[Deborah Marchini, Cnn Anchor:] Well, the markets will again be on economic watch, third-quarter productivity figures are expected to be revised lower. The consensus estimate is for a growth rate of 3.5 percent annually. Economists forecasting an upward adjustment to unit labor costs to 2.8 percent. The report is due an hour before the opening bell, and so if those expectations are fulfilled, it will mean basically less output, more inflation.
[David Haffenreffer, Cnn Anchor:] Well, Alan Greenspan says he'll be ready to act if the U.S. economy slows down too fast.
[Marchini:] Greenspan's credibility among investors extends around the world. So, how are his words being received in Europe? Janet Guyon, of "Fortune" magazine, joins us from London. And we saw a rally yesterday, Janet, they're giving it back a little bit today. How much of it was the Greenspan effect?
[Janet Guyon, London Bureau Chief, "fortune":] Well, a lot of it, Deborah, was the Greenspan effect. I mean, when this man speaks, the markets move. And that's true across the world. We've seen that in Europe. We saw that yesterday in the U.S. He has an extraordinary effect on the markets. People were watching that speech in New York yesterday looking for every little tea leaf to read. Was he going to talk about inflation? Was he going to talk about growth? The fact that he emphasized economic growth as opposed to inflation suggested to a lot of people that an interest-rate cut could be in the works early next year. So Greenspan has an extraordinary effect on the markets around the world, much more than any probably almost any single individual.
[Haffenreffer:] Janet, we talk about Greenspan's credibility around world, what about his popularity?
[Guyon:] Well, I'd say he's a pretty popular guy. I mean, after all, he's been the guy who's really monitored economic health around the world. I mean, we've had an extraordinary expansion. We've had a couple of bumps in the road. You know, two years ago, with that crisis in Russia that spread to a credit crisis across the world. I mean, Greenspan steered us out of that pretty well. So I'd say, I don't think popularity is not the main thing here, but certainly credibility and the sense that there's a strong wise hand on the economic tiller so to speak.
[Marchini:] Janet, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe Europe has what it considers to be a similar strong wise hand at the head of its central bank?
[Guyon:] No, Deborah, here in Europe, we've got a lot of opinions. Wim Duisenberg is the head of the central bank here, he's a Dutch men, and of course the euro's less than two years old, as is that bank. So it's got some growing pains, and what we see in Europe all too often is a kind of competing agenda. We have Duisenberg saying one thing about growth and interest rates and inflation, and some of the finance ministers from the various European countries saying other things. So there aren't really clear signals, at least thus far, out of the European Central Bank about how they view economic growth and inflation. Now, that's those public statements. Now if you actually read some of the reports from the ECB, and read those, they do paint a slightly different picture. They do seem to have more of a consensus. But the public statements between the ECB and some of the finance ministers of the various countries does lead to a lot of confusion in the market over here, or has done over the last year, and that's partly reflected in the low value of the euro, quite frankly.
[Marchini:] All right, Janet Guyon, "Fortune" magazine.