On Monday, the author learned that US factories are expanding at their fastest pace in more than two years, capping the manufacturing industry's best six-month period since the recession ended in June 2009. November's closely-watched Purchasing Manager's Index from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 57.3, its highest reading since April 2011. That kind of factory activity should translate into real economic growth of more than 3% in the fourth quarter, though most economists feel it probably won't. In fact, the consensus view is that the US economy is slowing down and will sputter through the final three months of 2013. The average forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg is for US gross domestic product growth to come in at 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Why the pessimism? For one thing, there's a bit of a disconnect between the ISM survey and the hard numbers collected recently by the US Commerce Department, which indicate that factories are pulling back.