Scary Durable Goods Numbers

The Commerce Department reported that durable goods orders fell by 13.2 percent in August, not surprisingly the Wall Street Journal chose to highlight this drop. While the number is dramatic, nearly all of the drop was in the highly volatile transportation component. Excluding transportation, orders fell by a considerably more modest 1.6 percent.

Within transportation, civilian aircraft stood out with a decline in orders of 101.8 percent. Yes, the number was over 100 percent, as apparently th...