The economy is doing better than anyone three or four months ago thought it could do. While 1.4 percent growth is pretty feeble, it does mean the recession was, from a GDP perspective, the mildest one we ever had.
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We have a reasonably bullish view on the US economy in the sense that we think the fourth quarter will be fairly good, ... The fact that inventory accumulation was less than anticipated in the third quarter just makes me a lot more comfortable with that view. It's very likely now that inventories are not going to be a problem for the economy, and therefore ongoing good consumer spending should produce a healthy gain in GDP.
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We cannot begin to quantify the potential damage in terms of gross domestic product, but a realistic scenario might be GDP declines in the tens of percent, ... In the case of slower growing economies such as Europe or Japan, a decade's economic growth could be wiped out.
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There will be a lot of rebuilding that is going to need to occur. These things do spur GDP growth.
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