualized drop. I don’t really think it will keep dropping at the current rate, but even if all it did was level out that would still be a heck of drop.

The good news….

While the US economy declined at the fastest rate for 26 years, the fall was less severe than many on Wall Street had expected, with some economists forecasting a 5.9 per cent drop.

Now the bad news…

In a short-term sweet but probably long-term bitter turn, inventories rose at the end of 2008. The inventory increase was troubling because it was likely unintended — the result of companies getting stuck with unwanted merchandise because demand has tailed off in the recession. Excess inventory will have to be worked off down the road and that signals production cuts, which in turn could mean layoffs that hamstring the economy even more.

“With inventory investment jumping in (the fourth quarter), there will be inventory liquidation in (the first quarter),” Insight Economics analyst Steven Wood said. “This suggests that (first-quarter) GDP will also contract, probably more sharply than it did in (the fourth quarter).”

Inventories increased by $6.2 billion in the fourth quarter, after going down $29.6 billion in the third quarter and $50.6 billion in the second quarter. The climb added 1.32 percentage points to GDP. Real final sales of domestic product, which is GDP less the change in private inventories, decreased 5.1% in the fourth quarter, after falling by 1.3% in the third quarter.

“Obviously, with final demand declining at a 5.1% annualized rate, an increase in inventories is hardly good news for future economic conditions,” MFR Inc. analyst Joshua Shapiro said. “It signals that businesses were unable to reduce inventories to desired levels as demand evaporated. This means that orders and production will sink even more as inventory control and final demand both weigh on activity.”

In other words, GDP only dropped by 3.8% but demand dropped by 5.1%. The difference is made up by the fact that inventories increased. No wonder factories are cutting production so sharply.

Edit: LA Times puts some numbers on on the inventory build up….

Swonk and other economists who analyzed the underlying data noted that about 1.3% of the economy’s output went into inventory — showing that companies produced more than their customers were purchasing.

From Bloomberg….

Treasuries plunged as the government sold a record $30 billion of five-year notes at a higher yield than forecast, indicating weak demand.

The auction, which caps a week when the Treasury raised $78 billion in notes and bonds, may signal investors will have trouble absorbing the as-much-as $2.5 trillion in debt the U.S. is likely to issue this year to pay for a $1 trillion budget deficit and programs to spur the economy. The Federal Reserve’s failure to provide a timetable for possible purchases of Treasuries yesterday also weighed on prices.

Don’t worry. The Fed will take up the slack.

From Brad Setser….

It seems like China’s top leaders knew less about China’s portfolio that American reserve watchers; it is not inconceivable (gulp) that I was the source for those published report about China’s Agency holdings.

Dr. Setser is referring to this Wall Street Journal article….

The alarm for Chinese leaders started ringing loudly in July and August as problems deepened at Fannie and Freddie. Senior Chinese leaders, who hadn’t been apprised in detail of how China’s reserves were being invested, learned for the first time in published reports that the country’s exposure to debt from those two alone totaled nearly $400 billion, say people familiar with the matter.

Fearing that the U.S. government might not fully back the companies, China demanded and received regular briefings throughout the peak of the crisis from high-level Treasury Department officials, including Mr. Paulson, on the market for U.S. debt securities — especially those of the mortgage giants.

It is not clear to me if this is the honest truth, or it is people who knew and are now trying to say that they did not know so as to deflect blame.

From The International Air Transport Association…..

In the month of December global international cargo traffic plummeted by 22.6% compared to December 2007. The same comparison for international passenger traffic showed a 4.6% drop. The international load factor stood at 73.8%.

For the full-year 2008, international cargo traffic was down 4.0%, passenger traffic showed a modest increase of 1.6%, and the international load factor stood at 75.9%.

“The 22.6% free fall in global cargo is unprecedented and shocking. There is no clearer description of the slowdown in world trade. Even in September 2001, when much of the global fleet was grounded, the decline was only 13.9%,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.” Air cargo carries 35% of the value of goods traded internationally.

There is all this from The American Trucking Associations….

The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index plunged 11.1 percent in December 2008, marking the largest month-to-month reduction since April 1994, when the unionized less-than-truckload industry was in the midst of a strike. December’s drop was the third-largest single-month drop since ATA began collecting the data in 1973. In December, the seasonally adjusted tonnage index equaled just 98.3 (2000 = 100), its lowest level since December 2000. The not seasonally adjusted index edged 0.6 percent higher in December.

(h/t Calculated Risk here and here)

From the Telegraph….

The prospect of a trade war between the US and Europe is looming after “Buy American” provisions were added to President Barack Obama’s $820 billion (£573 billion) stimulus package.

The EU trade commissioner vowed to fight back after the bill passed in the House of Representatives late on Wednesday included a ban on most purchases of foreign steel and iron used in infrastructure projects.

The Senate’s version of the legislation, which will be debated early next week, goes even further, requiring that any projects related to the stimulus use only American-made equipment and goods.