Splintered progress shows U.S. has plenty of room to improve Leslie Lindeman, a motor man for Raven Drilling, works on an oil rig drilling into the Bakken shale formation. The U.S. economy is forging ahead after a slow start to the year, but every oar in the water is still not rowing at the same pace. Consider manufacturers and home builders. American manufacturers are enjoying a string pickup in orders and production and executives are increasingly optimistic about the future. Yet construction on new homes, while rising again, is still quite weak by historical standards and growing a lot slower than many economists would have predicted one year ago. Wall Street will get another close look this week at trends in both industries, with a flurry of reports that include housing starts and a closely followed survey of manufacturers in the Philadelphia region. Investors will also be looking for clues from the Federal Reserve’s Sept. 17 FOMC meeting on when the central bank plans to start raising interest rates. In any case, the U.S. is unlikely to grow much faster than it already is until every major sector of the economy is pulling not just in the same direction but at a similar pace. Many economists think that’s on the verge of happening, but the argument would be more compelling if, say, young families found it more affordable to buy a home. And did so.By air and land The boomlet in manufacturing has been led by strong sales of American-made cars, trucks and commercial jets that’s boosted demand for all sorts of partly finished products such as electronics and fabricated-metal parts. Auto sales have been especially strong. Anxious Americans held onto their cars during the Great Recession and its aftermath, causing the average age of vehicles on the road to rise to a record high. Yet over the past few years they’ve been trading in, moving up or acquiring new vehicles. “There is still a lot of pentup demand for cars and trucks that could support sales near the current rate for several more years,” said Gary Thayer, chief strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors. Sales of new vehicles rose to an annual rate of 17.5 million in July, the highest rate since 2006. The surging oil and gas industry in the U.S. is also fueling demand for manufactured goods used in the production of energy. Yet even though American consumers are willing to splurge on new cars, they’ve been reluctant spenders on almost everything else. Job insecurity used to be the main reason they held back, but it should be no surprise that even an improved labor market has failed to alter their behavior. Companies are not adding employees as fast as the growth in their profits or new orders might suggest, and wages are rising very fast, either. “The economy is not yet firing on all cylinders,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “Its most important driver, the consumer, is still a passenger in an expansion largely driven by businesses.” The caution among consumers is most evident in home sales. The annual pace of construction on new homes is expected to hover around the 1 million mark when the government issues the August report on Thursday. Yet analysts believe sales would be closer to 1.7 million annually in a fully healed economy.http://www.marketwatch.com/story/not-all-the-oars-of-the-economy-are-rowing-equally-hard-2014-09-14