Almost every category of employment has improved in the last couple of years, ... But compared to what we were seeing during much of those two years ago, it's now effectively a balanced recovery. |
Certainly, the degree of strength through August is not sustainable; we'll get a much weaker number in September. But the third quarter as a whole will still show 5 to 6 percent consumer spending growth, even if we get a negative number in September. |
Clearly the Fed wants to start prepping people for the possibility that they will be tightening later this year, |
Clearly the Fed wants to start prepping people for the possibility that they will be tightening later this year. |
Consumer spending growth has generally been trending at about 2.5-to-3 percent at an annual rate -- not booming, but not terrible, ... The fact that the job market is still weak is restraining optimism a bit; hopefully, as the recovery gathers pace, we will start to see more job growth. |
Five months is not dramatically high. |
Historically this number tracks the economy, in general, pretty well. And of all the numbers, this report really has almost the least amount of noise. |
Household spending is staying pretty resilient. |
Hypothetically speaking, if the gasoline crunch forces prices up to $4 a gallon in the next three months, that would be a pretty big hit to the economy and to the consumer, |
Hypothetically speaking, if the gasoline crunch forces prices up to $4 a gallon in the next three months, that would be a pretty big hit to the economy and to the consumer. |
I don't expect that to happen, |
I don't think the holiday season will be as good as last year. Right now people are facing higher gasoline prices. As winter arrives, the higher cost of natural gas will push up utility bills. |
I think most people expect the economy to weaken in 1999, but certainly there's no sign of a collapse yet. |
I think the Fed wants the unemployment rate to stop going down pretty much immediately, and if it doesn't the Fed will keep tightening. |
I wouldn't take the numbers literally, but they're clearly signaling an improvement. |