Steven Wieting
Steven Wieting
beneath demand faster moving production rate
Beneath the surface, production and inventory, here and abroad, are moving up faster than the rate of demand growth,
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Whether the Fed goes 25 or 50 basis points next week might mean something for managing market psychology, but it doesn't mean nearly as much for the broader economy. Their language regarding their future considerations on rates is what should matter.
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We had unintentional inventory declines in the second and third quarters, which is what you would typically get in a recession. I think companies will need to build $50 billion per quarter in inventories, even if the demand growth rate is just 3.5 percent.
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Year-end financial markets can be difficult, and winter economic data is difficult to read. It makes more sense that December will be month they skip. You don't want to be raising rates into what can be an illiquid market.
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We saw a lot of healing going on in 2002, and nobody gives any credit to it.
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Benchmark revisions could completely recast underlying data, in which case January forecasts won't be useful.
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While we don't take monthly changes in employment too seriously, today's data were slightly stronger than expected on hiring, but slightly weaker on hours and utilization, thus providing a 'growth positive' outlook.
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While the U.S. economy is still transitioning, and will for some time, data that should be supporting confidence in the recovery have not worked to ease investor concerns. We have to wonder if markets won't derail an otherwise quite healthy recovery in much of the core of the U.S. economy.
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Exports were flat for a second month running and that has been what is most broken in the trade picture.
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This notion that there's just too much tech everywhere contrasts with the fact that there's actually been a spending improvement,
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We already were expecting a 5,000-job decline in manufacturing employment in May.
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Business conditions are really slack. The latest rally in stocks doesn't change that.
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Many of the understandable sources of recovery have been expended in the first half of 2002, leaving growth drivers into 2003 a mystery.
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September was a month where we thought there was a tremendous amount of weather impact,