>Comment: I am really surprised by this reply. The whole Islamic world is in
>revolt in three continents and, similarly, most of South America is in a
>state
> of political effervescence, especially against US corpos. The war in Iraq
>continues to eat US fiscal resources away putting severe downward pressure
>on
>the dollar and interest rates which in turn pulls down job creation and
>income
> generation,etc. Actually, a lot of etcs.
>I have always been convinced that living in Manhattan or Brooklyn produces
>a
>severe case of metropolitan insularity out of which the rest of the world
>is seen in a foggy,cloudy state.
>Cristobal Senior
I thought that the pre-hurricane U.S. economy was relatively solid. Forecasts for real GDP growth are in the 3.5% range for 2005 and 3% for 2006. Employment data seem to be improving. A banker at a recent luncheon indicated that Finance is fairly happy with the situation right now. Getting back to the original question, it remains to be seen how serious the gas price shock will be to real growth.
M.
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