Back to the Stone Age!

Here's a vivid example of how much the credit crunch is affecting the real economy, and killing it quickly. From Bloomberg:

In the third quarter of 2007, Volvo AB booked 41,970 European orders for new trucks. Guess how many prospective purchases Volvo, the world's second-biggest maker of heavy rigs, received in the third quarter of this year?

Here's a clue. Picture a highway gridlocked by 41,815 abandoned trucks -- because Volvo's order book got destroyed to the tune of 99.63 percent, with customers signing up for just 155 vehicles in the three-month period, the
Gothenburg, Sweden-based company said last week.

No wonder the Baltic Dry Index is down another 4% today to 885. I think this Volvo story is confirmation that the credit crunch is destroying the real economy.