According to Bloomberg, of the $162 Billion dollars of INFRASTRUCTURE aid the U.S. federal government pledged to spend in February as part of its unprecedented $787 Billion Economic STIMULUS package, only about $50 Billion, or 31%, has been paid out thus far. As a result, it can be reasonably concluded that most global infrastructure/industrial companies that stand likely to benefit from the massive U.S. stimulus program (Examples include: CAT/Caterpillar, GE/General Electric, DE/Deere, FWLT/Foster Wheeler, FLR/Fluor, UTX/United Technologies, ETN/Eaton, JEC/Jacobs Engineering, SGR/Shaw Group, MDR/McDermott, HON/Honeywell, TEX/Terex, etc.), will not see the desired effects on their respective companies' balance sheets until towards the end of 2009/beginning of 2010.Somewhat related, the uber powerful and equally innovative CEOs of both Caterpillar (CAT) and Google (GOOG) appeared on MSNBC's Meet The Press program on Sunday, May 31st, 2009. During the engrossing CEO roundtable discussion hosted by David Gregory (the clip is included below), both rock star executives shared their insightful assessments of the current state and future direction of the U.S. economy. I found it particularly interesting to listen to Jim Owens' take since he leads the operations of a company very much at the manufacturing heart of the U.S. economy. Among Mr. Owens' more interesting comments, the CEO of Caterpillar expects the global economy to BOTTOM sometime during the 3rd quarter of 2009. He also, perhaps somewhat tellingly, doesn't expect his company to resume hiring until mid 2010.
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aUfrUQkdTg1s
Data Courtesy: Bloomberg and MSNBC
Full Disclosure: I own shares of GOOG, CAT, DE and GE.
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