economist for bloomberg intelligence. -- carl riccadonna is with us chief u.s. r bloomberg intelligence. also gerardo rodriguez of blackrock. carl: you see the overall consumption figures, some of that spending is going toward services rather than the goods that are measured in the retail sales numbers. a very common misconception now is while gas prices are increasing in the first front of this year, so that means the so-called tailwind is finished. that is not true because everything is relative, and the increases we are seeing in gasoline prices are still muted relative to what normally happens in the first half of the year, so in february, gas prices were up about 5%, but they fell 20% in january. so that tailwind is still very much present and will impact retail sales numbers. tom: but are we saving more money? i believe i saw a 5.5% save rate. is it a blitz? carl: it is a blip. tom: what is the vibrancy of 60 something percent of our economy? carl: consumer sentiment has been on an uptrend, a little bit choppy, but it is supported by the dramatic improvemen

joining me, i am here with carl riccadonna and cliff. been listening in my question is, what gdp does she need to see to not raise rates? carl: she conveyed in the speech she expects gdp to above trend this year, given that environment she sees the fed likely moving on rates. she expects to be above that. that gives you the idea where the threshold is. if we are not hitting 2% growth it is unlikely we will see it in the current quarter. if it doesn't look like we are going above that 2% threshold it doesn't look like she will be convinced we will have enough momentum to turn the inflation trend around and initiate lift off. alix: what do you think, when you hear what she says, what is your biggest take away? clint: there were knows of prizes. she said what people expected. people are concerned about unusual actions. this is alleviating that. they market had 1/10 of 1%, which is relieved. that is good, she was focused on inflation, on gdp growing. i don't think there were surprises. alix: david, what you think? we see the yield down below

i am here with lisa abramowicz, carl riccadonna, and michael blocks.et's get to the stimulus we heard. investors focusing on china today. policy makers have room to respond to the nation's growth rate. that comment underscore and forecasts for increased monetary easing from beijing. also today china announced steps to make buying and selling a home cheaper. is this the more market friendly beijing that investors have been hoping for? it scares lisa. lisa: talking to central thinkers physically cutting the standards. real estate is 20% of the chinese economy. this is a major part of economy, as it is ours. and yet if you have a problem with underlying fundamental borrowers, it could be something that is hard to control. alix: if weaker currencies are not enough to stimulate export growth we have a larger issue on our hands, what do you inc.? michael: one thing i want to say is we are looking at the cover deals here. i don't like what the pboc did here. they have taken this term. i am confident beijing can clean this up. they are doing a lot of reforms.

also lisa abramowicz and carl riccadonna. greek clouds are still looming.inance minister varoufakis is defending the greek government, saying they had -- they are wasting no time. also saying they will not accept the troika again. i feel like this deja vu from two weeks ago. greece has 300 46 million euros they have to pay the imf on friday will stop what happened if they cannot do that? -- on friday. what happens if they cannot do that? lisa: it's like, how many times can we watch this movie before people say, look, you guys can top fostering now to get some deals done. hobble through and perhaps there will be some real resolution. alix: to be fair, it seems like everyone made fun of greece's deal. and they had people with microphones trying to catch people in evading taxes, but this is a very new government not getting any slack from anyone in the europe at this point. karl: -- carl: we are on much more even footing out. pay to use the expression, but we are seeing green shoes throughout the european economy, but also -- in germany, but also in more perip

carl riccadonna, thank you for joining us. david is staying with me. wait growth has been coming from the -- wage growth has been coming from the retail sector. walmart joint gap and ikea in raising worker pay. why haven't things retailers -- why haven't these retailers been boosting wages? julie hyman has more. are they feeling the pressure, or is this politics at work? julie: it is probably a little bit of all of the things that might be in play is employee turnover. we know it tends to be relatively high anyway, and it's only been taking higher. we can look at a couple of things. we can look at a thing called quick weight -- quit rate, the rate at which people quit retail jobs, and you can see that is sticking up pretty dramatically. it is now have a 3% weight -- 3% rate. and if you can find that with -- combine that with hiring -- with firing, it goes up. 5.1%, and if you think about that over the course of a year the amount of churn your getting with employees, that present a real problem for these retailers. as for tightness in the labor market a