"Now this is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."  The words were uttered by Winston Churchill in November, 1942 during the dark days of World War II.  The Allied forces had just invaded N. Africa and began notching several key victories in that theater of the war.  Optimists began asking if this turning of the tide signaled the end for the Axis powers.  Churchill recognized that there were many battles to be fought before Hitler and his legions would be stopped.

Over 60 years later, many of us seem to be asking the same question regarding the economic meltdown gripping the U.S. economy.  We all seem to be looking for signs, something to signal that the turnaround is upon us.  A few economists even went as far as to announce that the recession had ended last month.  All of us have different measures for determining the health of our economy - unemployment rates, GDP, the Dow Jones average - are frequently cited.  In the US, given the close connection between curb and gutter and subdivisions, housing starts is one of our best measures.  Activity from the past few months indicates that housing starts may have finally bottomed out.  Single-family housing starts increased by 14% from May to June and existing home inventories dropped by 3.5% during that period.  Estimated numbers for 2010, though nowhere near the 2005-2007 levels, show that housing starts should increase by 35% from 2009. 

 The end of the recession?  Hardly.  The beginning of the end?  Probably not.  The end of the beginning?  Let's hope. 

The construction equipment world, or at least 200,000 folks from that world, descended on Paris April 20-25 for the Intermat trade show.  For those of you unfamiliar with Intermat, it works in a three-year rotation with Conexpo and Bauma.  Size-wise it comes in a little larger than Conexpo and somewhat smaller than Bauma.  It truly is a crossroads of the world with heavy European attendance, moderate African and Middle Eastern visitors, and a few North Americans and Asians.

 After experiencing a less than optimistic crowd at WOC in February, we weren't quite sure what to expect at Intermat.  We were glad to hear that although not robust, the construction outlook in Europe appears brighter for 2009 than in the States.  Though Spain is suffering through a terrible crisis, with unemployment there hitting 14%, comments we heard from French, Belgian and other Europeans painted a fair picture for this season.  Countries with oil and natural gas continue to be bright spots in the world economy as many of those countries are making significant infrastructure improvements. 

 In addition to the valuable time spent with customers and dealers, shows like Intermat give us a chance to hear industry news from other manufacturers.  Specialized manufacturers like ourselves seem to have fared better over the past year than heavy machinery folks like those involved in earth-moving.