Robert Brusca
Robert Brusca
aware energy people prices
People are aware of what energy prices are doing to their pocketbooks, and their company,
energy inflation rising seems storm weathered
Inflation seems to have weathered the storm of rising energy prices.
compensate energy eventually fact itself month period prices work works
Eventually you have other prices going down to compensate for the fact that energy went up. But that doesn't work itself out in a month or two; it works out over a period of time.
across below count covers energy number overall pressure price products report shot warning
You count up the products (showing price increases) and you see there's a little more pressure just below the surface, ... The overall energy number showed a big decline. That covers up a lot of ills. But the PPI was the warning shot across the bow. With the CPI report we dodged the bullet.
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.
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.
answer educated education people simply unemployed
There are so many low-paid people who are educated that education is simply not the answer. The answer is, you will be unemployed if this is not stopped.
affect consumer effect kinds lost money people seem stock wealth
Where was wealth effect during that time? ... The consumer didn't die. People lost all kinds of money in the stock market, and it didn't seem to affect them.
continue determine economy fast federal grow limit officials reserve saying speed
We continue to see Federal Reserve officials saying they want the economy to grow as fast as it can, but they're the ones who determine where that speed limit is.