Robert Brusca
Robert Brusca
consumer economy equity everybody happy housing increase negative partly people performance pull quite savings spending supported
While everybody is very happy with the performance of the economy under Greenspan, it's come at quite a price. We have a negative savings rate. The consumer has been out spending his and her income, partly supported by an increase in housing prices, where people had to pull a lot of the equity out of their home. Well they can't do that again.
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This shows the Fed rate cut was really quite needed, ... and would probably suggest the Fed might have more work to do to hold things together.
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Worker productivity generally creates a scenario where employees realize they can begin to demand more for what they do. While the year-over-year productivity gains are still quite good, there is some evidence that wage inflation may be starting to creep in. The Fed won't like this.
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Housing may get another mini boost from the recent drop in rates. These data do lag a bit. Still, it is clear that, low rates or not, housing is not on fire the way it once was. The level of activity remains quite high for housing. But the prospects for further growth do not look that strong based on momentum.
claims improvement numbers quite strange turn
The claims numbers always do strange things at the end of the year. There was some improvement at the turn of the year, but the story is that claims are gravitating back to the 400,000, where they were for quite while.
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What's going on here is we've got a lot of growth. We've seen very, very strong consumption.
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The stock market is earnings-oriented. But if you're looking at earnings, you're not seeing anything improving.
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The sell-off in bonds is for real and is the correct reaction. The Fed will need confirmation to act. The bond market won't. It takes no prisoners.
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The soft spot is looking to be bigger and softer all the time.
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The rise, however, does not mean that housing is out of the woods -- far from it. The Fed is still hiking.
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During this recent period there may be some extra spending on the part of those recovering from hurricane disasters. But it is also true that comprehensive consumer spending has been outstripping income growth over this period,
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Each Fed Chairman has to go through his own, on-the-job, trial by fire. There is no other way.
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Prices don't decline like this unless you've got a lot of slack demand conditions.
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Private sector job growth is still challenged. The report is not very good for the month alone, but the trends have actually improved, thanks to the revisions.