Word: baumohl
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...overheating economy when the Labor Department reported that fewer Americans have filed joblessness claims in the past month than at any time since Richard Nixon's first term. "These numbers show us that we're clearly scraping the bottom of the labor pool," says TIME senior business writer Bernard Baumohl. "It means that we're probably going to see the unemployment rate, which is already at a record low, go even lower. And that could encourage the Fed to continue to raise interest rates...
...Securing traditional economic indicators, such as inflation, take precedence over what he's termed the "irrational exuberance" of day traders. "Alan Greenspan has always believed that at some point when the demand for wages exceeds supply it will lead to increased wages and then increased costs to consumers," says Baumohl. "For that reason we can expect another interest rate hike in May, but in light of these new statistics, the question becomes whether it will be the usual quarter-point hike or a full half-point increase...
...European economies. So Greenspan's best hope for reducing the trade deficit is that the interest rate increases he has made already may be enough to slow the U.S. economy and curb its voracious appetite for imports. "Interest rate hikes generally slow down consumption after about a year," says Baumohl, "and the Fed has been raising rates since last June, which ought to slow down imports." Overall, he says, Greenspan shouldn't be too worried. "It's fairly safe to say that the trade deficit may have peaked now that oil prices are falling and the U.S. economy is showing...
...imports increase as long as the economy grows," says TIME senior business writer Bernard Baumohl. "But there's certainly a concern that our exports are down despite the fact that Asian and European economies have begun to rebound. Maintaining the high deficit is dangerous because that means a huge debt, and if our creditors lose confidence in the U.S. economy and begin selling dollars, which drives down the value of the currency, that could spark a serious inflation threat." The best way to keep America's creditors sweet on the dollar is to make their returns more attractive by raising...
...This is another sign that the economy seems to be slowing a bit from its red-hot run," says TIME senior financial writer Bernard Baumohl. Housing starts, explains Baumohl, are among the most interest-sensitive components of the economy, and tend to be a particularly prescient overall financial indicator. "When interest rates go up, as they have been," says Baumohl, "the first sectors to register a slowdown are car and housing purchases." In other words, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan's penchant for quarter-point hikes may have finally eased the American public's seemingly insatiable taste for big-ticket items...