Mark Zandi Quotes (106 Quotes)

The data is going to look ugly in the next couple of months.

Ultimately, if you err on the side of being dovish it will only come with more pain from slower growth. The hit to growth would be more substantial from higher inflation than from interest rate hikes.

Here again, the business cycle will determine more than the commander in chief in the near term. There is very little the president can do to stimulate the job market quickly, ... but there is much the president can do to stimulate the job market long-run.

The largest source that drove the very strong growth over the last year was this powerful replacement cycle, which is fading, ... The need to replace inventory is over.

It would undermine the housing market, and could quickly result in credit problems that would affect the entire (American) financial system.

It would take time for that to occur and during this period of adjustment -- some things might not get done -- maybe some crops won't be picked or some hotel rooms won't get cleaned.

They don't have Greenspan's practical edge to them, but they all have academic and government policy experience. I hesitate to say they won't live up to Greenspan, but that would be hoping for an awful lot.

The unleashing of business pent-up demand will ensure that the U.S. economy's recovery will continue, but the unwinding of consumer spent-up demand will ensure that it won't come roaring back,

In November, there will be a lot of ugly economic data out on Katrina's initial impact and that might make it harder for them to move at that time,

The work force is growing not because employers are hiring a lot of new workers to staff expanding operations. The economy, in other words, is not being driven by businesses out there scouring for opportunity and revenue growth and pushing up wages as they compete to hire more workers.

I thought oil would have been a concern since it hit 40 but the economy has digested it well,

Most of the loans are concentrated in the most juiced-up markets across the country.

The rhetoric over China is intensifying for a number of reasons.

The economy is going to be hit hard by Katrina, and it is going to be hardest on consumers who are already stretched thin. With the surge in gasoline and home heating oil prices, consumers will have a difficult choice to make between filling their gas tank or spending on other things.

I suspect this is a pause and we still see a resumption of top line growth and, ultimately, better hiring in tech.

Housing, the strongest part of the economy, is still booming, and manufacturing, the weakest part, should gain strength in coming months. Put it all together and it paints a pretty economic picture of solid growth and low inflation.

Given the crosscurrents in the economic inflation data, it will be difficult for him to be clear-cut.

A month ago the markets would have interpreted getting rid of measured as meaning that a 50 basis point hike was possible. Now the market won't know if it would mean no change, another quarter-point move, or a 50 point hike is next and that's precisely why the Fed should take it out,

People are able to pull money out of their homes and put it into their gas tanks. So the overall effects on consumer spending have been small.

The rate of technical change, which is the most difficult thing to measure, seems to be slowing from the unprecedented pace of a few years ago.

If the job market doesn't kick into higher gear soon, consumers will lose confidence and rein in their spending, and the economy will in all likelihood fall back into recession unless we're very lucky.

if the financial markets were reeling and the images from the Gulf were getting worse instead of better, if energy prices were rising instead of falling. But given the economic data and financial markets, there's no reason to make a symbolic move.

I think the Fed will get rid of the reference about what to do in the future. I think they will make the statement as plain vanilla as possible, and they won't try to send a strong signal one way or the other.

If protectionist sentiment boils over, that could be a precipitating factor for the dollar. In a dollar crash scenario, it puts the Fed in a particularly difficult spot. Do they tighten policy (raise interest rates) to attract global capital or do they loosen it to help support the economy

We are a very low-cost area in a very high-cost region. Housing values have risen here, but not nearly as much as in other parts of the country.

All these statistics reflect the full force of the hurricanes on the broader economy and we will probably have another month of ugly statistics.

As the memory of the tech bust fades, we seem to be getting better and better job growth.

Inflation is still low and modest, but there are growing signs that it is starting to pick up.

It does indicate that the second quarter was a disappointing quarter, ... Growth slowed sharply. Consumers became more cautious and our trade deficit ballooned. The economy was weighed down by higher energy prices.

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.

It will cost you some money in fees. But in 2007, when the market is at its worst and your mortgage is resetting and you're looking for a lender to refinance you out, you just may not find one.

The impact is going to be very significant -- it may shave as much as a half-percentage point from economic growth this year.

Productivity growth is slowing and it is not strong enough to forestall rising labor costs and broader inflation.

Trade is far and away the largest weight on the U.S. economy at present. This is a risky time.

In the next few months, there's no upside. And this winter, we're going to feel it more noticeably as people pay record gas prices and record home-heating bills.

Consumers are reeling from the high energy bills and that has to be watched very carefully. Another month of falling consumer confidence would be disturbing.

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.

I think the message in this inverted yield curve is muddled. I think it is something to watch and to understand better. But I am not overly concerned.

It's at the top end of what's desirable for the Fed policy-makers and investors. Inflation is low, but it is rising.

Housing has peaked. And all indications are that sales will weaken further in the months ahead.

The economy is good, but it hasn't improved for everybody. The gains have predominantly gone to higher-income and higher net-worth households. Lower net-worth households are still struggling.

It is going to be a tough winter for many seniors. Not only will they face higher Medicare premiums, but record gasoline prices and higher home heating bills as well.

If underlying inflation begins to percolate higher, that will mean we will have to struggle with rising prices and higher interest rates.

This suggests that the economy has largely shrugged off the ill effects of the hurricanes. Christmas will turn out better than expected.

It undermines growth at the same time that it fans inflation.

So far, the surge in oil prices has yet to do any significant damage to the broader economy. We may see some softening in the consumer spending numbers soon, but unless that translates into a weaker job market, the economy should be able to weather these higher energy prices.

Of the 2.7 million jobs lost since employment's peak, roughly a third have been lost to overseas competition, and most if not all of those jobs are not coming back, ... And that trend is going to continue.

A lot of things have to come together to make my forecast of a slowing current account deficit come true.

This Administration is trying to change the whole intellectual basis for fiscal policy that Alan Greenspan enforced when deficits were large in the early 1990s. We got fiscal discipline through the idea that deficits matter. That's been flipped on its head.

The Fed chair doesn't matter a lot to the average person in normal times. He matters an awful lot when things aren't going well -- when the financial markets freeze, or there's a 911 or Y2K or Iraq war. When people lose confidence, the Fed chairman is vital to restoring confidence and ensuring functioning financial markets and economy.