This is almost the best of all possible worlds, where labor is making money, and yet corporations have been able to offset that with productivity, and keep it themselves in terms of profits. It reminds everyone of the important contributions technology has been making to increased productivity in tight labor markets.

246

There are an awful lot of cost pressures in the system. While they may not be manifest in final goods prices just yet, the numbers tell you that, unless companies find new ways to cut their costs, profit margins are going to be squeezed.

230

The underlying tone is still weak.

186

Business confidence is very low, and thus they're maintaining as cautious an approach as possible to their activity, whether that's hiring, building inventory or anything else.

177

Production should be up, and it should be up fairly strongly.

157

Typically, consumers are waiting for all kinds of deals before they go out and purchase an automobile. They didn't get them in July, so perhaps they're going to wait until maybe August.

137

It's not the dollar that's weakened a great deal, but rather the perception in the financial markets that the yen is strengthening a great deal, ... So it's a yen problem.

129

There is no doubt that the street was expecting the worst and they were prepared for the worst. Once the numbers came out a rally ensued and it trickled over to the equity market... The domestic economy is just honey.

116

Electric utility output was down a bit because we had such cool August, but otherwise, manufacturing was pretty hot.

116