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To: accountclosed who wrote (12014)	11/30/1998 4:26:00 PM
From: yard_man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86076

>>What is keeping rates lower? First, there is the grudging recognition among the vastly Republican moneymen that the budget surplus is not only real, but getting bigger. We are not issuing long bonds. Auctions, even auctions that invariably seem like they are going badly, actually hum along just fine. Secondly, there are structural forces at work that are keeping inflation low even though employment remains tight. The tightest spots in the labor market, the help at the counter, help at the phone jobs, are rapidly being replaced by crackerjack Web sites which process things, mistake-free, at a fraction of the cost and the labor needs. Meanwhile, technology keeps outmoding people. When the smoke clears on this proposed combo between Mobil (NYSE:MOB - news) and Exxon (NYSE:XON - news) we will discover that it was the need to spend vast sums on technology that brought this merger together. So, just when it looks like wage inflation should ignite, it doesn't. << Is the surplus real? What about the IOUs to social security? Has the average maturity on government debt change over the past few years? I don't know that what he says is BS, but tend to suspect that it is. Re: Counter help being replaced by a website. My eye!! Re: Productivity gains Greenspan keeps crowing about in his silly speeches. There's been some, but we're not on the road to endless gains in porductivity. There's got to be something wrong with how they are measuring it. I don't think there are structural forces that have kept inflation low -- there may be overcapacity. Money appears to be chasing financial assets like there's no tomorrow.