Joshua Shapiro Quotes (37 Quotes)

The strength in manufacturing is increasingly tied to strong demand for exports as well as reasonably good domestic demand. Other economies are doing well and we've still got reasonably good economic growth and inventory rebuilding in the U.S.

The big question now is how much companies will be able to raise prices for finished products to offset the hit to profits from higher unit labor costs.

There are reasonably deep-seated reasons for pessimism on the part of home builders.

They are being as clear as they possibly can be about raising rates in December without knowing what the data will be in the next month,

I think they are trying to say that they can still do their tightening 25 basis points at a time, but they still have a long way to go in raising rates. Essentially, the message is, 'if you think we're nearly done, think again'.

I don't think we're talking about a recession or a near recession. I think we're talking about growth that is slower than people expected.

The Fed isn't going to get exited about inflation in the labor market. At this stage they are focusing on core inflation at the consumer level and growth. Certainly, the news lately on the growth side has been quite good.

They are basically saying what every Fed official who has opened his mouth in the last month has said, ... The Fed is going to continue to nudge short-term interest rates, unless something disastrous happens.

Our own belief remains that while core inflation could well inch up in the coming months, it is unlikely to accelerate significantly.

The trend is not going to be that great if imports are picking up in momentum.

It's a wait and see. If we get another powerful storm that does damage to refining capacity in particular, I think all bets can be off if gasoline prices will go higher and stay there.

While this was obviously a good month, we don't expect this to continue. We think it's going to be a slow drift up in core inflation going forward.

There's not much to worry about as far as imported inflation is concerned. For as long as the dollar hangs in there, we should see a benign reading for import prices excluding fuels.

It was a good solid number, maybe not as high as some people were hoping, and not as bad as bonds had feared,

Everyone was so focused on the word 'measured' that they didn't expect them to update the rest of the language to be more aggressive, so that took people by surprise a little bit,

An aggressive effort by business to pass through higher energy prices will probably largely fail as an increasingly strapped consumer proves resistant.

It's mighty difficult the closer you get to the consumer to raise prices, and that remains the case. There is a big debate out there as to how long can this continue.

Economic growth in the autumn and winter is likely to be soft, ... and there is going to be heightened pressure on companies to try to pass through some of their higher costs into finished goods prices.

If you get a big number next week, people will say great, the labor market is finally recovering, this is the last piece in the economic recovery, ... But they'll also say, well maybe now the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates sooner.

Rumblings at the producer level will help keep Federal Reserve officials highly attuned to the inflation situation and will cause them to continue to tilt to the side of tighter policy.

Well, with gasoline well over 3.00 a gallon in most places when this survey was conducted, it is little wonder that consumers were cranky,

The Fed comments were fairly unsurprising. They indicated that there is more tightening ahead, and that the pace will be determined by upcoming data.

It's going to be hard in the near term to do anything more than slow the rate of deterioration in the deficit. Imports are just too large compared with exports.

It sounds like he's sort of reaffirming what a lot of the Fed officials have been saying, which is that they are more worried about inflation than slowing growth,

We would not jump to any conclusions based on these numbers, particularly as the weekly jobless claims figures, adjusted for hurricane effects, point to considerably stronger job growth than reported.

The national labor market numbers are being skewered by the hurricanes at the moment and it's going to be a few months before we get a clean read.

The Fed is not going to raise rates right away, even if the March numbers are really strong. They are going to wait until they get several months of very strong numbers, and for people to start really feeling that the labor market is improving before they raise rates.

In the third quarter, trade will resume its role as a weight on growth, but we are still likely to see a robust G.D.P. picture.

February was not a bad month either temperature-wise. If you look at other evidence, things are beginning to roll over. You will see housing starts roll over in the months ahead.

With anticipations of higher rates still clearly in the minds of buyers, we cannot rule out fence-sitters rushing ahead of higher rates.

We continue to expect the Fed funds target to reach 5 percent in the second quarter of next year, which is where we see the tightening process ending. Comments from Fed officials suggest that they expect only a temporary hit to growth from higher energy prices, while concern about a drift up in core inflation is increasing.

Export growth will remain solid in the months immediately ahead, which ought to help blunt (but not fully offset) the detrimental effect on the trade deficit of a likely acceleration in import growth.

While we have seen an increase today versus a forecasted decline, housing starts are currently doing on a trend basis what many have forecasted remaining on a high plateau, unable to move higher but not seeing demand fall off enough to take starts lower.

The January blowout was no doubt mostly a function of record warm weather enticing shoppers out of their homes in much greater numbers than normal for the month.

However, most people probably expected them to tighten, ... The policy statement was the source of differing opinions.

The information in the report is considered dated because the current focus is on the extent of the damage to the nation's energy and trade infrastructure and therefore on the lasting nature of the effect Hurricane Katrina.

Clearly, as this sales data and also the mortgage application data show, there is plenty of strength still in housing. However, is this, as we speculate above, fence-sitting buying ahead of perceived rate increases, or can this pace be maintained as buyers think that low rates will last for the foreseeable future.