Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Michael Bilerman – Citigroup.
Michael Bilerman - Citigroup
Mort, you obviously painted a little bit more of a bleaker picture for the economy on the employment side, and from Boston Properties point of view things appear to be probably a little bit better than expectations. While they are difficult, there seems to be momentum.
How do you factor in some of the positives you're seeing in this business relative to your views on the broader economy and whether there are things that you're seeing on the ground, within Boston Properties, that potentially could paint a maybe brighter picture for the economy and the employment situation.
Mortimer B. Zuckerman
That's a very good question. That's a very difficult thing to correlate, I have to confess, because I do think that the broader economy and the consumer economy is going to be much tougher than the government is portraying. I do think there is a sense of they are focusing in on confidence and the attempt to retain and even to build confidence. I think they're going to, in some ways, lose their credibility as a result of that, because I think it's going to be worse than they have expected. In fact, it is worse than they expected.
I mean, it's not only that they predicted that there would be an 8% unemployment rate, but now they're saying it's going to above 10%. And I think it's going to be closer to 11%. Nobody knows what these exact numbers are. As I said, it's unprecedented.
But again, let me just say to you, we have always in these situations, when you invest and develop for the long-term, you have to anticipate that there are going to be downturns. And in terms of sort of developing a business strategy, we try to come in to sort of a construct that in a sense where we think we're going to do fairly well.
Anybody who has heard me on these talks in the past will remember that I keep on saying we do better in downturns, relatively, because of the fact—a) we're in a supply-constrained market, b) we're in the upper end of the office building market so that when there is a decline in rental a lot of tenants who want to be in the higher quality buildings now feel they can afford the space and will move in, it may be a little more expensive but they are prepared to move in. And that's exactly what we're seeing now.
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