We knew jobs were front-end loaded because of the weather. Even so, this is dramatic. |
We know the economy's been strong. |
We now are on formal rate hike watch. Hope the Fed has this one right because this admission will hike [bond] rates. |
We still don't really know how the consumer feels. I don't think inventories are so much the problem any more. The key is to get some turnaround in [spending]. |
We tend to look at this and the Philadelphia index as an indication of what is going on in the overall economy, ... Most disturbing is that order backlogs are running over 50 percent, which is the glorified neutral. It's at 6 percentage points below, that's bad -- it shows companies are cannibalizing orders to move ahead. |
We tend to look at this and the Philadelphia index as an indication of what is going on in the overall economy. Most disturbing is that order backlogs are running over 50 percent, which is the glorified neutral. It's at 6 percentage points below, that's bad -- it shows companies are cannibalizing orders to move ahead. |
We're getting some very good spending going into the first quarter. It's interesting that while there is spending optimism, consumers are still clearly divided into two main categories -- those with lots of money and those that are hurting. That's why these monthly results have shown so much irregularity. |
We're getting sort-of mixed results with what is happening in the economy. |
We're still seeing job cuts in manufacturing, and it's going to stay that way for some time. |
We've still got a lot of job growth, but it's not pressuring the unemployment rate, ... That's a critical thing for the Fed -- between the unemployment rate and the nice average hourly earnings rate figure, which was up only a penny, I think the Federal Reserve will breathe pretty easily with this report. |
We've still got a lot of job growth, but it's not pressuring the unemployment rate. That's a critical thing for the Fed -- between the unemployment rate and the nice average hourly earnings rate figure, which was up only a penny, I think the Federal Reserve will breathe pretty easily with this report. |
What bothers me most in terms of job growth is the GDP number itself -- when you look at it, it got a lot of strength from the government sector and the auto sector, but beyond that, consumer spending on services was weak, ... The service sector is where 80 percent of the jobs are -- if that's not going to grow, then jobs are not going to grow. |
What we see is a Fed president trying to be honest with us. |
What's going on here is we've got a lot of growth. We've seen very, very strong consumption. |
When you get abnormally warm weather, the seasonal factor will blow this up into a big gain. Once we lose this weather effect, we'll see how much of an employment gain we get. |