Lara Rhame Growth Quotations

With M&A activity picking up, productivity growth will stay robust, and that means continued new efficiencies, and a lot of that will overshadow new job creation.

I think the employment situation is getting better, slowly, so I don't think it will cause the consumer to shut down, ... But job growth like this makes consumer spending that much more fragile, if some exogenous shock should hit.

Markets initially seem to be focusing more on the downward revision in growth than the upward revision to the deflator.

We are seeing pretty solid export growth. You are starting to see the U.S. benefit from faster growth in Asia and the rest of the world.

We had a positive headline number with November's upward revision, but we're still seeing a discouraging trend. Excluding auto sales, sales have gone from 0.8 to 0.3 to flat over October, November and December. So we're seeing growth mainly based on auto purchases. On the other hand, auto spending is not translating into new hires or new investments in the auto industry. And that's true across industries.

Consumers will keep us in positive territory, but they're not going to be optimistic enough to fuel economic growth to its potential.

There's a growing effort within the Fed to look for other ways to add liquidity into markets and to sustain the interest-rate-led growth we've had. I think they are going to move to a bias to ease policy again, but I'd look for the ease somewhere else. It won't be a rate cut.

This is what the Federal Reserve has been warning about for a long time -- we will still see consumer spending growth, but it will be more moderate than before, ... It's a retrenchment of consumer spending growth from blistering levels.

The next couple of months will be absolutely crucial. If we can get through this, we're going to have growth that will be consumer-led next year.

On balance, it is a modestly dollar negative set of data. Retail sales growth was a little weaker than markets had expected, with a downward revision to the ex-auto sector.

The 'new economy' was a new beast to some extent, and the Fed was too lenient in terms of letting consumer exuberance get ahead of itself. They should have been moderating growth in 1997 and '98.

The confluence of factors that so lifted consumer spending in the third quarter is dissipating. Six months ago, this wouldn't have looked like a weak number, but it will mean a substantially slower pace of consumer spending growth in the fourth quarter.

The consumer is finally winding down. We've seen income growth slow somewhat, and we have enough headwinds building that we can make a strong case for spending slowing markedly.

The consumer is finally winding down, ... We've seen income growth slow somewhat, and we have enough headwinds building that we can make a strong case for spending slowing markedly.

You can really think of productivity as magic fairy dust to sprinkle over growth to allow growth without inflation. That's really the way the Fed sees it.

The manufacturing data certainly are positive, but the employment data specifically reinforce the notion that domestic growth is not going be enough to create many jobs.