It may just be that, in this slow-motion labor market that we have, a lot of younger people have opted for schooling that will take them out of the job market for a while.
The prospect for price improvement depends on the performance of the Asian and European economies, who are big users of metals, and the prospects are getting better. There's still a lot of uncertainty there, but relatively speaking the signs are fairly encouraging.
Movements in the unemployment rate will tell Fed officials whether growth is absorbing unused capacity.
Seen in this light, ... the employee discount program was an enormously successful marketing coup.
The fiscal picture wasn't very good before and it's worse now.
Whenever you have a collapse in a particular output price -- and we certainly saw a lot of that following Asia's decline -- it places a lot of pressure on companies to deal with keeping their revenues up. In that context consolidation isn't a big surprise.
It's debatable how much the dividend-tax elimination will stimulate the economy, particularly in the short run.
We see sturdy hiring as a factor that continues to support U.S. economic growth.
At the margin they reinforced our growing sense that Fed tightening might stop before the federal funds rate reaches the 5 percent level we are currently forecasting.
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