Setting aside the monthly volatility and, specifically, the effects of the recent strike at General Motors, labor market indicators are as strong as they have been in quite some time. The unemployment rate has been running near a 50-year low, and the proportion of the population currently employed is close to its highest level in a decade.
The Basel Committee has put in place a process to systematically assess the quantitative impact of Basel II on the level and cyclicality of capital. We will take appropriate steps if the results of our capital monitoring suggest the capital framework is unduly procyclical. But even more importantly, we need to build countercyclical buffers into capital frameworks and provisioning practices.