Bill Cheney Green Quotations

This is a perfect jobs report. Job growth slowed significantly and there are absolutely no signs of inflation. Greenspan may be pulling off what once seemed impossible: two soft landings in one economic expansion.

The Greenspan Fed has inaction down to a fine art. They stood by through much of the late 1990s, allowing a very beneficial reduction in unemployment without suffering any inflationary consequences. When they do have to move, they do so quickly and surgically.

Weak employment growth but higher hourly earnings point Greenspan and the Fed in two different directions. Either the economy is slowing down and the Fed needs to sit tight, or inflation is starting to take off and another tap on the brakes may be necessary.

It's too early to call a turn in the trend, so Alan Greenspan can't relax completely, but it's certainly the kind of report that will help him sleep better. There's still no sign of wage inflation and we seem to be heading for a soft landing: a smooth slowdown into sustainable non-inflationary growth.

If there is a danger, it is that the report isn't capturing creative and hidden ways employers are boosting wages. I'm sure Greenspan has a sneaking suspicion that these kinds of things are happening and that they may at some point provoke a burst of wage inflation.

I think we're toward the end of a period of real weakness and, by the third quarter, all the money (Fed Chairman Alan) Greenspan and the Fed have been pumping out will start to be spent.