Diane Swonk
Diane Swonk
abundant broad brought consumers early extremely finally holiday left less means ordered overly promotions retailers seen shelves
Retailers ordered extremely conservatively for the holiday season. The shelves aren't overly abundant with goods, and controlling inventories has finally made it into broad retailers, not just Wal-Mart. That's important because it means a lot of the early promotions we've seen have brought the consumers in, but has left less on the shelves with less selection.
cold consumers early relatively sales snap spending strong suggesting vehicle winter
It's all vehicle sales and gas. Chain-store sales were relatively strong during the month, suggesting consumers diverted their vehicle spending to other sectors. We also had a cold snap which prompted early spending on winter wear.
advantage consumers days fewer floors helping hiring holiday large less people retailers shopping six taking
Not only are retailers doing more with less, like every other large corporation, and taking advantage of six fewer days in the shopping season, but they are actually hiring less this holiday shopping season, so there's fewer people on the floors actually helping consumers out.
clearly fed insurance risk saying willing
I think this is clearly the Fed saying 'we're willing to take out an insurance policy, we're not willing to risk recession',
bit burden carry economy feet keeping kick
kick back, put up his feet for a bit and not have to carry the burden of keeping the economy going alone.
adds economic feels paper people sharing
It adds up on paper to look a lot better than what it feels to people, ... not as many people are sharing in the economic gains.
beyond deadline december encourage event flight major moment point radar seems
I think it does encourage flight to quality, temporarily, but actually I think once we get beyond this point, there is a deadline here, ... December 12th is a deadline out there looming not very long away, and I think that once we get beyond that point we really will see this as little more than a blip in the radar screen, as much as it seems like a major event in the moment for the markets. But it's not part of the fundamental economy.
brought losses nation recover wealthy york
We are a wealthy nation that rebuilds and fortifies. Ultimately, New York is going to more than recover the losses that this brought on.
boost companies competition customer innovate inward mean means order profits turn
That doesn't mean that competition is getting any less. It just means that companies have to turn inward to innovate in order to boost profits and customer satisfaction,
closer employment full percent view
My own view is that full employment is closer to 4 to 4.5 percent -- probably closer to the 4.5 percent range.
absorb blows economy fed labor market strong
Like what the Fed has suggested, the U.S. economy was more than strong enough to absorb the blows of Katrina. The labor market is still pretty resilient.
cards either house sort strong
We've got this sort of house of cards. It is either a strong house of cards or the whole thing could implode on us. It could go either way.
fake late overall performance profit saw strongest
We've got the strongest overall profit performance in 30 years, and these are real profits, not the fake ones we saw in the late 1990s.
consumer credit economy goes haunt major
When the economy goes back down again, years down the road, will consumer credit be a major problem, like it was in the 1990-91 recession? ... Yes, it could come back to haunt us. But right now, it's a macroeconomic plus.