Bruce Steinberg Quotations

October job loss could easily be worse. The unemployment rate is headed for 6 percent, in our view.

I believe they are going to raise rates at least twice more after today.

For recovery to have any real oomph, capital spending will need to rebound. So far there are no signs of that, and we don't expect a turn until the first half of next year. So in the near term, the economy will probably remain soft enough to justify at least one more Fed move.

If the unemployment rate rises through July, as is entirely possible, the initial tightening will take place during the fall.

He is extremely optimistic on technology, its impact on productivity and the benefits it has to our economy. We believe Alan Greenspan does not see any burning need to further tighten policy, assuming the economy is slowing as it has been indicating so far.

Greenspan's testimony was balanced. We believe today's remarks were enough to think that the Fed will take a 'wait and see' attitude rather than ease one last time.

I think they may ease as soon as late January.

Larry Summers is a very capable guy. He's been Rubin's deputy for the last five years or so, and Rubin has been grooming him to take on the responsibilities of being the Treasury secretary.

Rising oil prices are the biggest risk to what is otherwise shaping up as a robust recovery. Every $1 increase in the price of oil drains about $5 billion from the U.S. economy, if sustained for a year.

Robust growth probably won't get going until the second half of the year. The first tightening move by the Fed is unlikely to occur until late summer at the very soonest.

We have to stay tuned for more economic data.

We don't expect the Fed to tighten anytime soon. The first tightening move is unlikely to occur before late summer at the very soonest.

With the economy showing signs of life, the Fed easing cycle is probably at an end. We expect the Fed to hold steady.

We believe the Fed is done. But even if the Fed is done, it will continue to talk tough, stressing inflation risks, in part to keep markets from going to far too soon.

Today's unemployment data were as expected, showing that we are still in a recession, but that the worst is behind us.

We don't have any inflation problem. The CPI was a one-time aberration.

The path of the unemployment rate is the key to the timing of the Fed's initial tightening move. In our view, the Fed won't tighten until August at the soonest.

We still believe that the recession will persist through the winter, mainly because major job loss looms ahead in order to restore profit margins.

This report provides the first indication of the state of capital spending in the second quarter, and the data were quite strong.

There has been talk recently about how, because productivity was revised down last year, it would belie the productivity miracle of the recent past. We believe today's data indicate that this is not happening.

We assume that will begin to happen during the first half of next year.

We believe if the Fed does not cut by 75 basis points, there is a risk the market would be disappointed. If the Fed does cut by 75 basis points, we do not think that the selling climax would continue past that point.

Between you and me, you want to be the only one getting the pay raise, and not everyone else.

As the job market gradually improves, it should easily support consumer-spending gains of at least 3.5 percent this year.

And the signs since the fourth quarter suggest growth picking up in the first quarter more strongly than most people had anticipated. So I would say the recovery is here.

Tech will have the worst performance of any S&P sector in 2001 with operating earnings per share plunging 73 percent. But next year (2002) we believe tech earnings will snap back strongly.

Actually there are two pieces of news. One is that although the market consensus was only 250,000, the bond market was fearing a much, much stronger report --hence the relief rally that followed the release of the numbers.

They've already been working together. Summers sits in on the meetings Rubin has with Greenspan much of the time.

It's appalling that the police department can enter into a contract that goes against the Constitution.

That's really going to tell the tale of whether the (U.S. Federal Reserve) will raise interest rates or not. It will probably determine whether August is a good month (for stocks) or not.

The U.S. economy shows further signs of stabilizing, though a true recovery is still some months away. Consumers will determine the near-term outlook and signs are positive.

The U.S. economy is performing so admirably right now, it is hard to believe how good it is. We have strong growth, declining inflation, strong profits, rising real wages. All of these things are happening at the same time and there is no sign that any of this is about to end.

The U.S. economy is now almost certainly in recession, but a huge amount of policy stimulus should strongly boost growth by next spring or summer. A consumer rebound in the spring and a capital spending recovery by the second half of 2002 will hopefully follow.

The U.S. economy has yet to show convincing signs of a bottom but that doesn't mean monetary policy isn't working. We continue to look for a strong economic rebound by the fourth quarter.

They are very well acquainted with each another and I think they will have a good working relationship. So there will be continuity of policy. But still, I think Rubin's departure, at the end of the day, is still a loss.

The new economy is very, very much alive and well. This is that healthy shakeout of Internet companies that many of us have been talking about for months. Now it's time to sift through the rubble and see what's left standing -- and what will grow in its place.

A further deterioration in the labor market is inevitable.

In the first year of every recovery, inflation has fallen; and we think the core CPI will fall to 2 percent by year-end.

The manufacturing sector is still shrinking but at a much slower pace than earlier in the year.

These problems have begun to improve, but they're far from resolved in terms of problems. So the Federal Reserve has got to keep moving.

This is a great PPI number. We have literally no wholesale inflation in the U.S. economy. The PPI went down, the core PPI was unchanged, and over the past year wholesale prices measured by the core PPI are barely up at all.

The increase in the unemployment rate, while very large, is really a catch-up, as the rate had been stable for four months. This brings the unemployment rate to where we believe it should be at this point.

The economy is doing better than anyone three or four months ago thought it could do. While 1.4 percent growth is pretty feeble, it does mean the recession was, from a GDP perspective, the mildest one we ever had.

The economy is definitely making a transition. I think 1998 will be viewed as the year of soft landing when the economy went from a nearly 4 percent growth rate in the prior year, to just over 2 percent this year.

The economy was moving like a rocket in the first quarter. GDP probably rose at a 4.5 percent rate. It's a little faster than I thought earlier, primarily because even though demand was enormously strong in the first quarter, there was actually a pretty considerable case of inventory building.

The economy remains weak, but hints of stabilization are emerging.

The economy is still going very, very strong. I think in October the Fed will take a pass, what they do after that remains to be seen.

The economy is on the verge of recovery but the recession has not quite loosened its grip yet.

The complete lack of inflation puts the Fed in a bind. Recent remarks by Fed officials make it seem that they are hell-bent on tightening. But there is not much of a rationale that comes out of recent data.

The market has just dodged a bullet. What this report does is remove the likelihood of a Fed tightening on Oct. 5, but we really can't rule out a tightening in November. We have to stay tuned for more economic data.

The Leading Economic Index is basically telling us what we already know. Despite the declines in the index, the economy is growing, although very slowly.