Wayne Ayers Quotes (30 Quotes)

You can't read too much into any one number, but it's a sharp rebound from the lows of October. Given that and a few other things, the bond market's more recent expectation is that the Fed, if it's not finished, is close to being finished.

The anecdotal evidence of the beige book seems to confirm what all these economic reports have been saying.

I think their desired stance is to stand pat for an extended period of time rather than cut rates, unless they are confronted with an external shock to the global financial system.

I think if you take those two things together, there is some hope.

The second half will show some better growth. Will that be sustained past the second half For that, two things have to happen we have to see a pickup in business spending, and the labor market has to stabilize and improve, creating permanent employment. We don't expect to see that until year-end.

I find it strange that we had one of the biggest declines in employment in almost two years and no one noticed, and I'm sure they're thinking the same way over there at the Fed.

This liquidation has been so sharp, so severe, not just in this last quarter, but over the past year, that even with a modest pickup in demand, production is almost bound to increase as we move through the balance of this year.

Firms in the past year have continued to invest in equipment and technology to improve productivity. And with good reason -- the cost of capital is below the cost of labor.

They're acknowledging reality. They're saying, 'We'll do what we have to do if future events warrant,' but I still don't think they plan on doing anything anytime soon.

Inventories are at rock-bottom levels -- even if economic growth slows in the fourth quarter, those inventories will have to be rebuilt, otherwise businesses risk losing business.

He's instantly recognizable in financial circles and has international stature.

To me, the business cycle is working as it always does, absent an external shock. Inventory liquidation means firms have to increase production, and they're already doing that. They're also increasing the length of the work week and hiring temporary workers. All these things support income and spending.

We're nowhere close to the Japanese example. When you have real deflation as they have in Japan, consumers expect prices to be lower, and they defer purchases, which makes the spiral worse. That's not an apt description of what the American consumer has been doing.

Productivity growth helps keep inflation at bay and allows real incomes to grow, but it makes businesses even slower to hire than usual.

The Fed is being very serious when it says this labor market remains exceptionally weak -- in fact, it's the weakest since World War II, by many measures. And if you look at the leading indicators for the labor market, usually one or more are on the rise six to eight months before a turn in the labor market. Right now, none are on the rise.

We're seeing on an almost daily basis signs across all sectors that this recovery is for real, and this trade number is confirmation of that. We've seen a pick-up in imports, indicative that the economy has turned the corner.

At labor market turning points, the household survey does better because it picks up self-employed workers and others not reflected in the business survey. But I'm still not convinced the labor market is quite as strong as the household data say it is.

There's no case for no cut at all at this point. There have been better economic numbers, but policy makers expect to see that. If I interpret what they've been saying correctly, this economy could grow 4.5 or 5 percent for a year without putting upward pressure on inflation.

I suspect they will not have a neutral bias they will indicate risks are on the downside. I think we will, on the production side, see better numbers in the second half of this year, but I don't expect any convincing improvement in the labor market before early next year.

I'm not sure Taylor has the political savvy for the job. Greenspan had been in Washington a long time and had a solid reputation. It was no surprise when Volcker was replaced by Greenspan because he was the obvious choice waiting in the wings.

Firms are still pretty cautious, given the experience of the past couple of years. But if firms are going to maintain market share, they will have to be competitive in terms of the goods they offer.

Certainly those auto incentives were helpful in giving us that growth in the fourth quarter. But we have to remember that even outside of autos, the consumers have really hung in there. I don't think it's entirely a fluke. I don't think it accounts for the ongoing strength of the consumer.

If you look at the last jobless recovery, the Fed was on hold for a good, long time. When they did reverse course, the economy had produced 4 million jobs from the trough in the labor market. We're nowhere near that -- even with payroll data revisions, which I suspect will be on the tepid side, we won't be near that.

Consider how much of a spending boom we had in the '90s. The bad news is that it will take a long while to work through that. We're looking at the first quarter of next year before we see convincing evidence of a recovery.

It's clear the consumer has progressively turned more cautious and conservative. Given that, and given that business capital spending has yet to come back, how long can this recovery keep on going These numbers certainly make that a legitimate question.

The good news is that this is going to go directly to the corporate bottom line. That's a real plus for profits, which means a real plus for corporate spending and the recovery going forward.

I think the Fed felt this was not the time to be cautious and conservative.

I think you would be hard-pressed to find an economist, aside from the supply-siders, who would argue against the idea that deficits matter.

It's unclear what lower rates would do. If it's really true that productivity and structural changes are causing labor market weakness, it's not clear that another cut in rates would be helpful to the labor market.

I think (Fed Chairman) Alan Greenspan has made it all but official, we'll get another rate cut in June, but my guess is a quarter point rate cut, principally because of what we're seeing on the inflation report. The CPI and PPI have been trending up over the last two years.