Devine this week said the company isn't sure it can reach its earlier profit forecast of US$4.80 a share for this year.
"We think this economy needs a jump-start," he said.
US industrial production dropped 0.5 percent in March for a second consecutive decline, while the proportion of US industrial capacity in use fell to 74.8 percent, from 75.3 percent in February. Manufacturing probably contracted in April for a second straight month, based on Federal Reserve Board surveys.
``There's lots of excess capacity in the manufacturing sector,'' Treasury Secretary John Snow said this week. "The manufacturing sector needs more orders, and they basically are going to be looking for their order books to fill up before they expand."
Greenspan has raised the possibility that such indicators will begin to show more life once the war is over and point to a speedup in the recovery. "The most important stimulus" to the economy "is the removal of the uncertainties which overhang the capital investment markets," he told Congress Feb. 11.
"My prognosis is that as the international issues receded from the foreground, the US economy will gradually improve its performance," Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Anthony Santomero said April 13.
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