This may be the last bad PPI report we'll see for quite some time, ... This might be the height of this particular inflation scare.
This is the type of report we would expect to see, given the slowdown that we've already experienced in the economy, ... Companies don't have any pricing power, and if they don't have any pricing power, then inflation can't really be a threat.
The relief money is coming in much faster than it has for any other natural disaster that I can remember. That should help minimize some of the hit on consumer spending,
Overall this year the economy moved past the bursting of the stock market bubble. Tech companies finally started growing again and that's really benefited the Triangle.
Overall supply and demand are moving into much better balance. With that, we're likely to see far less price appreciation than we saw in 2005.
But pension accounting is awfully complicated and it's an awfully big company, so it's not surprising the markets would get a little spooked by it.
It's beginning to look like the Fed was right all along ... and that the case for a recession has gotten a lot weaker. It looks like we're going to have a successful bumpy landing.
The chance of a rate hike is almost nonexistent. They've never moved this close to the election, and I don't think there's any need to. There's really no denying the economy is growing less than it did in the mid-'99 to mid-2000 period.
I don't know if the gas prices and interest rates will knock consumer confidence down in coming months, ... I think they're more likely to hold it where it is now, which is good, but not great.
As long as energy prices remain high, they're likely to move in baby steps. I just don't think it's a slam dunk that they raise rates in December.