GREENFIELD: Andy, while we wait perhaps for your boss to show up, job figures are supposed to come out, I think, at the end of this week. Advance word is they are not going to be good. Candidly, is the economy not the soft underbelly of your reelection effort?
CARD: Well, I actually feel that the president put a solid foundation, and the economy and is building on that foundation. It was a foundation of tax cuts, and it was a foundation that had to correct for the corporate governance scandal that we had. And all of that made for an opportunity for to us grow. I actually think the jobs numbers will still show growth, so we won't dip into the negative range. They will show growth.
"Advance word?" I didn't think anybody got an advance peek at the jobs report, except for maybe the president and Alan Greenspan. Could Greenfield be referring to the fairly mediocre level of payroll jobs anticipated by the consensus forecast on Wall Street, about 150,000 or so?
Doesn't sound like it -- the way Greenfield and Card are talking sounds as if it will be worse than that.
In fact, Card's statement would seem to imply that the payroll figure will be extremely bad. Could he be trying to lower expectations, so that when a mediocre number comes, it looks better?
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