Lara Rhame Quotes (88 Quotes)

Look at the subcomponents -- what are inventories and new orders in this case ... If I were the purchasing manager at a hospital and somebody asked me about 'new orders,' what would I count Syringes Patients At a bank, what's 'inventory' Palm Pilots Mortgages.

We've seen markets get ahead of themselves in bonds and in currencies as well. There are signs that markets have now gotten too optimistic about not only the size of the U. S. recovery, but the speed our medium-term forecast is still very much of euro strength and dollar weakness.

They have clearly started to apply more pressure. They have singled out China and the rest of the emerging market economies.

The consumer is finally winding down, ... We've seen income growth slow somewhat, and we have enough headwinds building that we can make a strong case for spending slowing markedly.

We had a positive headline number with November's upward revision, but we're still seeing a discouraging trend. Excluding auto sales, sales have gone from 0.8 to 0.3 to flat over October, November and December. So we're seeing growth mainly based on auto purchases. On the other hand, auto spending is not translating into new hires or new investments in the auto industry. And that's true across industries.

It's always been very important to listen to CEOs. When you've got guys that run companies nervous about demand, they put off investing.

This is a solid (GDP) release and should support the dollar's gains from earlier this morning,

A turnaround in manufacturing has not been signaled anywhere else, so I guess I'm not as excited about this number as the markets seem to be, ... I would like to see this confirmed in another month of data.

This is what the Federal Reserve has been warning about for a long time -- we will still see consumer spending growth, but it will be more moderate than before, ... It's a retrenchment of consumer spending growth from blistering levels.

It's probably wise they cut before the opening bell. They wouldn't want to be seen as reacting to the stock market, but they are trying to show that they are willing to do what it takes to maintain confidence.

Given that the economic data will be strong, people will wonder why the Fed is not moving, which could cause some volatility in the markets. But we think the Fed will remain on hold for quite some time.

This whole question of the impact on interest rates is really complicated, but a lot of smart people at the Fed and elsewhere have said it's not really a big issue -- it's only suppressing long-term interest rates at the margin.

The weaker-than-expected housing number still leaves housing at a fairly high level of activity but will raise some eyebrows as markets worry about the (Federal Reserve) overshooting (with rate hikes).

U.S. treasury yields are rising and we've seen that support the dollar across the board. The dollar remains strong on the back of solid U.S. economic data and expectations that the 10-year yield is going to continue to go higher.

I think the employment situation is getting better, slowly, so I don't think it will cause the consumer to shut down. But job growth like this makes consumer spending that much more fragile, if some exogenous shock should hit.

What I call a dollar crisis is when you have a big, negative feedback loop, with international investors spooked purely because of the currency, shedding U.S. assets, which would be more dollar negative, and it would just feed on itself,

For the Fed, productivity is the antidote to inflation, and that's still very strong. It's inconceivable that the Fed would tighten in four out of its next five meetings.

We saw the unemployment rate actually holding throughout most of this slowdown, and only about four months ago we were at a 4.5 percent unemployment rate, ... The average recession sees a lot of job losses, so we've got a lot of catching up to do.

The market reacted exactly the way they wanted it to, which was to flatten the yield curve. I think the point is clear Policy makers are going to do whatever they can to help the Fed. The rate cuts that the Fed is putting through are only hitting the short curve they're only psychological.

This is not a 'ripping off the Band-Aid' kind of situation, where you know how much the pain will be and that you'll be fine afterwards. We don't know how well the economy has healed. The Fed remains very concerned ... that they might overshoot and give the economy such a shock they'll have to cut rates again.

People choose to consume based on expected earnings. The unemployment data should take some of the froth off of a couple of really strong recent data reports.

We're definitely going to have a strong recovery, but it's not going to be as robust as people think. It's going to be the second quarter before we get any kind of positive gross domestic product growth.

We may have hit bottom here, to some extent, ... We're facing two quarters -- the fourth of 2001 and the first of 2002 -- of close to zero growth. But this may be the first recession we've gotten through without two quarters of consecutive shrinking gross domestic product (GDP).

On balance it's dollar negative data.

With MA activity picking up, productivity growth will stay robust, and that means continued new efficiencies, and a lot of that will overshadow new job creation.

I don't see future hiring robust enough to alleviate a lot of concern on the part of consumers. We've stopped shedding jobs, but over the next two quarters, we won't see very much job growth.

This is yet another reminder that policy-makers don't have a lock on knowledge. There's a tremendous amount of confusion now about whether or not the recent weakness due to military anxiety is going to end up being self-reinforcing economic weakness.

Europeans' cries are falling on deaf ears, ... Their wish that the euro not bear the burden of readjustment will not make it into the G7 statement.

Stocks in this recovery have performed far worse than the last three recoveries. You really have to ask yourself, as a whole, what the markets are seeing out there.

What the current deficit does is make the dollar vulnerable. It means we could see a vicious cycle, where a declining dollar makes U.S. assets less attractive to foreign investors, which weakens our assets further, which puts further pressure on the dollar.

Business confidence remains very, very fragile, and we're still in an environment where businesses are more concerned with cutting costs than with ramping up investment projects,

We had a massive jump in the Conference Board measure of consumer sentiment last month, and everybody will be looking for confirmation of that improvement in the Michigan survey.

If you look at the segments of the economy where we do have deflation, particularly in the goods industry -- and particularly in durable goods, such as automobiles and heavy machinery -- that's where most of the layoffs have been concentrated, ... That's where you see the connection of disinflation to overall economic growth.

I see the trade gap stabilizing, but it's hard to see it narrowing unless you get the U.S. consumer shutting down.

As the economy gets more and more dependent on housing being the key driver of growth, the economy becomes more and more vulnerable to that sector slowing down.

If you look back at the data we had in July and August, they were not very positive. Even before Sept. 11, we weren't seeing growth anywhere, except in housing and automobile sales.

Markets initially seem to be focusing more on the downward revision in growth than the upward revision to the deflator.

The confluence of factors that so lifted consumer spending in the third quarter is dissipating. Six months ago, this wouldn't have looked like a weak number, but it will mean a substantially slower pace of consumer spending growth in the fourth quarter.