San Diego, California Exchange With Reporters on Departure From Lindbergh Field.

Q. [Inaudible]

THE PRESIDENT. No one can control the stock market or predict what it's going to do.

Q. [Inaudible]

THE PRESIDENT. I hope not. We've done everything we could in spite of high interest rates to hold up employment in the construction industry. And as I told the construction workers, ordinarily the first part of our economy which feels adversely high interest rates has been the homebuilding industry.

Since I've been in office, we've had an average, I think, and still maintain of about 1.8 million homes being built every year. But we've changed economic policy to accommodate that problem. I think we'll minimize unemployment.

Q. [Inaudible]—if the interest rate situation does begin to hit, can the construction industry be—[inaudible].

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, we are assessing it constantly. But I think right now our economic policies are sound and well-advised.

Q. Are we headed for a deeper recession because of the higher interest rates?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't believe so-we've been—but I think the degree of recession has been less than we had anticipated earlier this year.

Q. Why did the markets do what they have done for the past few days?

THE PRESIDENT. I can't comment on the market. I don't know anything about them.

Q. [Inaudible]

THE PRESIDENT. My first priority is to deal with inflation.