Watch those employment numbers

摘要

The major risk to a soft landing in the U.S. is that U.S. service-sector companies aggressively cut jobs, as U.S. manufacturers are doing. The American consumer might then stop spending and rebuild savings, and a hard landing would become a real possibility. But I still reckon that the odds are against it. Falling interest rates and strong productivity gains should cushion the U.S. labor force from the global economic slowdown. The Fed is seeing to the first objective with a 100-basis-point interest-rate cut in just one month, unprecedented since 1984. More cutting is in the cards.