We are obviously experiencing slower growth and the payroll numbers don't really reflect that yet, which is why they will be an important indicator. Companies have been cutting back the number of hours their workers put in and in some cases cutting back their workforce altogether, and that is what people will be looking for in the numbers.
More Quotes from Ethan Harris:
Some economists give a lot of weight to these surveys, but my feeling is that a survey's only good until the real data come out. The surveys are exaggerating the strength of the manufacturing sector.Ethan Harris
The best tack is to move by a quarter point, with the promise that there will be more cuts to come if the economy remains weak. You can't maintain that promise with big bulky rate cuts.
Ethan Harris
By the fourth quarter, you will continue to have worries about corporate governance issues, a weak stock market and a buildup to war in Iraq leading to higher oil prices -- a lot of negative psychological forces in the economy that will make it very hard to sustain growth going forward,
Ethan Harris
The combination of still-strong growth and rising inflation has prompted a string of hawkish Fed speakers all arguing strenuously for the need to keep inflation contained,
Ethan Harris
There's this alternative scenario where the financial crisis starts to bleed into the economy in a major way,
Ethan Harris
We've been trying to see whether the improvement of the economy and financial market will carry the day in terms of consumer confidence, or if worries about labor will dominate. It looks like the 'glass-half-full' view is winning.
Ethan Harris
Readers Who Like This Quotation Also Like:
These days I'm pretty much a businessman.Wellington Mara
As to Magyar, I think that my speech was incorrect, inappropriate.
Bela Kun
It appalls me that the people who decide what Americans will be watching on the tube have never been to the United States. Not the real United States.
John Ratzenberger