Mark Vitner
Mark Vitner
believe economic hard number quarter stop strong truly
I truly believe that they would like to stop at 5 percent, but if we get a really strong number (for economic growth) in the first quarter it may be hard to do that.
commodity costs cyclical hard household passing profit raw squeeze time user
It suggests there could be a profit squeeze in some of the cyclical industries, ... Autos. Household appliances. Anything that has a lot of raw commodity in it. The end user is going to have a hard time passing those costs on to the consumers.
anywhere area economy economy-and-economics florida hard largest margin nation pressed recent weak
All of Florida is doing well. Its economy is outperforming the nation by the largest margin in recent memory. You'd be hard pressed to find a weak area anywhere in the state.
earlier harder january large likely revision
We're likely to see large upward revision to earlier data, so it'll be harder for January to show a big gain.
account adjustment came causes data employment gauge hard hiring holiday later might november numbers problem thanksgiving wider year
The problem with the November employment numbers is hiring for the holiday season. It's hard to get a gauge of what it's going to be. They do a seasonal adjustment to the number to account for that, but the seasonal adjustment causes wider swings. And this year Thanksgiving came later in the month, so hiring might have started after the November data was collected.
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You can't get a strong economy if everybody's against business. It's awfully hard to create jobs if everybody's anti-business.
happen headed inflation
Inflation at the end of the day is headed higher, it's just not going to happen that dramatically this year.
despite economy economy-and-economics energy higher resilient somewhat surprising
it's somewhat surprising how resilient the economy has been, despite higher energy prices.
biggest economists growth mistake past
The biggest mistake of economists over the past 20 years ... We've consistently underestimated growth.
bush cause employment george harm keeping low people raise rates weak
They would like to raise rates, but right now, keeping rates a little too low would cause the least harm in the economy. If they raise rates after this weak employment report, people will be hollering. George Bush would be hollering the loudest.
federal larger money response spent
The federal response has been much larger than we thought it would be, ... And the money is being spent much more quickly.
economic four growth next rather return slower sure three
(The Fed) would rather see slower economic growth over the next two years than the return of stagflation three or four years down the road. And I think they'll do everything they have to make sure we don't have stagflation.
august basis beyond both cut fed october points rates
The Fed will probably cut rates in both August and October by 25 basis points (a quarter-percentage point) each. We really don't know what they will do beyond that.
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The federal government is going to spend whatever they need to, to make some visible progress before next year's mid-term elections, ... And what that's going to do to an economy that's already at full employment is drive up the cost of cement, drive up the cost of steel, drive up the cost of labor.