Robert Brusca
Robert Brusca
bad case coming confidence consumer depress guy job keeps lower none racking rate ruin savings shoot zombie
The American consumer is like that bad guy in a zombie movie; shoot him; stab him. He keeps coming forward. But in the case of the consumer, it's more like: depress his wage, make him unemployed, ruin his confidence make no job growth, lower his savings rate -- none of it matters, he or she just keeps on racking up those charges.
bad case happen
You can make the case that bad things happen in October.
above average bad divides good job line market months normal performance recent recessions three
Two of the three recent months are above the midpoint line that divides the average layoff performance in recessions from normal layoff periods. This suggests the job market is getting to be more like it is in bad times than in good times,
bad companies disturbing glorified indication move order orders overall percentage points running shows tend
We tend to look at this and the Philadelphia index as an indication of what is going on in the overall economy. Most disturbing is that order backlogs are running over 50 percent, which is the glorified neutral. It's at 6 percentage points below, that's bad -- it shows companies are cannibalizing orders to move ahead.
bad believe brush compare heard listened market news three warning
This market is wiling to brush away bad news because it doesn't believe in it. Compare it to the Three Little Pigs, when there's a warning they say 'we've heard this before.' But one of these days, there is going to be a warning that the market should have listened to.
bad basis coming housing market numbers strong
We are coming off strong numbers, and I don't think we would want to say bad things about the housing market on the basis of these numbers alone.
fed limits slower suggest
I think we're going to have a slower recovery, ... There are other things that suggest there are limits to what the Fed can do.
challenge control danger history lessons party
I think that one of the lessons in history is that if any party has too much control, the danger is that they will go overboard. The challenge for this administration is going to be to keep control of things.
aware energy people prices
People are aware of what energy prices are doing to their pocketbooks, and their company,
consumer economy equity everybody happy housing increase negative partly people performance pull quite savings spending supported
While everybody is very happy with the performance of the economy under Greenspan, it's come at quite a price. We have a negative savings rate. The consumer has been out spending his and her income, partly supported by an increase in housing prices, where people had to pull a lot of the equity out of their home. Well they can't do that again.
bit consumer growth highly linking output spending
While consumer spending has sparked up a bit recently, linking it to better output growth is still highly speculative.
concerns continues evidence fears inflation
While concerns about inflation swirl, the evidence continues to give those fears little substance,
against maybe reason suggesting
We have a lot of things suggesting that maybe things have improved, ... I don't see any reason to go against the numbers.
affected economy economy-and-economics gives magnitude
It doesn't tell you anything about the economy at this point. It just gives you some idea of the magnitude of the displacement in the affected area.