Clearly, high gasoline prices took quite a toll on the typical consumer.

You can't blame China for everything. There are a lot of problems that manufacturers have to face.

This is the fourth consecutive monthly increase in manufacturing output and confirms that a manufacturing cyclical rebound is finally underway.

This should be welcome news for California, Texas and Illinois, which together make up fully a quarter of domestic machinery production.

Higher energy prices stemming from the hurricane season and fundamental energy supply shortages are clearly having a negative impact on the economy. We are likely to see subdued economic growth until Gulf energy production is fully back on line sometime in the first half of next year.

We're producing as many engineers and scientists as South Korea -- an economy about one-tenth the size of ours.

Over the past two years, this group has done an outstanding job of developing new franchisees, locations and infusing our brand with great enthusiasm in Canada. We look forward to working with them as they develop the rest of the country.

We're making more stuff with fewer people.

I think this shows the economy is not going to be going as fast as it was last year. The Asian crisis may be having a dampening effect.