[The report suggests that the economy is] just kind of muddling along at a moderate pace and not dipping into recession, ... there is less of an impetus for the Fed to be aggressive in lowering interest rates. |
Huge amounts of grain from the Midwest get shipped out through New Orleans. If grain cannot get out through New Orleans, it could be lost if warehouses are flooded or ports close and barges are stuck in Mississippi. That could have a negative impact on farm income. It would be more costly to truck it to other locations. |
It sounds like it's too soon to write the obituary on the housing market. There's not enough clear evidence. |
It's hard to imagine gas prices at $3 a gallon even a few months ago. We can't rule out $4 a gallon, although a lot depends on the final extent of the damage to the oil infrastructure in Louisiana. |
Right now, given the information that we've got, we've lowered our second-half projection [on economic growth] to 4%, essentially shaving off half a point. |
That could give the housing market in California another year of life before it slows down. |
The biggest impact clearly is local, not national. If New Orleans suffers a fair amount of damage to hotels and casinos, people may not go there for a while because who wants to go if the place is a mess? |
The factors that have been supporting growth around the country, they're just not present in the Midwest. The turnaround's just been more prevalent on the coasts. |
The first half of 2005 was a bit slower in terms of retail sales but the pace picked up in the second half. |
These January numbers are strong. The fact that the number of unemployed persons is down to 7,400, on a seasonally adjusted basis, must be a new cyclical low. It?s pretty remarkable that so few people are unemployed in the county. |
This is not a home run. But it's pretty steady growth over the last six or seven months. If nothing else, it's a stable rate of growth that San Jose hasn't seen this in a long time. |
This year is really going to be seen as a transition year away from the booming economy to a more moderate pace of growth. |
We've been saying for some time that if oil hits $70 a barrel, that puts the economy at a tipping point where if there were some other serious problems, we could fall into recession, ... they would leave the economy vulnerable to some other shock that might come along. |
You do need to earn more in California to achieve the same standard of living than in almost any other state, |