With all that is happening in our econony it is very difficult to get an idea of where that economy is heading.  With all of the different indexes in place today and many seeming to go in opposite directions it is hard to get a barometer of where the United States economy is heading.  Yesterday, I was again reminded how difficult it is to see a downturn coming and an article in Yahoo Finance’s daily bulletin gave some rather different indications on why we might be seeing one soon.

The article, which you can read here, gave a couple of indications that the economy was slowing.  These weren’t your normal indications such as quantifiable numbers like interest rates, tariff revenue, and the consumer price index.  No, these were much more interesting.  Here’s a couple of indicators that the author looked at:

Cardboard Box Production —  “Cardboard box demand is sometimes seen as an indicator of economic health, since the majority of what consumers purchase touches corrugated cardboard. Here’s the not-so-great news: Right now, US box makers are cutting back on production.”  That was one of the quotes at the beginning of the article.

If you think looking at cardboard box production is an unusual bellwether of the economy, the article states that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan tracked cardboard prices during his tenure.

Furthermore, here’s what Virginia Tech economist Jadrian Wooten says, “The cardboard box industry is incredibly large — we’re talking close to $100 billion in revenue.  What I always tell my students at Virginia Tech is that it’s four times as big as the NFL, and they hear about the NFL every day, on TV, on social media, there are video games about it. We don’t have that about the cardboard box industry. It’s so much more important.”

Wooten continued, “This is actually the peak time for the holiday season that we would expect to see ramp-ups in cardboard box production happening.  That’s probably the biggest concern in terms of a pending recession: Companies are not ordering cardboard boxes to put their products in to then send to Target or Walmart for the holiday season.”

Home Depot Skeleton sales —  Apparently there are “lackluster sales” at Home Depot for their 12-foot Halloween skeleton figures.  At least one person is watching the sales of these items to gauge how the economy is handling discretionary sales.  And the results show that in 2023 the entire inventory of these $299 items were sold out within one hour of being put on the floor.  Last year they were sold out by noon on that first day and this season after one day of sales Home Depot still showed 3,000 of them left in inventory.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  The article called these and other indicators “less than traditional measures to watch” and I feel the same way.  On the other hand it was interesting to read of them and I thought the readers of Funeral Director Daily probably have some items of their own to look at when discussing the state of the economy.

I thought readers of Funeral Director Daily would enjoy this little off-the-beaten-track method of projections, but just to make sure it fit in my purveyance of Death Care related business news and thoughts I decided to include this article from MKS&H Business Consultants titled “Preparing for Economic Downturns:  Financial Resilience in the Death Care Industry“.

Death Care is a good place to be during an economic downturn as your demand will not go down.  However, how consumers handle their specific situation when a death occurs may be different that when times are good.  The linked article gives some good, common sense advice for operating in a down economy.

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