This really underscores that just because there's a booming housing market, it doesn't translate into strong economic growth. It suggests that consumption spending has a built-in speed limit to it. You just can't expect to grow very fast.

It certainly disrupted economic life in New York City; there's no doubt about that. But on the business side, I think a lot of it will be made up eventually, some of it right away and some of it more spread out.

We've been borrowing our way out of the recession, and nothing else has kicked in to take over.

The expectation was that the economy was going to get better and wages were going to rise and employment was going to increase. But you have the ingredients for a fundamentally different economic picture - one that's not so promising.

Usually when the public gets admitted to something, it's the end of the bubble. The exponential growth in private equity and hedge funds in the last decade is mind-boggling. There's a bubble here that's going to bust. There's too much money. That's true in venture capital and it's true of hedge funds as well.

Construction spending remains strong due to continued economic growth.