Joshua Feinman Quotations

Businesses were liquidating inventory last fall at a frenetic pace and adding to weakness in the economy's production. It looks like the rate of inventory liquidation is starting to slow, and a basis is forming from that reduction for a rise in the economy.

To get faster job growth, we're going to need either faster aggregate demand, which seems hard to fathom, or we're going to need some diminution of the recent extra cyclical pop in productivity, ... When will that start? Anybody who says they know is lying.

If the economy roars back, you can always take the cuts back. But suppose you're wrong on the other side, and the economy continues to languish? With the slack already in the markets, inflation is likely to move lower still.

We've been waiting for something like this for a long time. But we need to resist the temptation to put too much weight on any one month's report -- probably the best thing to do is to average out the past few months; that gives a clearer picture.

Some of the other indicators are suggesting more strength than we see in payrolls. Whether that will be rectified with revisions, or simply with stronger numbers going forward, it's hard to say -- but I would anticipate that, at some point the payroll numbers, will be stronger.

I think it's encouraging that three weeks in a row we've been below 400,000. I think it suggests the labor market may be strengthening a little bit.

We need to keep in mind that this is the time of year when weekly fluctuations can be hard to seasonally adjust. We may need a few more weeks to sort it out. Overall, the readings we've been getting suggest the deterioration in the labor market is slowing down.

The personal income tax cut could be a boost of $50 billion to disposable income, and some of that could be felt when they actually change the tax withholding schedule, which could be in the spring or summer. Then there might be a little bit of rebate check, too. All of this might be a little more of short-term shot in the arm than the dividend tax cut.

Did firms have trouble making profits back in the 1950s and 1960s? ... No -- they were used to a low-inflation environment, and the cost side was used to that, and workers' expectations about wages were more attuned to that.

To keep these tax cuts permanent, even if it means somewhat faster GDP growth -- and that's debatable -- will mean the government gets a smaller tax take as a percentage of GDP. Then spending has to be a smaller share, too. We have to have some plan.

The United States has been the engine of global growth for some time. It would behoove the world if other engines were to develop, but it doesn't look like that's happening. As long as that's the case, U.S. growth will mostly be determined by what happens here.

They are a bit more sanguine about inflation than the market has been, and they've been trying to tell people that. It doesn't mean they have their head stuck in the sand. With the last sentence of their statement, they leave themselves plenty of flexibility.

As the national economy gets better, California will get better, and some of its problems will be less acute.

These data reinforce the notion that, while consumption is going to be slower in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter, it doesn't look like the consumer is raising the white flag and giving up.

Companies have the wherewithal to pick up the pace of hiring and capital investment again, but I'm not sure they have the desire, for a variety of reasons -- including their outlook on future demand.

The administration is likely to push for more fiscal stimulus, and this makes it a little more clear-cut, because O'Neill had been hesitant about that.

The labor market's starting to improve a bit -- it's not great, but it's getting better.

Before the storm struck, (the Fed) thought the economy was on sound footing, ... I don't think that's changed. The only thing Katrina may have done is raise some uncertainty about the near-term outlook.

These numbers were worse than expected. But overall, the labor market is still deteriorating, but not at the rate it was after Sept. 11.

They will convey more or less the same message -- that the economy is looking better, but nothing that would convey the notion that they're going to be moving rates any time soon.

The irony is that in the 1970s and 1980s, we were trying to get to that world again. We're darn close to price stability now.

This is more corroboration that the economy, particularly the production side, is responding to the pick-up in demand we saw in the third quarter.

It's already been working to dampen demand and cut into purchasing power. The longer it stays here, the longer that impact will last.

It's a little bit analogous to the early 1990s, in that, when the Persian Gulf War ended then, the economy did not come storming back -- it took a while because it continued to work off its problems. Something similar could happen this time, though the economy is a little further along now in its process of unwinding than it was then.

It's still meaningful -- it's a sector that accounts for a lot of swings in activity.

That just speaks to what a big hit manufacturing took and how long a way we have to claw back to reasonable rates of utilization.

You have to look at these numbers over a few months. Coming in, we had several months of very substantial gains, ... The basic picture is that business spending is bottoming and showing some signs of improvement, but it's not really robust.

We've been talking for a long time about capital spending growth being a key component of the sustainability of this recovery. You have to be encouraged about what we've seen.

If firms need pricing power, they should be clamoring for the highest possible rates of inflation. Firms don't have pricing power, but they can still make money, and a lot of it.