At a minimum, this will hit consumers' pocketbooksand perhaps their confidence. Before Katrina, Goldstein estimated that consumers' annual fuel bills this year would average about 250 more for gasoline and 400 more for home heating oil and natural gas than in 2004. Now he reckons those amounts will go up 30 percent to 75 percent. Costlier energy could adversely affect consumer spending, corporate profits and inflationor all three. We could be reaching a tipping point on consumer psychology, especially when people get their home heating bills, ... Those will be big.
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If underlying inflation begins to percolate higher, that will mean we will have to struggle with rising prices and higher interest rates.Mark Zandi
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The job losses over the past three years have been across a wide range of industries and from coast to coast. And if you've lost your job, in all likelihood you will remain unemployed for longer than in any period since the Great Depression.
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The economic data in the next couple of months will look pretty weak. There will be significant political pressure on the Fed not to tighten.
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I think the new chairman will be more aggressive in tightening policy, at least early on in his term, just to establish his inflation-fighting credentials.
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Based on Topics: Confidence Quotes, Corporation Quotes, Energy Quotes, Psychology QuotesBased on Keywords: adversely, costlier, goldstein, reckons, tipping
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