Peter Morici Quotes on Business & Commerce (11 Quotes)

With crude oil prices soaring and China investing in new export capacity at a breakneck pace, the trade deficit will continue to pull down U.S. growth. Without a devaluation of the dollar against the Chinese yuan, U.S. growth will slow significantly in the second half of this year.

In a world where size matters less and innovation and adaptability are 95 percent of business success, the company that succumbs to union demands for wages greater than the market will bear or for work rules that reduce agility and efficiency, will be vanquished by a swarm of competitors.

Business investment is increasingly the engine pulling the economy forward.

China's purchases of dollars create a 33 percent subsidy on its exports, and are having a devastating effect on U.S. workers with only a high school education or only some college or technical training, ... Were foreign governments to stop manipulating currency markets, the trade deficit would be cut in half. (That) would increase GDP growth to about 5 percent a year and create as many as five million additional new jobs over the next three years.

Were the trade deficit cut in half, GDP would increase by nearly 300 billion, or about 2,000 for every working American.

It gets more and more out of synch every year. It'd really be just a fig leaf. In order for there to be a change in the trade relationship, it has to be a large change right off the bat -- at least 20 percent.

Businesses might ask for more (for consumer goods) but they won't necessarily get it, and then we'll see big discounts for Christmas, ... This squeeze will slow economic activity. The Fed needs to be very cautious how hard they take the economy downhill because it is already headed in that direction.

GM cannot go on providing the level of benefits they have been, if they want to stay in the business. It's not a matter of providing fewer benefits to increase profits, it's a matter of choosing to pay benefits it can afford, or getting to a place where it cannot pay anything at all.

Longer-term, persistent U.S. trade deficits are a substantial drag on growth.

Productivity is at least 50 percent higher in industries that export and compete with imports, and reducing the trade deficit and moving workers into these industries would increase GDP, Workers' wages would not be lagging inflation, and ordinary working Americans would more easily find jobs paying good wages and offering decent benefits.

Higher oil prices and a strong dollar will push the trade deficit to new record highs, with the monthly trade deficit likely exceeding 75 billion by mid 2006.