When baseball philosopher Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” he wasn't referring to the current state of the U.S. economy and the trickle-down effect it has on the electrical market. And that's probably a good thing, because he would have had to choose between an economy that may have a 40 percent chance of falling back into a recession (according to some economists), and a slow- to no-growth scenario that won't produce any notable sales spikes for at least another year. Even the brightest construction economists on the planet aren't sure which path the economy will take and for the first time in forever are providing dual forecasts, one incorporating a recessionary scenario and another outlining an extended era of slow growth.

Despite it all, distributors are looking for respectable growth in 2012. Electrical Wholesaling's 2012 national sales forecast calls for a 5.1% increase. We hope our respondents are correct, but this forecast strikes EW's editors as a few points high. That being said, around this time last year we were worried that the 2011 national sales forecast of 5% was high, too. As it turns out, they were a wee bit conservative.

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Thank-you from the staff of Electrical Marketing.