Dana Johnson
Dana Johnson
Dana Johnsonis an American writer and Associate Professor at the University of Southern California. Honors include the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and being named a nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her writing has appeared in Callaloo, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere...
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Affordability has deteriorated over the past year because consumers are buying more expensive cars, financing a larger portion of those purchases and paying higher interest rates on car loans.
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It was a very disappointing report. It clearly pushes the timing of a Fed tightening further into the future. We're now calling for a Fed rate hike in the fourth quarter of 2004 instead of in August.
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I think the concern that was motivating the Fed (to lower interest rates ) is that it's going to shift to more Western hemisphere trade partners. I think the risk is it's going to broaden and deepen.
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The affordability of light vehicles has been quite stable over the past ten quarters. Family incomes have been rising faster than vehicle prices, but higher interest rates have increased the cost of financing a new car.
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The unemployment rate on a month-to-month basis bounces around quite a lot. The trend is for a small downward drifting in the unemployment rate, reflecting as much people withdrawing from the labor market as anything else.
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I'm looking for an unexciting kind of year; not unlike the one we're just ending.
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Everybody's seeing the loss of the income and people are spending cautiously wherever they can.
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Things have been pretty difficult here. If it goes well, it's something the city can feel good about.
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The Federal Reserve will be meeting on Sept. 30. It will be an easy decision to leave policy unchanged. There is no sign of accelerating inflation, and there are arguments and evidence that growth is in the process of slowing somewhat.
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I'm glad I got to know him a little even if he wasn't aware I was around, ... He went out with a whole lot of love.
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I'm working hard to sell this town. Just try to picture it without the tree.
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It's clearly a reflection of how much more the Japanese companies have tended to be more profitable in recent years.
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It's certainly a concerning reading. Most of what we are seeing there is the impact of higher natural gas and other energy prices.
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So far, I am encouraged to see how well the regional economy has weathered the job and income losses centered in the auto manufacturing sector. Mild winter weather and the Super Bowl no doubt helped to support the economy early in 2006. As those effects fade, I would expect to see some fall off in activity over the next several months.