Word: retrenches
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...testimony that Greenspan feels hope for the economy to start picking up over the next few quarters; now, in the light of the Q2 number, will be the time to contemplate just what he meant by "period of sub-par growth" and "stabilize at a lower level." If consumers retrench, that period could be very sub-par indeed; if they don?t, well, it?s not going to get much better than 0.7 for quite a while. New Fed betting is on a quarter-point cut (at least) in August and more after that...
...start. Wednesday morning came with more numbers - the index of leading economic indicators slid again, more steeply in March than in February, and the trade deficit was suddenly lower than it's been since the end of '99, thanks to record monthly decline in imports. Consumers were starting to retrench, no more pretending they weren't, and if they stayed away the economy had nowhere to go but down...
...spite of the growth in layoffs, many companies are clearly reluctant to retrench large numbers of workers. They've spent so much time finding and training their workforce in a tight labor market that many companies are thinking that if this a shallow recession, they'd rather tough it out. They don't want to be left having to replace their workforce if the economy picks up quickly, which is what they're hoping the Fed's rate cuts will achieve. So we're not likely to see a quick rise in unemployment...