Their number is in the right ballpark. It could have a substantial effect potentially. |
There's a lot of uncertainty about the outlook. There are a lot of risks, mainly downside risks. |
This is a clear shift in U.S. policy and it probably indicates that the U.S. has received some concessions from Japan. |
This is one of the more surprising moves the Fed has made in a long time. I'm a little bit puzzled by this. |
This move is conservative and the fact they did not touch the discount rate reflects that. But since the move was taken to calm some of the recent financial market panic, this may not have done that. |
We should start to see better numbers in the May data. If we don't see improvement, it would be much more worrisome than the recent weakness and might inspire the Fed to cut in June. My own view is that we will see better numbers. |
We're headed to around 6.5 percent sometime in the first half of next year. |
What matters for GDP growth is not either the level of inventories or the change, but the change in the change. That's going to be quite positive. Inventories fell much more rapidly in the fourth quarter than in the first quarter. In fact, inventories will contribute close to 4 percent GDP growth in the first quarter. |