doing. now, they said they would do that as long as the economy was, you know, low, as long as growth was tepid. the fact that they decided and announced to slow the volume of debt -- reduce the volume of debt that they're buying indicates two things. one is that the economy is picking up. two, the unemployment is going down. >> unemployment is still high in the united states. if you talk to economists or business leaders, they say there's still a lot of the uncertainty. we don't have the animal spirits that have been unleashed, even though the stock market is performing at record levels. why does the economy still seem to be halting in its recovery? >> well, first of all, i would observe that the economy has picked up. we forecast further pickup in 2014. second, most people who invest, who hire will tell you that they are uncertain. they were uncertain.