It may just be that, in this slow-motion labor market that we have, a lot of younger people have opted for schooling that will take them out of the job market for a while,

At the margin they reinforced our growing sense that Fed tightening might stop before the federal funds rate reaches the 5 percent level we are currently forecasting.

We see sturdy hiring as a factor that continues to support U.S. economic growth.

It's debatable how much the dividend-tax elimination will stimulate the economy, particularly in the short run.

Whenever you have a collapse in a particular output price -- and we certainly saw a lot of that following Asia's decline -- it places a lot of pressure on companies to deal with keeping their revenues up. In that context consolidation isn't a big surprise.

The fiscal picture wasn't very good before and it's worse now.