William Dudley Being A Bummer

[Rabbitisrich]

http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/speeches/2012/dud120319.html

 

 

Moreover, the United States has experienced unusually mild weather over the past few months, with the number of heating degree days in January and February about 17 percent below the average of the preceding five years. While this reduces the amount that households and businesses must spend for heating, I suspect that it temporarily boosts economic activity overall. For example, the mild weather is certainly conducive to higher than normal levels of construction activity, and we did see a surge in hours worked in that sector over the past few months.

 

Growth of final sales was actually quite weak. Historically, a quarter in which inventory investment makes a significant growth contribution is typically followed by a quarter in which that growth contribution is modest or even negative.

To put the recent pace of growth into perspective, we believe that the economy's long-run sustainable growth rate (what economists call the potential growth rate) is around a 2 1/4 percent annual rate. We need sustained growth above that rate to absorb the substantial amount of unused productive capacity.

 

While the underlying core inflation rate, that strips out volatile food and energy prices, has been somewhat higher than expected a few months back, it appears that the annual rate of core inflation2 has peaked and we expect it to begin to decline later this year.