00:00:00.040 - 00:00:20.890

Oh, hello, I'm Mike Gannon. And this is conversation. Last week, with the help of Carter Randall, we examined the national economic picture in the United States. Tonight, we're going to look at Florida and isolate Florida as nearly as we can from the rest of the South and from the rest of the nation.

00:00:21.340 - 00:01:00.720

We're going to look at the major economic indicators and ask what they tell us about Florida's picture in the world of economics. And for that purpose, I'll return in a moment with my guest. I presents conversation from the University of Florida and political, scientific and religious visions of the day.

00:01:00.870 - 00:01:28.400

The hostess, Dr Michael began in professor of history and ethics and assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. Thank you. My guest on conversation this evening is Dr Henry H. Fish Kind, associate professor of economics, associate director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research in the University of Florida and editor of the Florida Outlook.

00:01:28.590 - 00:01:42.540

Hank, welcome to conversation. Thank you, Mike. I'm glad to be here. How does Florida differ if it does it all from other states in the South and in the nation in the way in which we have managed these recession months that we've passed through and are still passing through.

00:01:42.980 - 00:02:02.030

In terms of the current cyclical experience, Mike Florida's done significantly better than has the economy of either the nation or the contiguous Southeast states. And that stands in marked contrast to what happened during the 1974 75 recession with Florida, Uh, did far worse than did the national economy.

00:02:02.050 - 00:02:25.850

Why did we do worse than at that stage? We had a significant amount of imbalances in the Florida economy built up from the boom during 72 73. Uh, the most obvious of those imbalances were in the housing markets, where there was a large inventory of unsold units, which sort of hung over the economy and precluded a rapid recovery from that recessionary experience.

00:02:26.130 - 00:02:57.160

The other less known factor is that the Florida economy was a far less diverse than and than it is now, and I think those two factors account for the better performance now relative to the 74 75 business cycle. Let's look at some of the major economic indicators and allow me to ask on the basis of them as we talk about them in order how Florida has done, for example, housing starts if we had too many housing starts and too many unsold houses and condominium units in 1974 75.

00:02:57.540 - 00:03:24.350

Um, aren't we suffering today from the fact that we are having difficulty getting new housing underway? Well, that's certainly the case, but I think that it's important to distinguish an excess inventory from a situation of relatively balanced markets, which is what we have now. While it is true that the level of housing starts as far lower now than was true in 79 80 we don't have an inventory huge inventory of unsold units, which would act as a damper to economic expansion.

00:03:24.540 - 00:03:45.160

Looking forward out through 82 rest of 82 83 84 but you're quite right. Housing starts in Florida from their peak in the fourth quarter of 1979 have declined more than 50% which is comparable to the rate of decline in the nation. I've often heard that the health of Florida's economy turns critically upon the number of housing starts.

00:03:45.180 - 00:04:05.540

Why is that the case well, the construction industry is the most volatile of Florida's industries. Uh, therefore, it tends to reflect the rate of change in the economy as opposed to the level of economic activity. We might talk about the level of economic activity like a pool and the rate of economic activity like the inflow into that pool.

00:04:05.540 - 00:04:27.260

Housing starts like the smaller tributary to a large pool, so that by looking at that tributary, you often can get very excellent signals as to where the economy is going. But it isn't correct to say that construction is the most important industry. It's just one of the most volatile and tends to give rise to and be reflective of business cycles in our state.

00:04:27.640 - 00:04:42.140

It is one indicator. Is it not of the amount of the national population that is moving into Florida. Certainly the people have to live somewhere. We don't see too many kids, so that's quite correct. And the more people who move into Florida, the better the economy is that always the case?

00:04:42.420 - 00:04:59.830

There are some people, particularly in the environmental movement, who argue that the more people you bring in the the lower the quality of life is not the more stagnant the economy, because the services are not there to manage that increased number of people. As to the latter issue first, it's simply not true.

00:04:59.830 - 00:05:23.840

In terms of economics, there's a very positive correlation between the rate of population growth and the rate of economic activity measured in terms of jobs, income, employment. So that latter point is not true as to the former point. It's certainly true that when we do not provide adequate public infrastructure, water, roads or bridges schools, the quality of life does deteriorate if more and more people use those facilities.

00:05:23.850 - 00:05:39.830

But I don't think that it's proper to detach the provision of public services from the rate of population growth and try to look at the two independently, uh, to give you a simple example. Uh, back when Manhattan was purchased from the Indians, I'm sure the Indians didn't think that 10 million people could ever live on that island.

00:05:39.840 - 00:05:59.700

There simply wasn't enough water bridges. Right now, 10 million people do live and work on that island because there's a lot of public infrastructure there. Now, one can debate about the quality of life and how it was then and now. But the point is that infrastructure must be looked at in conjunction with population growth.

00:05:59.700 - 00:06:19.440

It is without infrastructure when we have population growth that we do get a marked deterioration in the quality of life. Now let's talk about tourism, often called the leading industry in the state of Florida. I wonder how accurate the description of tourism is in that respect, because I hear on the other side that agriculture has been Florida's principal industry.

00:06:19.440 - 00:06:38.160

But first, tourism, uh, tourism by car and air particularly. I understand these are the two principal means by which people reach Florida. Um, in the recession, which perhaps it bottomed out, perhaps is not. Tourism is still strong, if not as strong as it ought to be.

00:06:38.160 - 00:07:00.660

It's still strong, isn't it? Well, uh, it was particularly strong this last quarter, as we had forecasted. But since 1979 through and until the second quarter of 1982 uh, tourist arrivals by automobile had been declining, and the tourist sector had not been a source of strength of the flower economy.

00:07:01.140 - 00:07:20.360

With the reduction in gasoline prices this summer and the beginnings of the national recovery in the tax cut, automobile based tourism did make a rebound in the second quarter, tourist arrivals by air was still relatively strong. So we did get some upward thrust from the tourist sector in terms of what's the most important Florida.

00:07:20.740 - 00:07:36.850

What's the most important sector of the Florida economy? Maybe we can step back a step from that question, and let me try to tell you how an economist looks at that. I think it's useful to view the Florida economy like one would view a small nation trading and international trade.

00:07:37.240 - 00:07:53.260

And then we say, What factors are basic to the Florida economy, one of the basic industries in the sense that which are the industries that bring income from outside the Florida economy? Well, tourism is obviously one of them because people come from outside the Florida economy and bring money with them to spend here.

00:07:53.640 - 00:08:09.400

Agriculture is another one. We ship a product out, money flows in our exported manufactured goods or another, and we also export retirement services. It's kind of an interesting kind of the service. We can't box it up like cornflakes and sell it in New York in the middle of the winter, but nonetheless it brings in income from the outside.

00:08:09.400 - 00:08:27.540

So those are the basic industries i e. Those which are are foreign sector for the state of Florida, if you will, then we have trade services, finance, insurance and real estate. Construction of these things service the local Florida market, both the tourist market, the retiree market and, of course, the domestic population.

00:08:27.550 - 00:08:44.800

So in looking at those export industries, the largest is tourism. The tourist industry generates about 17 to $18 billion worth of expenditures every year. So on an expenditure basis, it is far greater than agriculture or manufactured goods are probably even retiree spending in the state flower.

00:08:45.840 - 00:09:08.160

Is there much difference between the amount of expenditure by tourists who arrive by air as against those who arrive by automobile? Yes, the expenditures per day of tourists arriving by air are almost double the expenditures per day of tourists arriving by automobile. And that would be against the common wisdom because most people would think well with all the gasoline that people need to buy in the automobile.

00:09:08.440 - 00:09:20.360

Surely those who come by car going to spend more, and not only a gas but stopping along the way, buying in restaurants and so on. But that's not the case. That doesn't appear to be the case in terms of what they spend in Florida. Uh huh.

00:09:20.840 - 00:09:39.850

Um, there really are two kinds of tourists. It seems that the populations from which tourists come by car and tourists who come by air really are quite different. Uh, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different expenditures. What I was going to say is, although it is true that there the tourists arriving by air spend more per day, they don't stay as many days.

00:09:39.940 - 00:09:59.660

The tourists arriving by car tend to stay almost two weeks, 15 days on average. Tourists arriving by air tend to stay on average about a week, so the total expenditure would come out. The the automobile based tourism is is such a larger number that it overwhelms the expenditures and tourists coming by air.

00:09:59.670 - 00:10:18.310

That's not to say the church coming back is insignificant. Uh, we're talking on the order of five or $6 billion for tourists arriving by air and the rest being, uh, expenditures by automobile based tourism. And what is the pattern of tourism? First, let's take a traffic, is it, uh, tourists come by air and overfly the whole of Florida to Miami or Tampa?

00:10:18.310 - 00:10:40.340

Or is Disney World of primary objective? We'll all three seem to God or a substantial share, but at different times of the year, the interestingly enough, the South Florida tourist season, there really are two South Florida tourist season One is the traditional, uh, winter tourist season, from about Christmas to Easter time, and the second is an interesting tourist season happens in the summer.

00:10:40.370 - 00:10:56.550

And it's our Latin tourist season because our summer is their winter and a great number of Latin tourists come by air to Miami and Fort Lauderdale, not only to, uh, to visit but to shop. They may do most of their years shopping for durable goods and clothing, and things like that bring it back.

00:10:56.560 - 00:11:16.660

So we have two kinds of tourist seasons for air arrivals. The same is true for car rivals, except it has a different location during the summer. The car rivals tend to be focused on the beaches along the Panhandle and on Orlando because you get a lot of kids off for the summer with their parents and they come to Orlando and don't tend to come south.

00:11:17.440 - 00:11:33.930

Mhm. What about all of the tourists who came from abroad a year and a half or two years ago from England? In particular? Miami was almost an English colony for a short while. Was that because of the relative value of the U. S. Dollars against the British pound or that was helpful?

00:11:33.930 - 00:11:57.160

The the tourists and promotional people certainly had an impact also, and even with the variations in the exchange rates now working against the Florida economy, make us less competitive vis a vis vacation along the Spanish coast. It's still true that Florida is a pretty competitive location for vacations for Europeans and the overseas numbers at least until last quarter, it held up pretty well.

00:11:57.930 - 00:12:13.780

There was some concern expressed two or three years ago, perhaps still is expressed about the number of tourists who are flying to Miami only to get on board a cruise ship and leave for the Bahamas or the Indies or the Caribbean generally, thus leaving no money in Florida at all.

00:12:13.830 - 00:12:29.040

Is that still a phenomenon? Um, certain that there is still some of that, But I think that that was way overblown. When you talk about 40 million tourists coming to the state of Florida, the number that fly to Miami and just get right on a cruise ship is relatively insignificant.

00:12:29.160 - 00:12:48.450

All right, now let's talk about the automobile. I would assume that most people come into Florida by the interstate highways, and I understand by I 75 primarily depends upon where they're coming from. Interestingly enough, both tourists and people who come to retire who come from the Midwest come down the I 75 corridor intend to stay on the West Coast.

00:12:48.940 - 00:13:00.180

By contrast, those coming from the Middle Atlantic states of the North East tend to come down I 95 intend to stay on the East Coast. That's not to say that some New Yorkers don't go to Sarasota and that some Chicagoans don't go to for a lot of deal.

00:13:00.190 - 00:13:17.450

But by and large, it is interesting. I mean flowers only 70 80 miles wide. So to have this very dichotomies kind of tourism and retirement location, I often find fascinating. It is fascinating, isn't it? It's as though the first part of Florida they saw they fell in love with and decided to stay there.

00:13:17.840 - 00:13:55.460

That's pretty much the history of my family. When we came to Florida, we decided we would stay in the first place that we really like. Well, the first place we arrived was Saint Augustine and we for years. We never got any farther south. But, you know, speaking of ST Augustine, there is a city that has been bypassed by I 95 I think the tourism figures or and traffic flow indicate that many people go down to Disney World and Seaworld over either the Bush gardens on the Gulf Coast or to Cape Kennedy, uh, Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center on the East Coast, and then fly right on up I 95 passing by.

00:13:55.590 - 00:14:11.020

Perhaps Daytona, too. But certainly ST Augustine and the people in ST Augustine are doing everything they can to attract back onto the coast itself. Some of that, um, traffic Well, I think they have more things working against them than simply the fact that 9 95 passed them by Mike.

00:14:11.360 - 00:14:27.160

The brutal fact of the matter is there, above the frost line. In the winter, you can see a definite demarcation of tourist arrivals during the winter months below the frost line. All right, let's talk about the manufacture of durable goods. This is one of the indices for economic health and progress in Florida.

00:14:27.160 - 00:14:44.540

And yet most people, including I do not normally associate Florida with the manufacture of durable goods. What do you mean when you use that term? Durable goods generally refer to those goods with a useful economic life of three years or more. So the clothing, although it lasts, is for whatever reason, counted as a non durable goods.

00:14:44.540 - 00:15:01.890

Certainly, food is non durable. Good food processing is nondurable goods. By contrast, the electronics industry, electrical machinery, airplane parts of those kind of things are clearly durable. Goods chemicals tend to be non durable goods. With that, then you're quite right. Florida is not known as a manufacturing ST.

00:15:01.980 - 00:15:18.200

About 12% of total employment in the state of Florida's manufacturing, about 6% is durable goods. What is important about the durable goods industry, But there are a couple of things that are important. One is a significant portion of that Durable goods industry is growing very rapidly in the state of Florida.

00:15:18.210 - 00:15:40.830

That's our high technology electronics industries, and those are very important. The second part of that issue is we do have a large number of prime defense contractors and secondary defense contractors. So Florida stands to gain from the defense build up, and you can already begin to see just the first traces of what that's gonna mean Now.

00:15:40.850 - 00:15:53.020

The other part of durable goods in Florida is linked to our housing. Sectors tend to have things like stone, clay and glass fabricated metals that are basically windows and doors and things like that. Those that part of our durable goods manufacturing industry is not doing particularly well male.

00:15:53.200 - 00:16:15.380

But looking forward, it is those electronics industries and defense related contractors. They're gonna be very important to the Florida economy over the next five years. Alright, now agriculture. We have not talked about agriculture in detail, but I and and perhaps it's not possible to talk about it in the same detail with which you can analyze durable goods and and even tourism.

00:16:15.380 - 00:16:41.600

But is not agriculture right up there With tourism as one of the leading contributors to Florida's economy? Well, agriculture is certainly an important contributor to Florida's economy. The cash, agricultural marketing's are around $10 billion so that's significant. Anybody's book, and that's just the prime sales. Obviously, that generates secondary in service industries in the state of Florida that service that large agricultural sector.

00:16:41.620 - 00:16:55.500

So it is certainly important. It is somewhat difficult to analyze because we don't have the same kind of data that we have unemployment and income flows for agriculture that we do for the rest of the economy, that makes it difficult. Secondly, that makes it difficult is it's so darn related to the weather.

00:16:55.780 - 00:17:14.950

It's bad enough to have to forecast economic trends. But the weather? Yes, of course, I understand. Do we send our best produce out of the state? That's one allegation I hear from time to time. Oh, the best oranges and grapefruit went to Chicago and so forth, and the best, the best letters or or whatever it is that we grow.

00:17:15.300 - 00:17:36.550

Well, I'm certainly no expert on that. You probably need somebody from my office to help you with that. I would, uh, I think that economic conditions would mitigate against that market. Prices for the same fruits and vegetables are just about as good in the state of Florida Why should the person selling that have to go through the expense and risk of shipment doesn't make a lot of economic sense to argue that way.

00:17:37.140 - 00:17:58.460

Well, we certainly do have a healthy agriculture in the state, and not only in terms of what we grow in our fields, but our cattle as well. Cattle is a growth industry I know. In the agricultural complex of the state. As a matter of fact, we use the term today agribusiness to describe the multiplicity of things which people in agriculture do.

00:17:58.940 - 00:18:22.050

Well, um, we've talked about, uh, durable goods, and we've talked about tourism, and, uh, and housing starts, um, and agriculture. Uh, what else would be an index of how healthy we are vis a vis other states in the south and in the nation? Well, certainly, population growth is a very important indicator not only to Florida, but of course, to any state and to the nation.

00:18:22.540 - 00:18:44.930

On average, my car population growth in the state of Florida about 250,000 every year. We've ranged as high as over 400,000 during 7, 1973 as low as about 100 and 15,000 at the bottom of the recession in 1975. Uh, those data got distorted during 1980 because of the material refugee influx.

00:18:44.940 - 00:19:02.170

Uh, what had been happening is the growth rate in population had been slowing from its peak in 79 through the present time, that downward trend was interrupted by the huge spike of 100 and 20,000 Mario refugees. But if we abstract from that which I think we should, that's not an economic event.

00:19:02.170 - 00:19:31.770

That's a political phenomenon, abstracting from that. Now we have a continuous reduction in the growth rate of population were now running a little less than 200,000, and growth should continue to decelerate now for the next 3 to 6 months in the state of Florida. So, uh, looking forward, even with the prospects of a national recovery, it will still be about 3 to 6 months to we see more rapid population growth, which is the underpinnings of a rapid upswing in Florida's economy.

00:19:32.140 - 00:19:48.880

Why are people moving to Florida and to the other Sun Belt states? Is it because the South has suddenly become oriented toward industry of a sort to support people in jobs which are failing in the northern tier of industrial states? Or is it because of the weather?

00:19:49.940 - 00:20:12.350

Well, I'm sure it's a combination of both, and I think it's important to distinguish Florida from the other Southeastern states. There's some very interesting phenomenon now going on in Florida versus the other Southeastern states that will touch on in a minute. In terms of Florida, it's very useful to separate population growth, uh, and migration into the state, uh, between people 65 over and people under the age of 65.

00:20:12.840 - 00:20:30.360

And when you do that, what you see is that Florida maintains its climactic advantage, if you will, over the Northeast and Midwest and most of the rest of Southern states not quite ready for that. And so there is a given. And then you say, Well, what affects the timing?

00:20:30.940 - 00:20:46.420

Well, the thing that affects the timing, basically is housing market conditions in the sending states. One people 65 over can't sell homes in the sending states. They don't tend to move to Florida's rapidly. That explains the timing. I think in terms of technological change, air conditioning above and beyond everything else, Uh, made it possible.

00:20:46.510 - 00:21:07.810

The other stimulating factor is road access. As we complete I 75 I think you'll see very rapid population growth, particularly people 65 over in that I 75 quarter along the West Coast. In terms of people in the labour markets, there are more affected by the growth in total job opportunities in the state of Florida vis a vis other areas.

00:21:08.060 - 00:21:27.450

And the Florida economy has been generating jobs not only in the service sectors but also in the manufacturing construction industries. So while we are in a very healthy state, that stands in contrast to what's been going on in some of the other Southeastern states. They are less able now to attract manufacturing employment than they were during the sixties.

00:21:27.940 - 00:21:54.380

Looking at the seventies now, what you see is a marked slowdown in industrial relocation, employment growth in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky and Alabama in particularly in particular, uh, with the downturn of late in the forest product industry. That's catching Mississippi, Louisiana and in those states also, so there's a significant difference now between the way those other Southeastern states are behaving over this cycle, in Florida, Florida doing significantly better.

00:21:54.440 - 00:22:12.330

They're doing significantly worse than the national average. That's very interesting. Could we take a look at the graph to now? I'd like to these up and see if we can't put a camera on these And as we go along, we'll describe what they say. All right, here is our first.

00:22:12.330 - 00:22:26.040

What is this? This is a composite index of the Florida economy, Mike, what we do is take a number of different indices to make a composite index, just like we have leading composite and lagging indices of the U. S. Economy. So we have a composite index.

00:22:26.040 - 00:22:43.130

Now, you can see this was the peak in the last business cycle that occurred, Uh, in about mid 1981 we have another peak in 79 that you can't see off this chart. From that point, the Florida economy has descended, uh, down and down, as you can see from the graph through until January 1982.

00:22:43.300 - 00:22:58.130

Since that point, we've begun a slow recovery, as you can see here, and I think that's pretty indicative. You can see that we're certainly not back up to where we were. We have a long way to go yet on this climb, this graph has been very influenced by the reduction in housing starts and population growth in particular.

00:22:58.140 - 00:23:10.950

But we're on the road. Yes. I think that it is fair to say that the recovery has begun. All right, What we have here in figure two is the trend in total housing starts by different regions of the state so that you can see how housing starts have been affected.

00:23:11.240 - 00:23:27.110

This solid line that falls way down this housing starts in the southeast part of the state, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. You can see that the southeast part of the state is born the brunt of the housing market slowdown here, as compared to this dotted line which is the Tampa ST Petersburg area.

00:23:27.280 - 00:23:49.650

These more solid dots which Jacksonville and the dashes, which is Orlando. So you can see that the southeastern part of the state is really born. The brunt of the slowdown in housing starts. Mike, What else is interesting? As you can see, that each of the areas has turned down significantly from its peak, but that the rate of decline is over for most areas, the steep decline now has begun to bottom out in the southeast part of the state.

00:23:49.650 - 00:24:02.880

You can see the Tampa ST Petersburg. It's flat now. Orlando's already turned up so that the worst of the recession is now behind us. But it's gonna take some time for us to climb out of the hole that we've fallen into all right, and the whole was a national whole.

00:24:02.880 - 00:24:18.060

It wasn't anything of Florida's own making. That's correct. In fact, I think it's important to emphasize that Florida has done better. Then the national economy will continue to do so. However, it will take some time. And we'll get to this after we look at these charts as to why the Florida recovery may lag the U.

00:24:18.060 - 00:24:38.650

S. Recovery. All right, we'll get to that. What I thought I do here in Figure three is to compare the cyclical behaviour of population growth over the last three business cycles so that we can see how do we do in the current business cycle 1981 82 compared to the business cycle in 1983 which is its trough in 1975 here is the deep 1975 recession.

00:24:38.650 - 00:24:53.120

And on this axis, we have population growth each and every quarter. Mike, because we started a very high level of population growth, we descended to a very, very low level here in the trough of the recession and the fourth quarter of 1975. Now, compare that to this dash line.

00:24:53.140 - 00:25:11.170

Dash line is our current cyclical performance. You can see that we didn't start quite as high, although we started a high level of population growth. And already we've begun to bottom out at a significantly higher level than we did during 1975. All right? Mm. Now this is the behavior.

00:25:11.170 - 00:25:26.440

This is the behavior of total housing starts in the state of Florida. Over the last three cycles, you can see the very rapid fall off and housing starts to a very low level. During the 1974 75 business cycle during 1983 business like you can see, almost nothing happened.

00:25:26.450 - 00:25:42.550

But now, look, in the current cycle, you can see that we've come down a significant way in terms of total housing starts. But already we bottomed out well above the previous bottom during 74 75. So it's not as serious, not as serious as 74 75 by any stretch of the imagination.

00:25:42.750 - 00:25:58.100

That's particularly parent. Here in this graph is very early. Squiggly lines is employment. It doesn't follow. A nice, neat path is very dark line that falls way down here. To the negative is the rate of increase in jobs. So obviously, we lost jobs during the 1975 74 75 cycles.

00:25:58.110 - 00:26:11.850

Here's where we are now, Mike, and you can see that we're about at zero. So we haven't really had much job loss yet during this cycle. We expect this to plateau out now, so I think that gives us a good feel of where the Florida economy is today.

00:26:12.340 - 00:26:29.120

And Hank, you said that the Florida economy likely will lag behind recovery elsewhere in the in the nation. Yes, it will. Mike and it. It has to do with the dynamics of the Florida economy itself. Remember when we talked about what is the leading sectors where the basic industries, what brings income from the outside?

00:26:29.130 - 00:26:48.450

We talked about tourism. The prospects of tourism look pretty good. Tourists tend to come from outside Florida. Uh, their arrival, uh, tends to be dominated by changes in national economic conditions, particularly real per capita income. The tax cuts boosted real per capita income. Gasoline prices have stayed down.

00:26:48.540 - 00:27:03.360

Our winter tourist season, which is the one coming up now, is primarily comes from tourists in the United States, not a function of overseas tourism. Like the summer and spring is the winter tourist season is a US tourist season. The U. S economy is beginning to look strong.

00:27:03.360 - 00:27:23.110

I expect a very strong fall tourist season, so that looks helpful. That will prevent the Florida economy from falling any further. But that's not enough in order to have a robust recovery. What we need is more rapid levels of population growth. When we looked at our population shot what we saw as we're already averaging about 200,000 at an annual rate for population growth this quarter.

00:27:23.120 - 00:27:38.960

That's 50,000 below normal, and the dynamics are interesting. Well, one minute one economic conditions change in the nation. What tends to happen is people then decided to move, but it takes them a while to sell our homes, pack the things get to Florida that takes about six months.

00:27:38.970 - 00:27:55.640

So even if the U. S economy turns around this this, uh, summer, it's still gonna take six months. We're not gonna really see robust growth in Florida until 1983. Mike, Hank, that's fascinating. You've carried us a great distance in helping us to understand where we are now and what the outlook is in the near term at least.

00:27:55.650 - 00:28:10.270

Uh, thank you very much. Doctor Henry Fish Kind, associate professor of economics and associate director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research in the University of Florida. Also editor of the Florida Outlook. Thanks for being with me, Hank. On conversation. Thank you.