I think it's totally a blip. I expect to see pretty healthy growth in 2006. We'll be back to 4 percent next quarter. |
I think the economy's momentum is still upward, but the data that have come out in the past month have weakened my confidence in that prediction. I haven't changed my forecast, but I've become a lot less certain about it. |
I think the job market is on a roll. |
I think the job market is on a roll. Businesses are doing pretty well these days. Profits are growing nicely. I think businesses are at a point where they feel more comfortable adding people. |
I think this report will lead the Fed to be much more aggressive than we would have expected a month ago. An inter-meeting cut seems far more likely now, and a cut at the May (policy makers) meeting seems all but certain. |
I think we're going to see absolutely more of the same. I don't think there will be any discernible change in the conduct of setting monetary policy. |
I think we're toward the end of a period of real weakness and, by the third quarter, all the money (Fed Chairman Alan) Greenspan and the Fed have been pumping out will start to be spent. |
I'd say there's only a 25 percent chance of a rate hike in June even. Even with another strong jobs report Friday, they'll want to have something that looks more definitely like a trend. |
If even 5 to 6 percent GDP growth isn't enough to get any net hiring, then the risks rise that the stimulus from the tax cuts and defense spending could produce a one-time boost that will fizzle out next year. |
If there are danger signs brewing ... that make people very, very nervous, I don't see anything that could prevent the same kind of mood (as Black Monday's) from reappearing. It's clear that you don't need a very concrete, cut-and-dried kind of trigger to make people stampede if they're in the mood to be stampeded. |
If there is a danger, it is that the report isn't capturing creative and hidden ways employers are boosting wages. I'm sure Greenspan has a sneaking suspicion that these kinds of things are happening and that they may at some point provoke a burst of wage inflation. |
If this represents the start of an extended [dollar] slide, it may erode the attractiveness of dollar investments to foreigners and remove an important component of the demand for U.S. financial assets. |
If unemployment sticks at about 6.0 percent and starts coming down, the Fed will probably feel it has to start tightening fairly soon. |
If you're living on the edge, then when the price of gas and heating oil goes up, you end up over the edge. |
In principle, rapid productivity should make wages rise, but it seems that until the job market tightens up a bit, all the productivity gains flow to corporate profits. |