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The team hits all the usual topics with an eye towards the inflation concerns that are popping up everywhere - how much should we be worried by or even pay attention to these articles.
Additional Economic Insights beyond the Newsletter.
James McCafferty: Starting an episode of after office hours with the puget sound economic forecaster with some sort of weedy deja vu reference seems like something we've done before.
James McCafferty: That being said, if you feel like we're back where we were once upon a time, we can't blame you, but we will also be quick to point out that even if things look somewhat similar.
James McCafferty: We are definitely in a different kind of place we're hitting the record button on January 18 2022 for those taking notes the world of economics is moving pretty quick so check a calendar your results may vary.
James McCafferty: We are now a month out from the publication of our December forecast, it seems like a great time to talk about what we know now and where our thoughts are headed before diving into current economic activity.
James McCafferty: Before diving into current economic thought let's see who's here today.
James McCafferty: My name is James McCafferty and I serve as the general manager and publisher for the newsletter but it's a team that makes the newsletter happen from outside partners in our centers own research staff.
James McCafferty: Dr Hart Hodges and economics professor at Western Washington university Heart writes the original forecast article and will occasionally contribute other articles based on topics.
James McCafferty: heart and I both co direct the Center for economic business, research at Western.
James McCafferty: Bethany King is our research economist and works, the switches and dials and many of our models, while providing a wide array of insights into the forecast that's and he writes music or articles each quarter, as well as monthly updates for digital subscribers.
James McCafferty: So the obvious place to start here today would be coven 19 because once again it's leaving its mark on our region's economy.
James McCafferty: But this time it might actually be just a little bit different because the expected duration is different shorter hurt, can you start us with a current thoughts around expectations and what the search may mean for our area business.
Hart Hodges: Uncertainty comes to mind or possible optimism. Or, more so many other things, but it's disheartening. You have wonderful economic outlook news then delta slows things down you think you're getting back on your feet, then omicron. So we're looking at first quarter now wondering what's going to happen with this particular wave news out of South Africa right out of the headline say South Africa over Omicron which which gives us hope that. You know, different states are possibly picking now other states in the US picking very soon so by the end of the quarter you're hoping for something. Quite good, but next time somebody gives me a really optimistic forecast, I will wonder how much to trust it because it's something sneaky is going to happen.
James McCafferty: Heart that sounds promising right, I mean obviously there's things we should we should think about and I think worrying about is there does another shoe drop I think we're at a Left and Right now, so just another shoe.
Hart Hodges: But you know it's it's going to end, so we are you know skipping all the various cliches you are heading to a world of managing and work working working with I think we're the midst of a pretty intense wave very contagious form, so a lot of things are closing lot of schools it went back online. A lot of uncertainty which hurts economic activity, but you're hoping this wave face to face quickly there's going to be another way you hope it is milder and different dimensions, so there, there are going to be other shoes it's a dance right so, for us, it just keeps you honest and humble and the forecasting world you do your your do your best.
James McCafferty: So this past week inflation's been a big news item right, I mean i've read high by it's the highest since 1982.
James McCafferty: And we've posted some information on social media, and I know all of our listeners to this podcast have to be following us on social media if you're not you're missing you're missing our show.
James McCafferty: Every day we post six plus things out and so recently posted some information that that said that there's actually better comparison points might be the end of World War Two or the gas and energy crunch in the late 1960s. Those economic scenarios made better reflect where where we're at right now with supply chain interruptions and in overdemand and that sort of thing and then the recession, a lot of people want to come running back to you, which is the the nation at to kind of concerned, so how does inflation look to you, and how does that impact forecasting heart, what does that, how do you guys are on that.
Hart Hodges: So you hit too many questions in there, talking about 1982 and other references, I mean it wasn't that long ago, and people were asking about the long decline and bond yields from the very early 80s and the decline in inflation rates great moderation is we've talked about over the years and economics. And people will be wondering, is the low inflation because of demographics is it's something else and now we're worried about the opposite, so I don't know that it makes sense to talk about 1982 as a reference point, things are so so so different. I want to go back just a second because people were talking about Jerome Powell's comments about transitory people saying oh he's got to feel dumb because it sure isn't transitory but, when he was talking about that last spring. I felt like maybe that's a pretty good word or at least the idea, because if the Federal Reserve takes action to control inflation, by raising interest rates, for example, how long does it take for the higher rates to slow things down in global ending in debt right there's a pretty significant lag from the time the Federal Reserve takes action and you see measurable changes in the economy, and I think what what he meant by transitory was. By the time fed actions could really influence inflation the supply chain disruptions may have smoothed out the demand boost with all the money that was pushed into the economy will be starting to fade it would be the wrong time for fed actions to be slowing the economy, I have a hunch that he's talking a big game now quietly thinking, now let's do as little as we can, because of him how much money was pushing in the economy, late 2013 early 21.
James McCafferty: Just a couple dollars yeah.
Hart Hodges: Huge huge amounts of money and it, let it let people avoid work for a little bit it let stock prices go up it let housing prices go up just to let people buy nice cars. That's beginning to fade. You're starting to see data about debt or others, you know it hasn't ripple through into say bankruptcies, but you're starting to see a fade there James i'm gonna try this around and ask you to comment on on supply chain and get Bethany in in this on when you think. The stimulus the influence of the sentence to me this many trades, so when the demand side of this deflation cause of this James you on the supply chain, you talked about that in a couple of podcasts when that improves we're now also post Christmas holiday lowering the demand so both of you jump in and help me here when when do you see inflation calming down.
James McCafferty: Well, I tend to look at that forecast i've seen that show inflation dropping pretty rapidly this year, ironically, about the same rate, we see the forecast for coven dropping we're seeing this this big shift and expectation of returning to normal I guess is the word people use, although I think it's going to look different than what normal used to look like, but I think that we're going to see some pretty big shifts just in this within this calendar year, as is inflation drops and employment changes and supply changes and wages and there's a lot to unpack you're absolutely right Bethany any thoughts on inflation from your side.
Bethany King: yeah mostly I would say, I completely agree with you i'm mid 2022 I think we're going to be seeing inflation to come down.
Bethany King: But what I want to be looking out for is the effects of the cron variant and see what that's going to do to disrupt supply chains yet again now we're saying this is probably going to be temporary.
Bethany King: But I think that is going to put another setback on inflation and keeping those supply chains disrupted for a little bit longer.
Hart Hodges: yeah if you if our current closes supports in China.
Hart Hodges: Then, my my optimistic view of inflation coming down quickly takes a big hit and James you asked, I think your question was How does that impact impact forecasting.
Hart Hodges: Bethany do you do you agree.
Hart Hodges: We we don't try to build in lots of guesses and what might happen in into the forecasting process so.
Bethany King: yeah we just let it run.
Hart Hodges: yeah, so I think.
Hart Hodges: By and large, the forecaster is assuming these things are going to be fixed fairly soon and inflation is going to come down quickly. We know there's a risk to that, but we'd rather say that's the forecast let's talk about the risks.
James McCafferty: So Bethany let's let's dig into employment for a minute so employment is where I see a lot of coverage in the news right where jobs reports and.
James McCafferty: keep coming up with the latest being a while about 13% below expectations it's not below what people thought we'd see in jobs report.
James McCafferty: i've seen some interesting analysis around the concept of full employment and natural rate of unemployment that might be fun to explore a little bit.
James McCafferty: You know in class in classes, we might generically say natural rate of unemployment, about 5%, but in reality it's an equation go figure right economics loves equations.
James McCafferty: there's actually a whole equation that figure out natural rate of unemployment and so it's it's a it's slightly above 4% right now from the things i've read and.
James McCafferty: With the actual rate of unemployment, a little bit below than that what would be mathematically the natural rate of unemployment and so when that.
James McCafferty: happens bethany help me out a little bit here, so when employments below the natural rate what happens in typically and how does that actually happen and and, most importantly, courses, what does that mean from a forecast perspective.
Bethany King: yeah so, first I want to unpack what the natural rate of unemployment is so this is that rate of unemployment that we get from just.
Bethany King: normal thing it's the background rate of unemployment it's what's happening when people are transitioning jobs when people have just graduated and they're looking for a new job.
Bethany King: What happens when our when employers change what they're looking for and employees and so it's important to have a little bit of inflation.
Bethany King: Now that equation thing that you mentioned, now there is an equation, but it's based around why people are unemployed and because we can't really pinpoint exactly why everyone is on employed.
Bethany King: The natural rate of unemployment is sort of a guesstimate, and so we can't really say exactly what it's supposed to be.
Bethany King: Now the guests them, it has been in the past, like 5% then now we're thinking more like 4%.
Bethany King: So what happens when our unemployment rate is below the natural rate of unemployment is that we're going to get basically a power shift towards the employee and away from the employer, and so what that's going to mean is rising wages.
Bethany King: Which is a good thing we've needed that for a while, but we're going to see some of the negative effects of that so that's going to be.
Bethany King: Low competition for jobs and rapidly rising wages so that's some of the drawbacks, but right now I won't say that.
Bethany King: The unemployment rate is too low necessarily I think we're going to wait to see some effects of that but it's definitely something that we're keeping an eye on now for the forecast perspective so.
Bethany King: Many of our variables, are what we say mean reverting so they're going to come back to some level, and if the Labor market has fundamentally changed, and now that natural rate is lower.
Bethany King: we're going to be reverting to the wrong to the wrong unemployment rate here, but our forecast is actually showing a little bit lower than it had before, and I mean reverting value so it's going down to about 3.6% and the long term for the Pacific Northwest and i'm 4.1% for us.
James McCafferty: And you I mean you said something there, I want to highlight it because you talked about how when when that rate gets down below that enough for.
James McCafferty: Employment it causes we just to come up and that's that's that's inflation right, so we have people concerned about inflation.
James McCafferty: And yet we have this inflationary pressure not caused by supply chain, not caused by coven necessarily but just because the way the the Labor market is so I keep reading about wages going up so i'm just curious bethany when she expect that my direct deposit.
Bethany King: Not anytime soon, so that the issue with the issue with this idea of wages, rising due to inflation is.
Bethany King: it's it's a little bit complicated so for, for example, for contract workers you don't have that flexibility to increase your wages, those with those sticky prices that we don't like to see when inflation is happening.
Bethany King: Now wages are actually beginning to fall, and those are those real wages, which means that.
Bethany King: Our wages are not keeping up with inflation, we just are beginning to fall there about what they were prior to the pandemic they had increased.
Bethany King: At the height of the pandemic, partly because low wage workers were laid off, and so that sort of increased that that median wage there and now it's starting to fall back down so that is just evidence that we just are not pricing they're not keeping up with inflation.
Hart Hodges: you're saying, as we bring back more workers at the lower end of the scale and face to face jobs overall wage numbers are are trending down a little bit.
Bethany King: Yes, so.
Bethany King: Okay yeah Maybe I should rephrase that so at the beginning of the pandemic meeting wages increased because low wage workers were laid off.
Bethany King: As the economy has recovered those lower wage workers are coming back into the workforce and bring that median down now, at this point that median is at the same.
Bethany King: rate that it was prior to the pandemic and it's falling so real wages are actually declining now prior to compared to prior to the pandemic.
James McCafferty: You may use the word here that I want to, I want to call out because it's a word that the three of us would use and we totally know are talking about other people are like well real versus unreal.
James McCafferty: A real it is real when we use the word real or means that's inflation adjusted dollars and so when we express things in real dollars.
James McCafferty: So we've tied to some point in time, so if you're looking at a chart somewhere you it's something to be aware of is in what dollars are we talking about.
James McCafferty: But, and we can find out some really interesting stuff when we talk about real dollars and senses, because we have things like eggs cost about the same as they did in the 30s.
James McCafferty: Fuel prices at the pump today are a little bit less than they were in the 30s which is crazy when you think about it, but all we're doing is it's adjusting for inflation it doesn't mean that things don't feel more expensive or less expensive, by the way, but so.
James McCafferty: Excellent now all right.
James McCafferty: So I wanted to your heart, you talked about oh.
Bethany King: Sorry, I wanted to say one more thing, because I thought the word, you were going to ask you about was median because I think that's really important, too, is that.
Bethany King: Wages are not increasing or decreasing equally across the board for mostly upper income workers wages are increasing for low wage workers wages are declining.
James McCafferty: Again, the vocab lessons right.
James McCafferty: I mean it's there's a lot of words, that really are important and they're easy to lose track of.
Hart Hodges: Well bethany what you were just saying.
Hart Hodges: bleeds into some of the discussions at the Fed as well, the idea that we sometimes want inflation to run a little longer.
Hart Hodges: So that there is upward pressure on on wages, because it's usually at the latter stages of recovery or well when inflation has lasted a little longer that you see some.
Hart Hodges: Improvements in the lower ends of the wage scale as part of reason the Fed has said they'll they'll that inflation run a little little stronger or a little longer than in the past, or just have whether they have an average inflation target rather than an absolute so it's a it's interesting.
Hart Hodges: puzzle that the feds trying to.
Hart Hodges: put together keep together i'm not sure which is.
James McCafferty: i'm not sure in that in that in that toolbox hurt you, you talked about supply chain, a few months ago, and you know supply chain, yes, you know i've looked into this earlier and.
James McCafferty: The big takeaway in supply chain for me recently has been it's a story of throughput.
James McCafferty: And the throughput to the ports is actually above pre pandemic levels, we are, we are bringing in more stuff into the United States more stuff is hitting the retail world.
James McCafferty: And into manufacturing SS parts and things that go into things the challenges the timing of it, and the fact that the consumers are consuming more, and so the throughput has been the story for me in the supply chain.
Hart Hodges: And wouldn't it be different right when we talked to a podcast what a year ago year and a half ago now that.
Hart Hodges: You used to have a certain amount of toilet paper designed for domestic markets, a certain amount of or whatever, and some for commercial markets and that balance is changed.
James McCafferty: As well that's been.
James McCafferty: that's been the story with the grocery stores of late, is that you know we've all seen the mostly fake pictures online if the grocery store shelves they're not empty.
James McCafferty: In most places, but the problem is, is that more people are dying in right now in the last month and a half, more people have decided to Askew the restaurants and head to their own kitchens.
James McCafferty: Which they've spent a small fortune on remodeling over the last year and a half, so it made perfect sense that they'd want to use them, and so they.
James McCafferty: This stuff doesn't you know you when you go buy ketchup you don't want a number 1010 of ketchup you want a bottle of ketchup so stuff has to get bottled into the right sizes and put in the right places.
James McCafferty: So there's there's still a big challenges around just getting the right things into the right places the other big story that's been interesting.
James McCafferty: Is that the size of the boats has been a problem, so, in November, the big story was.
James McCafferty: All of these big companies costco home depot walmart etc had chartered private carriers to move their containers around the world and that worked really well, by the way.
James McCafferty: inventory at the retail level looked really good to the holiday season, we didn't have the big stories of people running out of stuff.
James McCafferty: stuff was shipped by air that normally wouldn't have gone by air, the problem is those boats they chartered were smaller.
James McCafferty: And so, from a logistics standpoint that was great they got him into the ports but they they.
James McCafferty: They were taking the whole as much, and so it did take some long time to turn those boats around to unload them reload them and send them on their way.
James McCafferty: And so, when they used smaller boats coming in and November, December it caused the backlog to get bigger in the process we had bigger boats kind of got stuck.
James McCafferty: In that process so that's continue to get cleared production issues globally remain we've got problems all over the world from a production standpoint.
James McCafferty: we've got a Labor issues in China we've got electrical issues in China we've got all kinds of challenges around the parts and parcels that go into things that are made all over the world.
James McCafferty: And the reality is you don't want this to click to clear quickly and that's this is going to be the hard part.
James McCafferty: If they were to magically be able to unload all those boats tomorrow, it would cause wrap it is like really hard pressure on prices, etc, because suddenly the supply chain which gets stuffed.
James McCafferty: And necessarily wouldn't be the right kind of stuff so you'd see things being liquidated you to prices drop, which sounds good until we start using words like deflationary pressure.
James McCafferty: And then maybe it doesn't sound so good, so we want things to calmly clear out of the supply chain, over time, and that that does appear to what's happening anyway.
James McCafferty: so hard that brings me to thinking about retail so i'm going to pick your brain here so i've seen inflation impact just about everything, and yet, consumers are stopped they're spending, there have been some hints that it's starting to impact consumers, what do you think.
Hart Hodges: i'm going to protest you keep doing this to me you keep saying what about retail as though it's one thing or what about in unemployment is though it's one thing and that's just not fair.
James McCafferty: I want to file a complaint.
Hart Hodges: yeah I bet Bethany is going to join me it's a class action complaint.
Hart Hodges: Your question, though, about consumers still spending we've got inflation let's let's go back to the amount of money dumped in.
Hart Hodges: The end for some buyers and, in some areas of retail.
Hart Hodges: it's almost as though money's no object you raise the price it's not going to bother me, I still wanted.
Hart Hodges: Until you've got headline stories but it's about a segment of the buyers and a segment of the market.
Hart Hodges: yeah i'm still going to buy the car I don't care what you're charging I don't care if you drop the dealer incentives and so on and so forth, give me the car because i've got all this cash.
Hart Hodges: This too will slow, I think, in general, when we look at sort of all taxable retail sales or something like that we had really pretty decent numbers through November.
Hart Hodges: In the fall, we were starting to see.
Hart Hodges: You know back to your real.
Hart Hodges: Numbers inflation adjusted retail more like flat down in in some areas.
James McCafferty: We definitely saw a drop in.
James McCafferty: December right.
Hart Hodges: So saying so, and we think.
James McCafferty: And i've read some things that have said that that may have actually been a little bit of self fulfilling prophecy because we did so much drum being about how stores are going around out of everything shop early and people did.
James McCafferty: yeah so people may just have been done shopping.
Hart Hodges: The holiday season was front loaded into the numbers look look fine through November we're starting to see some some forecast for the fourth quarter of 2021 coming a little bit revised downward and part of you know it's people.
Hart Hodges: finishing their holiday shopping its own macaron, it is the effects of a little bit of inflation and some segments of the economy, you know you go to the grocery store and you say oh my gosh yeah alcohol.
Hart Hodges: yeah so.
Hart Hodges: Parts parts of retail go ahead, raise the price no one's going to care parts of retail know you're seeing that you're seeing the dampening effects of inflation.
Hart Hodges: That makes me wonder what the numbers are going to look like for January, February, March.
Hart Hodges: I think that the double whammy of higher prices and oma cron more nervous a little bit more pessimistic spender right and usually inflation makes you pause but now you've got.
Hart Hodges: Oh micron and some other things.
Hart Hodges: On top of that, so I mean we haven't we have not seen bad numbers for retail, yet I think we're going to see more muted numbers coming in and it's going to make the first quarter feel a little worrisome but, but I think.
Hart Hodges: exactly the time we get that data we're going to be getting some information on inflation inflation slowly.
Hart Hodges: Unless beth is bethany's prophecy of new supply chain disruptions holds true.
James McCafferty: Which very well could have been that.
James McCafferty: The our issues in China, the population issues and China.
James McCafferty: Do you mean there's a lot there's a lot of things off of it could potentially.
Hart Hodges: Start you're betting pool of what cut what were the factors because will be.
Bethany King: Exactly i'm betting on you know all those canceled flights from all the pilots calling out that that stopped a lot of the air traffic for the supply chain, I don't know the actual word for that, what do you call that.
Hart Hodges: A mess.
Bethany King: Up mess.
Bethany King: it's a mess.
James McCafferty: I go with a mess.
James McCafferty: bethany on the the risk of having this amended to your class action lawsuit I want to talk to you about housing.
James McCafferty: So we've looked into a number of housing trends and topics for presentation we recently did, can you share some of the takeaways anything you you're thinking about for the next update or on housing.
Bethany King: Definitely so we're still seeing the demand for housing being incredibly high and supply not keeping up.
Bethany King: So that hasn't changed, but it may change soon so we're keeping an eye on the Fed and seeing what happens to interest rates.
Bethany King: Because we are starting to see mortgage rates creeping up and and mortgage rates like so okay hold on so mortgage rates are starting to creep up.
Bethany King: we're going to keep an eye on and we're going to keep an eye on those to see if they creep up even more so mortgage rates have risen but they're not high by any means, so if that starts to impact demand that may cause demand to fall.
Bethany King: And we'll start to see the housing market loosening up a little bit now by loosening up a little bit I don't mean 2008 I don't mean a crash but we're going to see a slow cooling off as that demand pressure relieves and as we start to see the supply meeting that demand.
Bethany King: We are seeing the median sale price of many homes falling.
Bethany King: But the housing price index is still remaining incredibly hot, so what that means the combination of those two factors median sale price falling and.
Bethany King: house price index rising means that the surgeon, the housing market has spread to the entire market not just not just high priced houses, but it's actually spread throughout more of those middle and low income houses.
Hart Hodges: Bethany I think you're absolutely right, I wonder if, in a few markets where rents are really, really moving up rapidly.
Hart Hodges: If.
Hart Hodges: buyers won't have the incentive to continue looking even with slightly higher mortgage rates, and so we may see some markets specific markets where the housing.
Hart Hodges: stays quite strong is.
Bethany King: One thing I will say is like we've talked about home prices rising rapidly like 10% in the past year, but we have rents rising at a much faster rate.
Bethany King: And so that's the part that nobody's talking about which I mean if you're a landlord that's fantastic rents are rising rapidly, but for people who want to buy homes.
Bethany King: Now you can't save your down payment for your House that's where it's prices rising rapidly, because your mind is rising even faster.
Bethany King: So I really wonder about people of my generation trying to buy houses and how they're possibly going to save that down payment if rents are rising twice as fast as home prices.
James McCafferty: That would be interesting because it.
James McCafferty: will put more pressure on the low down payment type programs will encourage people to be a little more ios a speculative a little risky.
Hart Hodges: You James you and i've talked a little bit about housing affordability in in other settings and the affordability for first time buyers.
Hart Hodges: kind of a mess right now.
Hart Hodges: Sure that's going to be hard to.
Hart Hodges: hard to imagine changing rapidly.
James McCafferty: Okay, so we talked about possible rate increases I know i've we've seen quotes from the Fed saying that that the rumors are two to three rate increases this year being likely to heart talk me through the upsides and downsides of rate increases.
Hart Hodges: yeah I read an article this morning saying the market is priced in for increases this year, I mean the the the upside is that this is the third.
Hart Hodges: Taking inflation seriously taking steps to offset or combat inflation and when you hear that the Fed is willing to raise raise three or four times this year they're sending a strong signal that that they're taking inflation very seriously and will do whatever is necessary.
Hart Hodges: They also want to get rates up a little bit so they have.
Hart Hodges: More policy tools in the future to rate normalization if you will.
Hart Hodges: The flip side is it slows the economy so when the people that are.
Hart Hodges: Are needing more economic growth to.
Hart Hodges: help push their wages up and so on, you know it's always a challenge to find that balance between managing inflation and without killing economic growth and.
Hart Hodges: there's another dimension here, where you can say talk is cheap, because the Fed is trying to manage inflation expectations, not just inflation itself.
Hart Hodges: So they can.
Hart Hodges: The more they can convince people that inflation is not going to be a problem.
Hart Hodges: without doing anything.
Hart Hodges: The better So when I read the article, the markets priced in for increases let's see how that article gets revised in March, April when inflation might be down and then it'll say Oh, the Fed may only have to raise two or three times this year, instead of four.
Hart Hodges: And we'll be in a different conversation.
James McCafferty: You know I always love those articles, because they happen whenever the market goes up or down like the markets pricing in some something one way or the other, and it's.
James McCafferty: I think the average person has no idea how that actually somehow connects magically.
James McCafferty: Because this week it goes up the market goes up on speculation, the rates are going to go up and next week, the market goes down because rates are being speculated going to go up it's it's fascinating to me.
James McCafferty: So definitely one of the things we hear a lot from subscribers is they really enjoy the monthly updates and these are available to our online or digital subscribers so every month.
James McCafferty: we create a couple of different monthly updates that get posted as well as updating some of our modeling work and and so those should be going either just went up or going up here today, but and what Should I be looking forward to reading.
Bethany King: Those went up last week.
Bethany King: Now we're seeing a real mixed bag here, so we had the monthly leading index was actually falling, whereas our current economic indicators were increasing a little bit, so I think the the biggest thing we have here is really picking apart each each part.
Bethany King: Each variable that we're looking at we're seeing a lot of concern about inflation and those impacts on things like durable goods sales.
Bethany King: But we're also seeing some positive signs in the Labor market and the Labor market stabling stabilizing itself a little bit more.
Bethany King: But we also have to keep in mind that data is lagged and we know what's coming, and we know that the on the chron is having a real impact on the Labor market with so many people out sick with the variant or out sick or.
Bethany King: Caring for others, and so we know that something's coming by it's not quite coming out in the data yet.
James McCafferty: Well, as usual, heart and bethany this has been a fun discussion here and I hope our listeners have enjoyed this today and we'll be back with these at least once a quarter, but.
James McCafferty: Something exciting happens in the economy will record these sooner than that.
James McCafferty: So this brings us to a close of this edition of after office hours with the puget sound economic forecaster.
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