Ethan Harris Recovery Quotations

Ultimately, for the economic recovery to sustain itself, we have to see the labor market improve. As the tax-cut benefits fade, consumers will look for more fundamental reasons to spend money, and there will have to be some job growth.

The reason the recovery was so feeble was you still had these hangover effects from the real estate and banking sectors, ... Real estate was still reeling from excess capacity and the whole thrift industry had been decimated by bad loans.

You're not talking about a full-blown business-cycle recovery here, which is something like 6 percent GDP growth for a year. To get that, you'll need the whole economy operating in full-growth mode, and clearly the consumer isn't.

As you look down the road, at some point you've got to believe there's a real recovery in capital spending on the way. But I don't see the catalyst anywhere in sight.

The Fed is going to take a cautious approach (because) they're worried about how the consumer will handle higher interest rates, ... We've had recovery nurtured on super-low interest rates. They don't want to shock the patient by withdrawing the medicine too quickly.

Clearly, Corporate America is still in hunker-down mode, reluctant to increase budgets for equipment and slow about increasing employment, ... That puts a weight around the neck of the recovery and keeps it at a moderate pace.

By talking about interest rates rising again, you can precipitate them rising too early in a recovery -- that's why he shouldn't be talking about it.

The idea that the recovery has started has been clearly confirmed. But there's no way to know the sustainability of the recovery.