Rising office vacancies and plant use rates are close to a record low. Under these conditions it is easy to see why there is little new construction. Maxwell Clarke of IDEAglobal Inc, said: "Construction isn't going to be adding a lot of growth, at least through the next quarter or so. November's construction numbers are down 13% from a year earlier."

Add to this the fact that the commercial default rate on mortgages held by US banks doubled to 3.4% in the third quarter. Defaults in the first nine months of 2009 are the highest since 1993.

Construction spending rose 0.3% in June. This is nothing to write home about. In a word, construction spending is practically flat.

The true state of affairs is that construction spending, at $965.7 billion, is down 10.2% from last year. Now that nothing to sneeze at but it is way off from our peak spending.

The good news is that new and existing home sales rose in June by the largest amount in eight years. But again, keep in mind that we are coming off very low numbers.

Here's a look at what's on the economic calendar for the week of January 5, 2009:

• Construction spending (Nov. 2008): Monday, 10:00 AM
• Ford Motor Co. U.S. sales (Dec. 2008): Monday, 1:00 PM
• New motor vehicle sales (Dec. 2008): Monday, 4:00 PM
• Factory orders (Nov. 2008): Tuesday, 10:00 AM
• Pending home sales (Nov. 2008): Tuesday, 10:00 AM
• ISM Non-Manufacturing Survey (Dec. 2008): Tuesday, 10:00 AM
• Monster Employment Index (Dec. 2008): Wednesday, 6:00 AM
• Challenger job-cut announcement (Dec. 2008): Wednesday, 7:30 AM
• Public debt (Dec. 2008): Wednesday, 3:00 PM
• Consumer credit (Nov. 2008): Thursday, 3:00 PM
• Employment situation (Dec. 2008): Friday, 8:30 AM
• Wholesale trade (Nov. 2008): Friday, 10:00 AM

For expectations from some of this week's earnings releases, see The week in preview: Family Dollar, Bed Bath & Beyond, KB Home, and others.