Lara Rhame
Lara Rhame
businesses circular confidence consumers effect hiring lay lose nervous people production stop
There can be a circular effect -- if consumers lose confidence and businesses are nervous that the consumer will stop spending, and they downgrade production expectations or lay people off or stop hiring people because they don't think they'll get revenue, that makes consumers more nervous.
acting against broad dollar japan process seeing steady stop turning weakness
We're seeing Japan aggressively acting to keep the yen steady against the dollar and stop the process of broad dollar weakness from turning into broad yen strength.
capital fed fine markets situations stop
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.
concern future hiring job next robust shedding stopped
I don't see future hiring robust enough to alleviate a lot of concern on the part of consumers. We've stopped shedding jobs, but over the next two quarters, we won't see very much job growth.
assets attractive current declining deficit dollar foreign further less means pressure puts vicious
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.
ball bouncing driveway easiest event fairly garage onto roof slope sure unclear
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.
ball changes economy eye faster fed larger outlook state stock tries underlying
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.
consumers economic fuel growth optimistic positive
Consumers will keep us in positive territory, but they're not going to be optimistic enough to fuel economic growth to its potential.
average catching four holding job months percent rate recession saw sees throughout
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.