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To: UnBelievable who wrote (100462)	5/8/2001 9:36:56 AM
From: Perspective	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

OK, I'll bite: Non-farm business productivity declined unexpectedly by 0.1% from January through March, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The slump mostly reflected the slowdown in economic growth: As business conditions weakened, analysts said, many employers had more workers on their payrolls than they needed. But that raised employers' labor costs to a four-year high. The numbers surprised Wall Street, which expected productivity to increase 1%. The news is likely to bolster investors' expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut its key short-term interest rate by at least half a percentage point next week to stave off a recession What kind of tortured New Error logic can one possibly use to conclude that soaring unit labor costs demand even easier money? I thought increasing productivity was the excuse used to print like crazy the last five years. Now decreasing productivity is the excuse? I'm getting closer to buying gold/Euros/Yen every day... BC

To: UnBelievable who wrote (100462)	5/8/2001 12:34:41 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 436258

what's most astounding is the conclusion drawn in this article, namely that this heightens the chances for more interest rate cuts. mind you, i'm not saying the conclusion is wrong, only that the fact that this is so is rather strange. there's a clear warning here: nobody is worried about inflation...not one economist, mainstream or otherwise, expects it. the Fed has been seduced by this consensus (as it always is) to pursue an absolutely reckless monetary expansion...all of which leads me to believe that perhaps the 'false spring' inflation episode will become more pronounced than i originally thought it would. and then, when finally everyone is worrying about inflation once more, comes the final policy blunder that leads to the deflationary K winter contraction. it would be a case of 'everything that can go wrong, will go wrong'.