Steve Slifer Quotations

If the Fed chooses to do something less than that (half-percentage point), then you're going to have this major disappointment in the financial markets.

I think the Fed recognized that confidence was really beginning to get away from them. The important message is that these guys are trying to tell the markets that they are going to make absolutely sure that the economy does not slide into recession. In some ways they took the 'R' word right out of the dictionary, but it is equally clear that their work is far from over.

A soft landing can be achieved, I have faith. The question is how much fine tuning they'll have to do to get there and whether or not it accidentally turns into a crash.

It's not a term people throw around because it's incredibly hard to do, but it does appear that we're headed for a soft landing. What we're looking for is for economic growth to gradually moderate in the months ahead, with inflation remaining under control.

The Fed watches everything, but certainly the weakest sector is manufacturing. We have a bunch of little hints that things are doing better but they (the Fed) don't have to look very far to find the other pieces that show things are very weak.

They need to say we're prepared to do whatever else is necessary to make sure that things get back on a reasonable growth track fairly quickly.