In a world where size matters less and innovation and adaptability are 95 percent of business success, the company that succumbs to union demands for wages greater than the market will bear or for work rules that reduce agility and efficiency, will be vanquished by a swarm of competitors. |
Interest rates going up just 2 percent would do it. |
Inventories are building and I expect housing prices to start to decline in the new year. |
It doesn't matter who owns the assets. You can get capital to build a plant anywhere. What matters is where the plant is, |
It gets more and more out of synch every year. It'd really be just a fig leaf. In order for there to be a change in the trade relationship, it has to be a large change right off the bat -- at least 20 percent. |
It means trouble for GM. They are going to have trouble moving as many vehicles as they did last year and their market share will continue to shrink. |
It's caviar for the rich and cake for the rest, as wealth grows atop a fragile pyramid of inflated home prices, consumer debt and foreign largesse. |
It's lowering growth by one to one-and-a-half percentage points. If we cut the deficit in half, we'd pick up 5 million jobs in three years and the unemployment rate would fall to 4 percent. |
It's not just the number of jobs, it's the quality of jobs. |
It's really the tale of two cities. For highly educated and highly skilled people, especially those who don't face competition from overseas, the job market is pretty good. For others, it's not so good. |
It's the impact on the supply chain that is problematic. It's about the products that aren't going to get out and the products that can't be made because materials can't get in. |
Large trade deficits divert consumer purchases at Wal-Mart from domestic factories to offshore producers in China and elsewhere. Wages adjusted for inflation will continue to fall as long as American workers must compete with subsidized Chinese imports. |
Longer-term, persistent U.S. trade deficits are a substantial drag on growth. |
Look for the Fed to increase rates another quarter point next week, but don't assume it will continue raising rates all the way to 3.5 percent. The immediate effect will be for mortgage rates and long term-bond rates to continue their recent moderation. |
Look for the Fed to push the federal funds rate to 5.25 percent or even to 5.5 percent. |