Industrial Production in the US was up 3.6% year-over-year in December 2017. That's the best for American industry since November 2014 when annual IP growth was 3.7%. That's ultimately the problem, though, given all that has happened this year. In other words, despite a clear boost the past few months from storm effects, as well as huge contributions from the mining (crude oil) sector, American production at its best can only manage to reflect 2014.

There are, of course, three main components of industry: manufacturing, mining, and utilities. When we think of the tangible economy, most often we go right to manufacturing first if not also exclusively. In 2017, however, the manufacturing part of IP gained just 2.4%. That's not good; at all.

Utilities were up only 1.8% year-over-year, with almost all that growth piled just in December 2017. Accounting for the overall IP index's increase month-over-month, unusually cold weather meant for US utilities a 5.6% increase in output from November.

That left any additional growth above the low level for manufacturing to the mining sector. With oil prices steady to higher for especially the second half of last year, the output in resource extraction climbed 11.5% year-over-year.

In that sense, we really are back in 2014 again. After all, three years ago the energy piece of US industry performed a similar skew to these kinds of metrics. US manufacturing continued to be moribund if at least positive, though still very much unrecovered from the Great “Recession.” It was the shale boom then largely responsible for partially covering up an otherwise shrunken industrial base in manufacturing.

That condition never really changed throughout the downturn 2015-16. In fact, after a relatively small and brief rebound the second half of 2016, up until September/October 2017, US industry was in relapse. The Fed's data is universal in describing what was for several months prior to Harvey and Irma outright contraction across the industrial sector.