Quotes by Ethan Harris

The bond market went into this report looking for disaster. I think there's a sense of relief in the bond market.

Everyone is all zeroed in on the consumer now, but the truth is that the consumer isn't the driver now. Confidence is picking up, but still at average levels. Wage growth is slow and the bulk of the tax cut is already in place. Finally, with all the debt people have taken out over the past several years the burden of paying monthly bills is leaving less for discretionary spending.

It's not a question of a sudden explosion in prices. It's more an erosion of the low-inflation psychology.

It's not as friendly as some of the other inflation numbers, but it's just one indicator. We have no inflation warning signals from any of the other major inflation indicators.

It's much too early for the Fed to be thinking about hiking interest rates. It would be a very dangerous action on their part in this fragile initial stage of the recovery.

That's about the right feel for the economy,

That's the big lingering risk factor sitting out there on the horizon. Will we have a gradual adjustment, where the trade deficit gradually improves, or will we have an accident along the way?

Eventually that will slow down the U.S. consumer. We've got the seeds of a slowdown coming out of the housing market, but it hasn't really had that much impact yet on the economy.

Even with a positive outcome in the war, the economy is going to have lost a lot of momentum by the time it's over. We're not going to see a few weeks of weak data -- we'll see a few months of weak data.

Even with a resolution to the situation in Iraq, the economy will still be suffering from some fairly significant headwinds.