Today, American officials sounded more hopeful, but conceded that they had no specific reason for optimism.

But the president has changed his mind about economic policy so often that now his officials sound insincere even when they speak the plain truth.

Corporate officials still sound tentative and a little apologetic about being competitive.

Only hours before they issued the statement, American officials had sounded upbeat about the previous two days of talks here.

German officials had sounded concerns over cash available for areas within former East Germany.

At the same time, no American officials publicly sounded the alarm about the troubled situation.

Over the last few weeks monetary officials have sounded increasingly worried about rising prices.

So no matter how confident officials sound in public, there are more than enough tenterhooks to go around.

But recently, Israeli officials have sounded positive notes about it, while still maintaining that the refugee question remains off the table.

But the officials said that the words and sounds in the recording were not definitive.