The markets are looking for the bad news in general, |
The reason spending dropped in January was a big fall in auto sales. I don't think this tells us much that's new -- it's consistent with an economy still growing in second or third gear. |
The silver lining in this is that the Fed should look at this and realize that this economy is not overheating. |
The single most significant number is the inventory number. The rebuilding of inventories hasn't even started yet. When they do, it will be a major source of additional stimulus to the economy. |
The unemployment rate will come down slowly because of tremendous productivity gains, but I don't doubt the strength of final demand. |
There is a difference between transparency and clarity. You can put everything out there and have a full airing of different opinions. But sometimes there is too much emphasis on the Fed's deliberations rather than its conclusions and that confuses things. |
There should be nothing scary in the oil inventories. It should show huge inventories or close to huge inventories. If you want to be scared about oil, you have to come up with something out of the Middle East or Africa, like the growing violence in Iraq. |
There's clearly a lack of interest in investing while the economy works through these Katrina issues, ... We need to get a clearer sense of when gasoline prices are going to come back to normal. When I talk to retail investors, a lot are frozen by the level of uncertainty those issues create. |
There's more and more pressure on campground owners to sell to developers. It's getting harder to find a campground close by. The closest campground to Tampa is about 10 miles outside of town. |
This could indicate not a change in the pace that they are moving but that they are getting closer to their destination. |
This elevated growth rate in the economy should prevent a replay of the jobless recovery. If we have two strong quarters of growth, then employment will start to show decent gains in the third quarter. |
This is a classic case of the labor market lagging. We're going to see weakness for another few months, but the pace of the growth of the economy is going to help the job market. We are busting out of recession here. This is not a mild rebound. |
This is a further advancement of the date at which the Fed starts to raise rates, |
This is a slight move away from the Fed's completely balanced view of the world on inflation but I don't think they will accelerate the pace of tightening, ... There is a little more fear of inflation but the fact that the Fed kept measured tells me they are comfortable with the path they are on. |
This is actually a case where the numbers are where you want them to be. Inflation's about two percent, not going up or down -- this is the comfortable middle. The American economy has other problems, but this isn't one of them. |