They're only mediocre if you're a securities analyst, not if you're a real person, ... The successful retailers are opening stores like mad. That may steal sales from existing stores of their own as well as other retailers. But the overall pie is growing. I'm an economist; I focus on the pie, I don't care how they slice it. |
This is a real win for the state, one we could build on. |
This is a really good story from an economic standpoint. Manufacturing is clearly gaining momentum. |
This is another affirmation that we've gotten over the shock of the hurricanes and the economy is back on track to where it was before. |
This is such a different type of disaster than we're accustomed to dealing with. |
This is the type of report we would expect to see, given the slowdown that we've already experienced in the economy, ... Companies don't have any pricing power, and if they don't have any pricing power, then inflation can't really be a threat. |
This may be the last bad PPI report we'll see for quite some time, ... This might be the height of this particular inflation scare. |
Today's personal income report had very good news on inflation. |
Unemployment is low in places that were and were not impacted by hurricanes. It has been low for quite some time all across the state. |
Virtually all indices remain at solid levels. It's a very strong reading for manufacturing overall. The most disturbing thing is the prices paid which is almost at crisis levels. |
We do not view this as anything more serious than a much-needed correction. |
We expect a big jump in consumer confidence now that the effects of Katrina and higher gas prices are further behind us. Higher confidence will lead to a better-than-expected holiday shopping season as well. |
We expect to see weakness in the PPI given the weakness in manufacturing, which is the weakest part of the economy, |
We haven't seen that much improvement in employment of hourly workers because the job market for lower-skill workers still has a lot of slack in it, ... But if you look at skilled workers, it's a much different picture. We're starting to see some real shortages in some sectors. |
We haven't seen that much improvement in employment of hourly workers because the job market for lower-skill workers still has a lot of slack in it. But if you look at skilled workers, it's a much different picture. We're starting to see some real shortages in some sectors. |