Lara Rhame
Lara Rhame
higher housing last market rates situation worried
If we're in a situation where rates are higher because the economy's great, the housing market is going to be last thing I'll be worried about.
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I think the employment situation is getting better, slowly, so I don't think it will cause the consumer to shut down, ... But job growth like this makes consumer spending that much more fragile, if some exogenous shock should hit.
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If that's the way the world is, then that's fantastic, because if oil prices go down and the Iraq situation disappears, we're off to the races again. But I think that opinion is at worst naive and at best simply putting on a brave face.
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The Fed really comes in in situations where the capital markets stop functioning. This not that situation. They're functioning just fine -- they're just really negative.
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What the current deficit does is make the dollar vulnerable. It means we could see a vicious cycle, where a declining dollar makes U.S. assets less attractive to foreign investors, which weakens our assets further, which puts further pressure on the dollar.
consumer gap hard shutting trade unless
I see the trade gap stabilizing, but it's hard to see it narrowing unless you get the U.S. consumer shutting down.
bear burden cries deaf euro falling wish
Europeans' cries are falling on deaf ears. Their wish that the euro not bear the burden of readjustment will not make it into the G7 statement.
bear burden cries deaf euro falling wish
Europeans' cries are falling on deaf ears, ... Their wish that the euro not bear the burden of readjustment will not make it into the G7 statement.
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Probably the easiest way to think about the Sept. 11 event is to think of bouncing a ball off the roof of a garage onto the driveway, ... The ball's bouncing around, and it's still unclear what the slope of the driveway is. But we can be fairly sure it's sloping up.
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People's outlook for the economy changes much faster than the underlying state of the economy. The Fed tries to keep its eye on the larger ball and not on the ping-pong ball of the stock market.
becomes dependent driver economy gets housing key sector slowing vulnerable
As the economy gets more and more dependent on housing being the key driver of growth, the economy becomes more and more vulnerable to that sector slowing down.
tread
At this point, they have very little ammo left, and they will need to tread carefully.
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Consumers will keep us in positive territory, but they're not going to be optimistic enough to fuel economic growth to its potential.
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We saw the unemployment rate actually holding throughout most of this slowdown, and only about four months ago we were at a 4.5 percent unemployment rate, ... The average recession sees a lot of job losses, so we've got a lot of catching up to do.