Word: slowdown
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...where does that leave Greenspan? Likely, relieved - especially about consumer confidence, though that measure has been notoriously bad about predicting actual consumer behavior in this Spring of the Slowdown, when the measure has consistently pointed to spending levels far below what stalwart consumers have actually pulled out of their well-worn wallets...
...back-story has been the same for a long while. Stock market flat. Corporate earnings depressing. Capital spending by businesses - the collapse of which started this slowdown, and the resurgence of which must occur to finally end it - still in deep hibernation. Alan Greenspan slashing rates with the zeal of a self-preservationist, a half-point at a time, on five straight occasions. (Twice between meetings...
...astrophysicists tried another approach: determine whether the expansion was slowing down, and by how much. That's what Brian Schmidt, a young astronomer at the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia, set out to do in 1995. Along with a team of colleagues, he wanted to measure the cosmic slowdown, known formally as the "deceleration parameter." The idea was straightforward: look at the nearby universe and measure how fast it is expanding. Then do the same for the distant universe, whose light is just now reaching us, having been emitted when the cosmos was young. Then compare...
...that fancy new gear failed to warn of the present slowdown or keep companies from stockpiling unsold goods. (We have no "visibility," corporate chieftains declaim.) "If the decline in sales is dramatic," says Shepherdson, "all the technology isn't going to tell you it's coming...
...economy recovers and raise interest rates in 2002. According to Berner and Shepherdson, the central bank may do that as soon as next spring. While higher rates would raise the cost of mortgages, car loans and credit-card debt, they would also signal to Americans that the sharpest slowdown in a decade is behind them. It may be safe to feel more exuberant again...