Charles Lieberman
Charles Lieberman
business coming growth mainly number percent rate stage time year
That's the time when a big number is most likely, mainly when we're coming out of a recession. At this stage of the business cycle, to be getting a 5 percent growth rate in productivity for a year is really very impressive.
gains higher numbers offset wage
As long as the productivity numbers are very good, the higher wage gains can be offset by higher productivity gains,
answer confident fed interest markets number pull question quite raise rates trigger whether
Had this number been very high, the markets would have been quite confident the Fed would raise rates. The real question is whether they are going to pull the trigger on interest rates again, and my answer is no.
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Inflation has been very soft for a number of years, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that's going to change any time in the near future.
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It wouldn't be surprising if there was a little bit of a pullback in consumer spending in the first quarter as well because of the zero-percent financing in the fourth quarter, which makes for a very difficult comparison.
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I think part of what has driven the market today are fluctuations in oil and interest rates and the bond market.
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We continue to see very rapid economic growth which has been a problem for the Fed all along. We have not seen a material increase in labor costs and that's what I think is going to be the ultimate problem in the economy somewhere down the road, though clearly it's not imminent.
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Fundamentally, the economy has not slowed as investors had hoped or the Fed requires. It puts a tightening in August back on the table.
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No doubt housing activity was elevated over the winter because of very, very mild weather. One housing start in Syracuse, N.Y., in December is an awful lot. So we shouldn't be surprised by a big fall-off.
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When a doctor administers medicine, he or she makes a judgment about the appropriate dosage in advance. The Fed has to make that judgment, but there's a chance they've already given out the right dosage and just need an appropriate amount of time for it to take effect.
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Unemployment is sufficiently high, and the economy has just come out of a relatively mild recession, so inflation pressures are relatively soft right now. It will take a while of solid growth before we have upward pressure on inflation, so the Fed can be a little relaxed about it.
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That's actually good news. It means we're carrying less inventory and the production process is adjusting.
claims fact low
The fact that claims are low is very comforting.
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Overwhelmingly, I think the stock market is taking the view that the economy is doing well despite the rise in interest rates, and they clearly don't think that however much interest rates go up, that it is going to impair growth, or impair profitability.