Seen in this light, ... the employee discount program was an enormously successful marketing coup.

At the margin they reinforced our growing sense that Fed tightening might stop before the federal funds rate reaches the 5 percent level we are currently forecasting.

We see sturdy hiring as a factor that continues to support U.S. economic growth.

It's debatable how much the dividend-tax elimination will stimulate the economy, particularly in the short run.

Whenever you have a collapse in a particular output price -- and we certainly saw a lot of that following Asia's decline -- it places a lot of pressure on companies to deal with keeping their revenues up. In that context consolidation isn't a big surprise.

The fiscal picture wasn't very good before and it's worse now.