WASHINGTON - Before getting into his regional outlook on housing at the National Association of Home Builder's (NAHB's) 2003 Fall Construction Forecast Conference, Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Economy.com, emphasized to the audience that "jobs are the key to sustainable economic growth."
We've had very large tax cuts and very aggressive mortgage borrowing, he said. We now need to see job growth to keep the economy moving ahead. "Businesses need to respond to their better profitability by creating jobs." If there is no job creation, he warned, there is no policy response.