That's the number of new trucks that the James Burg Trucking Company in Warren, MI has purchased in the last seven years to add to its fleet of 90 vehicles despite rising customer demand over that period. Why? The soaring costs of new trucks, driven primarily by stricter environmental controls, prices which James Burg himself says are up 60% from what a truck cost in 2008, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal itself cited statistics that showed a still steep but lower rise than that, with prices up from about $100,00 per sleeper truck in 2009 to $128,000 today. With many other smaller firms thinking the same way, it helps explain the continued slow growth in capacity in the US truckload market. And while many larger carriers in fact have been buying a lot of new trucks to benefit from better diesel mileage, in general they have been selling off – often to overseas markets - nearly equal numbers of trucks, keeping capacity tight, though there have finally been some signs of fleet expansion in recent quarters.

That is the number of consecutive months of manufacturing expansion in the US, as measured by the Institute for Supply Management's Purchasing Manager's Index, after the September number once again exceeded the 50 mark that separates expansion from contract – but just barely. The September reading came in at 50.2, a decrease of 0.9 percentage point from the August reading of 51.1, and the lowest level since May 2013. The PMI has seen steady declines in recent months, with September marking the fourth straight month over month decrease, and with a score well down from the levels of 57+ at the end of 2014. While the economy is not tanking, there are definite signs of a slowdown. The New Orders Index was also weak, at 50.1 in September.