Last week Industrial Distribution Magazine’s Jack Keough put out a recap the Alan Beaulieu economic report as delivered to the National Association of WholesaleDistributor (NAW) Executive Summit.  I was immediately attracted to the article for three reasons.   First, Alan and his team at ITR Economics actually tracks indicators tied to our industry; we’re not talking pie in the sky stuff political puffery (as seen on TV.)  They have no political axe to grind.  For instance, they continue to make the point, the winning President has almost zero impact on the economy for the first 18 months they are in office. Alan and ITR Economics are accurate.  I have been following them for something like twenty years.  During that time, they have accurately predicted the ups and downs of our industry with the greatest of ease.  Further, they called the “Great Recession” of 2008 to within 30 days and very accurately predicted a number of other ups and...