59 Quotes by Joshua Shapiro

We believe that consumer spending is going to bear the brunt of higher energy prices that we have seen leading up to and immediately following Hurricane Katrina as discretionary spending is curtailed.

People were expecting the worst and I think the reaction you saw is that it wasn't as Draconian as many had feared. There wasn't any real hard table pounding or anything in the minutes that pointed to a 50-basic point hike at the next meeting.

Builders were able to build and so they were out there doing it, and the seasonal adjustment process pumped it up.

Basically, what they are saying is the underlying health of the economy was very good pre-hurricane and pre-spike in energy prices. And it is still pretty good after those things.

I don't think we're talking about a recession or a near recession. I think we're talking about growth that is slower than people expected.

We're in the early stages of a slowdown in the housing market.

With mortgage rates still low, there is no evidence yet that levels of housing activity are declining to any great extent.

I think they are trying to say that they can still do their tightening 25 basis points at a time, but they still have a long way to go in raising rates. Essentially, the message is, 'if you think we're nearly done, think again'.

Refinery shutdowns will have a big impact on gasoline prices, ... and that's a tax on consumers.