The Fed will not shift its bias. Retail sales numbers for August, which they'll have in hand by the time of the meeting, will be pretty solid, so they will be facing essentially the same thing they've been facing for a while now -- the fundamentals are not that bad, but the stock market is, |
The Fed will remain on inflation watch. |
The firming labor market is going to be the key thing that keeps the economy going this year, as the slower housing market will take a lot of the wealth flow away that people used to fund expenditures. |
The fundamental economy is still solid, and the things that drive consumer spending are still solid, |
The glory days of surging productivity that kept labor costs down look to be behind us. |
The glory days of surging productivity that kept labor costs down look to be behind us. The expected slowdown in productivity has arrived and that is putting pressure on costs and the Fed. |
The good news for the economy and workers is that the job market is in great shape. |
The huge increases at apparel and general merchandise stores are eye-opening. You would think people had nothing to do but get to the malls. |
The huge rebound in orders shows that, not only did the economy not collapse in June, but it is actually moving ahead at a decent clip, |
The job report was not that bad. The underlying trend looks to still be in the 200,000 range, |
The manufacturing sector ended the year with some decent momentum that should carry it through the first part of the year. |
The manufacturing sector has been a rock for well over a year now and it appears it will remain solid at least through the early part of this year. |
The modest decline in single-family construction activity, coupled with the rise in permit requests, indicates that the housing market is holding in, |
The more things change, the more they remain the same. |
The new Fed chair will be tested right off the bat. The economy is slowing, though clearly not as rapidly as the headline number would have you think. ...At the same time, inflation is slowly accelerating. |