The Options Box

[Poet]

Here is some of the text of Alan Greenspan's testimony today. IMO, not terribly encouraging:



?For the period just ahead, the central tendency of the forecasts of the members of the Federal Open Market Committee is for real GDP to rise 2-1/2 to 3 percent during 2002. Such a pace for the growth of real output is somewhat below the rates of growth typically seen early in previous expansions. Certain factors, such as the lack of pent-up demand in the consumer sector, significant levels of excess capacity in a number of industries, weakness and financial fragility in some key international trading partners, and persistent caution in financial markets at home, seem likely to restrain the near-term performance of the economy.?