With domestic spending subdued, they have been relying on exports.
Confronted with the deficits and the constraints of the city's brush with bankruptcy in 1975, he held down spending, subdued the municipal unions, restored the city's creditworthiness, revived a moribund capital budget, began work on long-neglected bridges and streets, cut antipoverty programs and tried to reduce the friction between Manhattan and the more tradition-minded other boroughs.
Over all, ad spending is subdued as companies cut costs to cope with the slumping economy.
Consumer spending remains subdued.
In 2012, weak consumer spending and subdued business investment weighed on the economy, however, in 2013 GDP grew 1.4%, accelerating unexpectedly in the second half of the year because of greater consumer spending and a recovering housing market.
Household and business spending has been subdued and labor markets have softened further.
Profit margins are near all-time highs and borrowing costs near all-time lows, yet capital spending has been subdued.
Households remain scarred by the housing bust, both financially and emotionally, and consumer spending is still subdued.
"Spending is more subdued because for three years, economists have been telling people that the situation would get better.
Consumer spending has been subdued as the stronger currency lowers some costs and a mining boom raises others, the assistant governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Philip Lowe, said March 9.
"Spending is more subdued because for three years, economists have been telling people that the situation would get better," said Burt Flickinger III, a partner in Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm.
