Delos Hamilton Smith Jr. (May 10, 1884 – July 21, 1963)[1] was an American architect and architectural historian. (wikipedia)
Housing starts would be much much higher if they could find the people to build the homes.
We haven't yet seen the negative effect of gas prices on consumer spending. It's certainly not here in these numbers. That doesn't mean it's not there. Certainly the weekly retail sales numbers have been sluggish.
It looks like a nice start but it's hard to tell, hard to have a perspective until we start seeing the cash register receipts. It's hard to tell, but it's perfect shopping weather.
There are no longer really state economic systems that can function by themselves. Most of our largest corporations are in every major market in the world. We're intertwined.
Does that have economic implications? To me, the answer is yes. In a sense, we have to wait for recovery until this group wants to sleep with each other again.
Consumers right now are bargain hunters, and that's what Wal-Mart is talking about. If you're offering a bargain and the consumer thinks it will go away, you'll get the consumer to buy, but there is no impulse buying going on.
Consumers had a nice July and August. Unfortunately, they're on their own for the fourth quarter, which starts on Wednesday. Going into 2004, spending is going to be based on wage and salary growth, which needs a boost.
It's the biggest market we have, because people don't live in empty houses.
People are seeing we're not getting job growth, even though there have been a lot of promises of it. That's the key; for people to be satisfied, you have to have job growth.
We're going to see people trimming their expenses here and there. They probably will not eat out as much or go to movies as often as they normally would. So restaurants and theaters are also vulnerable.