Mark Vitner

There's just such an enormous demand from pension funds and insurance companies to match their assets with the liabilities of the boomer generation.

When the federal government increases the budget deficit it increases interest rates on everybody, so it is like a tax increase on borrowing. What that means is that mortgages will be more expensive.

A very high proportion of that job growth is occurring in high-paying professions. This is a demand-driven market and demand vastly exceeds supply.

The impact of stronger job growth more than overcomes the impact of higher mortgage rates. It doesn't mean we'll have a month like March every month. But home sales should remain strong even with mortgage rates about a percentage point above the low point.

We've had very little economic growth, virtually no job growth. The only way you'll get income growth is through wage increases or through tax cuts.

The No. 1 reason new orders and production are falling is that inventories have risen in recent months as consumer spending has slowed. Such a buildup was acceptable when economic growth was accelerating. Now that growth is cooling off, businesses will need to curb stockpiles.

The labor market seems to be improving. It bolsters the case we've been making that the economic slowdown story is a little oversold. Clearly growth is moderating, but we're still likely to see some decent growth the second half of the year.

Corporate America is on the mend. The only downside of stronger productivity growth is that it means hiring is lagging. As far as downsides go, this is roughly the equivalent of eating your broccoli. It may be tough to stomach at first, but it makes you stronger and healthier in the long run.

The trucking industry is very competitive, so driving up the costs of hiring drivers has not really translated that much to price pressure for finished goods.

We're not likely to see reports as good as this the second half of the year. We know gasoline prices picked back up in July. But inflation should stay in basically in check.

If we see an increase in rent we could really see inflation numbers pick up in a meaningful way.

The prices paid is still way up there, inflation is still running a little hot, enough that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates.

Inflation at the end of the day is headed higher, it's just not going to happen that dramatically this year.

It gives the Fed a little more breathing room on interest rates, that's the most I can say.

Some folks will be quick to jump on this morning's data as a sure sign that the next move by the Fed will be to cut interest rates. Such talk is still way too premature.

It would create an awful mess in Florida, where the labor market is tight by any definition.

The federal response has been much larger than we thought it would be, ... And the money is being spent much more quickly.

It suggests there could be a profit squeeze in some of the cyclical industries, ... Autos. Household appliances. Anything that has a lot of raw commodity in it. The end user is going to have a hard time passing those costs on to the consumers.

This may be the last bad PPI report we'll see for quite some time, ... This might be the height of this particular inflation scare.

I really can't recall a time in history when the Florida economy was as strong as it is today.

The upward revision results from the slightly lower than previously estimated trade deficit. We've already seen in July data that trade deficit has worsened in the third quarter.

Exports are off in virtually every category. I don't see much near-term improvement for the trade deficit. The trade deficit will probably shave about 0.5 percent off of third quarter Gross Domestic Product.

I think Ferguson might be the best vice chairman we've ever had.

If you wait for the wage increases to show up in the report, they're behind the curve.

We're going to have plenty of weak economic reports over the coming months. If they respond to every one, they'll get down to zero percent interest rates pretty damn quick.