As growth stays sluggish and prices rise, companies are more hard-pressed to keep profits from declining. So they say, ‘Sorry, we have to charge more’. They can’t get away with that on discretionary stuff because...

When people report that consumer confidence and business confidence are down, those things have less to do with the fundamental state of the economy than with this kind of funk, this uncertainty, this uneasy feeling....

I couldn’t believe it — first time in 10 years they did the right thing. Obviously, I think it’s perfect.

It’s really just a waiting game. You can’t expect excesses to be done correcting just because you want them to be done correcting.

There’s a risk to someone assuming this hero-type status because then there’s the temptation you’re going to lean toward believing him no matter what says — and that’s potentially dangerous.

People are becoming more accepting of a slow, gradual recovery, whereas last year, they had great growth numbers in mind, and when that didn’t pan out, markets got hit hard. As long as data don’t...

What is most likely, assuming a relatively quick end to war in Iraq, is a more robust economy with increased, but not problematic, inflation pressure. After that, however, the scenario of stagflation is a very...

People aren’t arguing about the third quarter, they’re arguing about what is going to happen now.

We’ve been seeing double-digit declines in confidence for more than a year, yet people don’t mind buying a new car or a truck or trading up for a new house or taking out a second...

Up your forecasts right now. Because we’re going to have tax cuts and all kinds of stuff. They’re going to be pumping pumping pumping.

I’m expecting Friday’s numbers to print poorly. If that happens I will tell clients they should expect the Fed to cut by a half point.

After this next round, people are going to be hugely down on things. People are going to say the economy lost all its momentum at the end of the third quarter.

It’s surprising that out of all the commentary you read on what’s happening, nobody thinks it’s just a basic inflationary story.

This is a continuation of a trend that’s already been in place. We don’t have a huge inflation problem, but it seems to me that people don’t give enough weight to the possibility something like...

It’s generally the case that if you push through tax cuts, over time, it will stimulate activity; and as growth accelerates, you’ll start to get revenue increases back.

Once the excesses got to the point where the Fed had to do something about them, the kinds of rate hikes we eventually did see had an outsized impact on the economy — which ended...

I feel strongly that a ham sandwich with a scepter would be a fine Fed chairman. In fact, I think a ham sandwich with a scepter might do a better job because it wouldn’t be...

What we tell clients all the time is that, when it comes to consumer names and goods, we always prefer plays that exhibit two factors: strong consumer demand and pricing power.

I would characterize [the current situation] as a mix between price stability and the potential for slightly annoying inflation numbers going forward.