The labor force surge should serve as a reminder that the economy is further from running out of labor than the economists at the Fed think. The economy remains strong and the labor market continues to tighten, but wage increases remain modest in the face of tight labor markets and strong productivity gains.

245

I think we've moved beyond the 'flight to quality' stage. People are really looking at the inflation fundamentals.

231

I think they'll hold unless we see some surprisingly weak economic data on the jobs front, which comes out on Friday. But absent that, I think the Fed is going to be tempted, having cut rates three times, to let things sit a while.

223

You have to remember it's only exceptional and prolonged heat that changes trends, since the Commerce Department seasonally adjusts out all typical heat. The game is to try to figure out if the weather is seasonally abnormal. Except for this week, we've had a pretty normal summer in the Northeast.

220

The bond market had a pretty good move upwards yesterday, but I don't think we're going to get back to that kind of mania to buy Treasuries that we had in the month of September.

190

I don't think it is inflationary.

164

The December [Institute for Supply Management] report points to slower, though still solid, expansion in manufacturing conditions in the month. It also suggests that price pressures, while still elevated, are rising more slowly.

152

There's no barrier to the Fed lowering interest rates significantly.

100

This increasing activism by the Justice Department seems to be applying a model of competition that applied to 19th-century America, rather than 21st-Century America.

73