Dwindling spare capacity will provide boost to investment

There are finally reasons to expect a more sustained pick-up in business investment this year and next. Admittedly, economists have been forecasting that business investment would become a driving force of the recovery pretty much since that recovery got going in 2009 and the short-term outlook remains mixed. But the dwindling amount of spare capacity left in the economy, specifically the manufacturing sector, suggests that this time it really will be different.