Recession Tales from the WSJ January Survey?

Here’s the outlook for GDP:

Figure 1: GDP (black), WSJ mean January 2023 survey (blue), October 2022 (chartreuse), GDPNow 1/10/23 (red square). Source: BEA 2022Q3 3rd rel, WSJ (various), Atlanta Fed. 

Over the last three months, GDP rose more than anticipated in Q3, and growth projections for Q4 accelerated. The mean of forecasts made between January 6-10 is exceeded by GDPNow of January 10th. That being said, there is a wide dispersion of forecasts.

Figure 2: GDP (black), WSJ mean January 2023 survey (blue),  median (red), 20% trimmed high for 2023 q4/q4 – Fienup, Hamilton California Lutheran University (tan), low – Faucher/PNC Financial Services Group (sky blue). Source: BEA 2022Q3 3rd rel, WSJ January survey.

A recession doesn’t show up in the mean forecast, and a quarter of negative growth shows up in the median.  Of course, as discussed on a variety of occasions, two consecutive quarteres of negative GDP growth are not the same as a recession.

The WSJ surveyed recession probabilities. Below is a time series.

Figure 3: Probability of recession within next 12 months, from WSJ January 2023 survey (blue), and . probability of recession in 12 months from probit on 10yr-3mo spread (purple). NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: WSJ (January), NBER, and author’s calculations.

For comparison, I have included the predicted recession probability for 12 months ahead from a probit (note the difference from the WSJ survey, which asks for recession within 12 months. (More in the article.)

 

100 thoughts on “Recession Tales from the WSJ January Survey?

  1. David S

    The WSJ is a venerable and objective institution. Its surveys reflect the values and experiences of REAL Americans, not these fuzzy headed intellectuals from the frigid, blasted landscapes of Midwestern college campuses. You won’t find any bias at the WSJ, no sirree Bob, certainly not from the fintech bros who pissed away client money over the past two years on crypto scams. And even the grey haired set, who did their last line of cocaine during Trump’s first bankruptcy and can’t remember an inflation rate of over 5%–but know in their hearts that a Democratic president is the portent of recession. Just look at those layoffs at Goldman Sachs, man!

  2. Moses Herzog

    Menzie, I know I seem cold sometimes, but if you knew me IRL I think you’d know I’m not as cold as I sometimes come across here. But I do love ironic humor and I love bad karma going to people who deserve it. Anywayz………. I was just about to ask you what Amy Crews Cutts forecast was but I couldn’t remember what her name was. Hahahahahah!!!! Did she finally learn her lesson on the growth forecasts going to Mars?? laugh riot.

    1. pgl

      By odd – I guess you mean this price has declined to where it was before Putin invaded Ukraine. All that pro-Putin blather from JohnH about how high these prices are just evaporated.

    2. Ivan

      The combination of warmer weather and increased supplies/storage, compared to expectations, is doing its job. The highly published risk of potential shortages has also inspired both individuals and businesses to reduce their use of gas. Another case of Putin shooting himself in the foot. The increase in alternative energy and insulation of older houses will not go away -it will place a permanent downward pressure on prices of hydrocarbons.

      1. Ivan

        Yes brutal and true. Russia cannot train, equip and effectively deploy the current group of recruits. They are running low on ammo for artillery and tanks as well as missiles. Maybe before WW1 you could just send an overwhelming number of riffle bearing soldiers out against the enemy, and overrun them. But this is more than 100 years later. With modern weapons one defender can easily kill 20 storming enemy soldiers that have little training or protection. To me this seems more like another desperate attempt to intimidate Ukraine and the west to compromise and give Russia a little something to settle the war. Instead it seems to have inspired the west to give Ukraine enough weapons to beat the sh** out of Russia within the next 6-9 months, before they potentially get their act together enough to dig in for a years long war of attrition.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Funny you mentioned that.
      https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-soldiers-russia-ukraine-war-vagner-group/32195876.html

      This is another problem with the American government giving free military training to Mid-East “citizens” who think a nutjob theocracy should rule the day. The vast majority of these people couldn’t govern themselves if you gave everyone free voting pamphlets, a personal military detail for escort, and a trail of lamb kebobs and flatbread going to a polling station. But we’re gonna give them an automatic weapon and train them and say “Go defend yourself against your Muslim brother~~or your sisters and daughters won’t be able to attend public school”. 98% of Afghan males don’t want their sisters and daughters attending a public school.

      Here are some numbers BEFORE the Taliban took over the country:
      “But the stated aim of getting all girls into school is far from realized, and the proportion of students who are girls is now falling in parts of the country. According to the government, 3.5 million children are out of school, and 85 percent of them are girls. Only 37 percent of adolescent girls are literate, compared to 66 percent of adolescent boys. Afghanistan’s government provides fewer schools for girls than boys at both the primary and secondary levels. In half the country’s provinces, fewer than 20 percent of teachers are female – a major barrier for the many girls whose families will not accept their being taught by a man, especially as they become adolescents. ”
      https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/17/afghanistan-girls-struggle-education

      These sh*thead politicians like Hillary and Richard Holbrooke think they can bully in a new culture. It’s not going to happen. I’m surprised Hillary didn’t call Afghans “deplorables” when the Taliban walked back into leadership of the nation in about 1 week. Or maybe Hillary could cackle like a Hyena again and go “we came, we saw, and we……” which she did do after she sent Libya into human trafficking and regional warlords chaos. It sure is a barrel of laughs for Hillary watching from a distance, isn’t it??

  3. JohnH

    Over at the New Yorker, they have a great article on “ The Infinite-Monkey Theorem: Field Notes.”
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/16/field-notes-on-the-infinite-monkey-theorem

    I suspect that the Monkeys, when taking a break from typing all the world’s great literature, are actually doing economic forecasts. The WSJ and Michigan folks had to turn somewhere now that hardly anyone answers the phone anymore. Best of all, the reliability of the results doesn’t seemed to have changed at all!

    1. pgl

      Did you even read this weird story? Most of those monkeys were not typing at all. Oh wait – there’s Monkey #3566:

      Day 1 of being embedded with the elusive writer monkeys. It’s magnificent. Monkeys and typewriters as far as the eye can see. What strikes me immediately, though, is the absence of any and all writing. Before arriving, I’d steeled myself for a deafening cacophony of tapping keys, margin bells, and the mechanical slides of carriage-return levers. But so far the only thing I’ve seen typed is “Title TK TK TK,” written by Monkey No. 3566

      Gee this monkey must be JohnH’s smarter brother. Now come on Jonny boy – please find the time to write an even more pathetically dumb comment. We know you can. Get busy.

    2. Macroduck

      Johnny? Are you trying to make a point? I ask because you seem to have gone through some of the steps toward making a point, but failed to make it to the finish line.

      Quick question: for what purpose(s) do you think economic forecasts are used?

      1. pgl

        Jonny is trying to say economists are dumb monkeys because expectations of inflation as not perfect . But Jonny does not realize the Michigan survey represents household expectations of inflation. His own link under another thread notes that economist forecasts of inflation are better than the household survey. Yea – Jonny is THAT STUPID.

        1. JohnH

          Ducky…you might appreciate this one. It was a favorite at our company when we were asked to do plans and forecasts. https://funnyshit.com.au/the_plan.html

          I imagine the folks working in the bowels of the Consumer Inflation Expectations survey feel the same way…but I doubt that Ducky or piggles have ever been in the room with people actually talking to respondents. I have.

          1. pgl

            That unnamed former Fortune 200 company you claimed to have worked for. Yes – the company you personally bankrupted.

          2. Macroduck

            Johnny has slipped two weaselly tricks into one comment – not a new record for Johnny, of course.

            First, he “doubts”, as if his doubt counts for anything. Second, Johnny was “in the room”, but not actually involved? So…, big imaginary credibility ponts for Johnny?

            So, cards on the table – I’ve never been involved in surveying consumer confidence. Neither, as far as we can tell, has Johnny, though if Johnny is to be believed, he was “in the room”. Taking lunch orders, washing windows, who knows?

            I have done surveys of economic forecasts, retailer spending projections and the like. Back when Mike Bloomberg was still working on becoming a billionaire, lots of people did such surveys, giving Mikey some competition. Part of the job. I don’t remember collecting Johnny’s forecast. But maybe Johnny was “in the room” with someone who did some forecasting.

            But you see my point – Johnny is “doubting” without actual knowledge as a cheap debating trick. He’s claiming to have been “in the room” as if some special knowledge rubbed off on him – another cheap debating trick. Poor, desperate Johnny.

          3. JohnH

            Yes, Ducky. I doubt that you know very much about the inner mechanics of surveys. However, I was the client for several surveys. Part of my responsibility was to provide the contractor with the characteristics of the people we wanted to question–those whose jobs made them the most knowledgeable about the subject and most likely to provide reliable answers. I also worked closely with the contractor to provide questions and make sure that they were worded so as to generate an informative response. I took the added step of sitting in during the initial telephone interviews to make sure that the interviewers were reaching the right targets and making sure that the questions were asked well and that the respondents understood what we were looking for. This last step in particular was highly unusual, since most clients simply trusted the research company, which was a professional, independent third party company would just get it right.

            So, Ducky, have you any clue at all as to what it takes to get reliably good information from a survey? If you don’t demand knowledgeable research targets, you’re just getting garbage. And the fact is that most Americans have absolutely no clue as to what the inflation rate is now and what rate of inflation to expect. Any response they give is just pulled out of thin air after being prodded by the interviewer.

            In other words, it’s just garbage.

            The issue I’m raising is twofold. First, the quality of the data. Second, the poor result (I linked to a Fed report showing the abysmally low correlation between the forecast and the result.) Apart from these two issues is a third, which I am not raising. It involves the magical thinking involved in the assumption that what consumers expect for inflation is what they will get!!! I mean, how absurd can you get?

      2. JohnH

        If we trust inattentive, ill-informed consumers to provide data for inflation forecasts, you don’t think that monkeys typing the world’s great literature could provide data that would be equally predictive?

        1. pgl

          Now you are trashing households and not economists. Gee Jonny – that other JohnH might be disappointed. Then again your uninformed opinions have always been quite malleable. BTW troll – our host has always let us know about the economist forecasters. And then their are those market measures. Yea – you are the most ill-informed troll ever. Try paying attention.

          1. JohnH

            Actually, it’s not just ordinary households. When some high level corporate executives were asked about their inflation expectations, 55% had no idea. Yet a survey of people who have no idea about future inflation generates the data that provides the basis for policy decisions.

            Normal surveys poll people who actually have some knowledge about the subject matter in question…but apparently economists don’t think that that is at all necessary!!! In the surveys that I presided over, I found that even people who ought to know about the subject in question have often never thought about the particular aspect that the survey is interested in.

            Why don’t you give it a try and ask people on the subway what inflation will be by the end of 2023? I’m sure most will look at you cross-eyed.

            BTW, if you had actually read Rudd’s paper, you would have noted his opening line: “Mainstream economics is replete with ideas that “everyone knows” to be true, but that are actually arrant nonsense.” I have noticed a few myself, and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface!

          2. pgl

            “When some high level corporate executives were asked about their inflation expectations, 55% had no idea.”

            Really – when they asked the janitor of your company (which must have been your job) he pretended he was the expert who knew more than economists. You know – there was this Know Nothing troll named JohnH who used to pretend he was the champion of the common man. But it is good to know this version of JohnH has such utter disdain for the common man.

          3. pgl

            “In the surveys that I presided over, I found that even people who ought to know about the subject in question have often never thought about the particular aspect that the survey is interested in.”

            Jonny boy’s job in his Fortune 200 company was to preside over surveys of stupid people? I guess you were qualified since you are the dumbest troll ever.

        2. Macroduck

          Johnny, two questions for you:

          In standard textbook models of inflation, do expectations matter?

          In the formation of inflation expectations, does knowledge (or accuracy, take your pick) matter?

          Disparage your fellow ignoramuses all you want, but your blathering about ill-informed consumers is irrelevant to the formation of expectations and to the impact of expectations on inflation.

          Get a clue, Johnny. This is one of the easier ideas to understand and you have misunderstood it. Not that anyone is surprised.

          Oh, and that business about you not yet scratching the surface when it comes to economics? We could tell.

          1. JohnH

            Are forecasts judged on knowledge or accuracy? Knowledge is generally recognized as a significant precondition to getting it right. But the Michigan survey dispenses with knowledge and instead relies on respondents’ intuition and inchoate impressions…a crap shoot. Monkeys could probably perform just as well, particularly if they had studied economics!

          2. Anonymous

            JohnH
            January 19, 2023 at 11:15 am
            Are forecasts judged on knowledge or accuracy?

            Jonny boy’s forecasts would fail both tests. His accuracy is terrible but his knowledge is nonexistent.

          3. pgl

            JohnH
            January 19, 2023 at 11:15 am
            Are forecasts judged on knowledge or accuracy?

            Of course Jonny boy fails by both criteria. His forecasts suck because he has no knowledge on anything.

          4. pgl

            JohnH
            January 19, 2023 at 11:15 am
            Are forecasts judged on knowledge or accuracy? Knowledge is generally recognized as a significant precondition to getting it right.

            This from the troll who gets everything wrong!

    3. pgl

      “I suspect that the Monkeys, when taking a break from typing all the world’s great literature, are actually doing economic forecasts. The WSJ and Michigan folks had to turn somewhere now that hardly anyone answers the phone anymore.”

      Jonny boy actually thinks this Michigan survey is from professional economists (who he equates to monkeys)? Hey Jonny boy – get a program:

      https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/9125/measure-of-expected-inflation#:~:text=There%20are%20three%20big%20sources%20for%20data%20on,Surveys%20of%20professional%20forecasters%2C%20such%20as%20this%20survey.

      There are three big sources for data on inflation expectations in the US:

      Market implied expectations from the TIPS spread. TIPS securities provide inflation protection but are otherwise roughly comparable to normal treasuries, so the difference in yields between these two is a measure of expected inflation.
      Consumer expectations from the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, which you can find here.
      Surveys of professional forecasters, such as this survey.

      Gee Jonny boy – you are now equating consumers to monkeys. No worries – even monkeys know which measure of expected inflation is which. Of course it is a well known fact that your average monkey is way smarter than Jonny boy.

    4. Moses Herzog

      “doesn’t seemed”. By any chance, was your grade school grammar teacher a monkey going by the name of CoRev??

      1. pgl

        ‘the reliability of the results doesn’t seemed to have changed at all!’ YEP!

        But how is he going to improve his grammar when Jonny boy can’t read his own links. His link under another post noted that forecasting inflation during the 1990’s etc. wasn’t that bad even for the consumer survey. Yea when things get as volatile as they have lately, forecast errors tend to be high.

        But all of that goes over Jonny’s little head.

        1. JohnH

          pgl is happy with surveys that are only reliable when the times don’t get tough, when difficult decisions don’t have to be made.

          He must love the Jets!!!

          1. pgl

            Jonny boy pretends to know what others believe. That is because Jonny boy has no core beliefs of his own except for the fact that he hates economists as he flunked out of Econ 101. Hey little Jonny boy – please come back with a real insult sometime. You suck at even being a total jerk.

          2. pgl

            “pgl is happy with surveys that are only reliable when the times don’t get tough”

            Really Jonny boy. Let’s see – I have always said forecasting commodity prices so let’s review your track on a couple of items. Your forecasts of lumber prices? Your forecasts of EU LNG prices? On both – your forecasts were almost as way off as your BFF Princeton Steve’s forecast of oil prices. In a word – they SUCK big time.

            So tell us Jonny boy – how does it feel to be dumber than a retarded monkey?

    1. pgl

      Let me warn people not to waste their time with some nonsense that begins with

      Pierre Andurand, the world’s best known oil trader these days

      Yes Stevie is promoting his utterly worthless blog again. People – save your time for better things to read.

          1. Moses Herzog

            As double time as Kopits works at being Mr Pretentious, why am I zero surprised he chose a guy to exhibitionistically hero-worship with a French sounding name?? This is a consistent source of unintentional humor on this blog. It’s like the guy who brags about having a BMW in the year 2023 and doesn’t realize the new ones have a huge portion of plastic (literally) pieces under the hood.

    2. pgl

      For Moses’s benefit – Stevie is now forecasting oil prices to rise beyond $140 a barrel if not all the way up to $180. Tracking this should give us all a big chuckle!

      1. Moses Herzog

        Heh, don’t tempt me. I have little thoughts on Kopits’ oil price forecasts at the moment. However I may proffer an opinion on this in due time. Maybe……..

        I was right about that, you gotta give me credit for that much. God knows I would have heard from many parties had I got it wrong. There’s other things related to this I’m tempted to add as well, but I’m doing my best to filter myself. As you may have guessed, I’m not good at self-filtering.

      2. Steven Kopits

        This is the quote:

        Timing matters. Returning to trend requires the material recovery of China’s economy. This may be expected in 2023, but politics in Beijing look fraught. A scary China may be a slower-growing China. Further, the reversal of pandemic fiscal and monetary stimulus is expected to bring recession across much of the world. And finally, the Russo-Ukrainian war throws a wrench into all predictions. How and when the world returns to a pre-pandemic, pre-war normalcy is hard to know. The long-term trends do, however, suggest it happens eventually.

        When it does, Andurand is likely to prove right and demand growth will exceed all expectations. In such an event, a price forecast of $140 / barrel is by no means out of the question, and I would not be surprised if oil peaked, at least for a time, above $180 / barrel.

        1. pgl

          Gee Stevie – the rest of the gang here knows how to read. We do not need your help especially given your lack of abilities with the English language.

        2. Ivan

          So year after year after year after year – when the world has still not seen that peak above $180 you will just claim that “pre-pandemic pre-war normalcy” has not been reached, yet. Proof? well oil has not reached $180!

          Personally I would like to see Oil peak at $180 because it will help accelerate the switch to carbon free energy. Unfortunately it is a lot more likely that we hit a long stretch of below $60 as the alternative energy production increases beyond the increased need for energy. Sure if we could turn the poor countries of the world into some kind of mass consumer market and gain back world population growth rates of a few decades ago …. – good luck with that.

        3. GREGORY BOTT

          That doesn’t work. Pandemic era fiscal stimulus has been long gone. It’s irrelevant. Your oil price forecast is lolz. Your consistent in your globalism Kopits.

          1. pgl

            Stevie on the one hand tells us we had a massive fiscal restraint (because he does not realize much of the fall in the deficit is from more taxes from the Biden boom). Stevie also told us all last year we were in a massive recession. Now Stevie says the demand for oil will go thru the roof? Stevie is the most mixed up troll God ever created.

        4. Moses Herzog

          What about your quote about oil rising over $100 by the end of summer 2021??
          “This is exactly as we noted in our analysis three weeks ago:

          If the trend holds up, the only barrier between us and $100 oil after Memorial Day will be the mood of Vladimir Putin and the goodwill of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Both their treasuries are bare. They will be looking to refill the coffers, and not only that, but to buttress their positions against a Biden team less friendly to poisoners and ax murders than the previous administration.”

          …….. and continuing farther down:
          “At some point, of course, US operators will take the bait. But too late. The Saudi decision to extend the 1 mbpd cut indefinitely can be taken as a declaration of intent — indeed, a thinly veiled declaration of war on the Biden administration — by the Kingdom, and by extension, the rest of the OPEC+ cartel. They are going to keep pushing prices up relentlessly. Pencil in a $10 / barrel rise per month. At that pace, oil prices could reach $100 / barrel during the course of the summer. That’s the message the Saudis and Russians want to send to the Biden administration: ‘Look who has the leverage now.’ ”

          “Gasoline prices have already crested $4 / gallon in California and are flirting with $3 / gallon for regular on the East Coast. It will get worse. Possibly much worse.”

          “And of course the Fed will have to raise interest rates right into the meat of the stimulus program and a still lingering pandemic.”

          “It will get ugly.”

          By November 16, 2021 oil was still at $82.43 a barrel. By year end 2021 it had dropped even more to $79 a barrel. Around that same time, consultant Steve Kopits had to pay customers $20 per hour to give them any incentive not to use the bathroom while he was giving one of his oil forecasts.

          https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-prices-drop-demand-worries-rising-supplies-2021-11-16/

          1. pgl

            This is why you will never see Stevie formally posting his forecasts. His track record would be worse than the NFL record for Houston this year.

          2. Moses Herzog

            Here’s the link to BlueStatesResidentKopits’ article, entitled “Towards $100 oil” where he stated that oil would be over $100 by the end of Summer of 2021. It never got near $100 and finished out the year around $79 a barrel.

        5. Steven Kopits

          Ivan –

          Why don’t you read the piece. Andurand was quoted all over the press as saying that oil demand could rise by 4 mbpd and that, in such an event, oil prices could reach $140 / barrel. I made an analysis of his assertion, and if you use long-term trends — one forecasting method of several available — it turns out that Andurand could be right if China recovers, we don’t have a recession, and Russia doesn’t end the world as we know it.

          That’s scenario analysis, not a forecast. I appreciate that pgl is wholly ignorant of the oil sector and the difference between a forecast and scenario analysis, but there it is.

          I would note that $140 / barrel equates to about $110 / barrel in 2011 dollars, and for the record, Brent averaged $110 from Jan. 2011 until mid-year 2014. So Andurand is saying that the conditions which pertained during 2011 – H1 2014 could recur if oil consumption comes back to trend.

          My analysis is consistent with Andurand’s assertion. It is not the only possibility, but it is a plausible scenario.

          1. pgl

            “Andurand was quoted all over the press”

            Wow – he was quoted on Fox and Friends so I guess in your world that makes him the expert. Seriously dude – even a worthless troll lie you makes it on that stupid show.

          2. pgl

            Ivan – Why don’t you read the piece. ????

            Ivan has better uses of his time. I have read some of your babbling and none of it is worth taking the time to shift through the nonsense.

            Stevie – you need to get over your inflated ego. Your blog is worthless. Stop promoting it.

          3. pgl

            ” I appreciate that pgl is wholly ignorant of the oil sector”

            Seriously dude – I get total BS when I see it. Now I could draw up all sorts of “scenario analysis” too but I would not bore people’s time with mere speculation. Which is the best one can say about your incessant BS.

            You are the worst of two types of people: (1) you are dumber than a rock (2) you are so arrogant that you think you are the smartest person in the room. You are not smart at all so do get over your overinflated ego.

        6. Macroduck

          A long-standing bit of wisdom in forecasting – forecast price or forecast timing, but never forecast both. That way, your never “really” wrong. It’s a falsifiability thing. Stevie has not given us timing, but pretended to:

          “This may be expected in 2023, but politics in Beijing look fraught.”

          See? Either way, he isn’t wrong, ’cause politics.

          By the way, what does it mean when some guy expects something that “will exceed all expectations”?* Make that two guys, I guess. It means oil will reach $140/bbl ($180?) sometime. And if the forecast is for “sometime”, it can never be wrong.

          Much as I dislike technical analysis, at least those guys usually forecast both price and timing. Keeps ’em honest.

          *”No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

  4. Moses Herzog

    Always instill people with fear, the more fear they have, the more you can convince them they “must have” products they don’t need, keep them spending the last penny of their discretionary income, and get them to react emotionally when they vote:
    https://popular.info/p/how-walgreens-manufactured-a-media

    This is just retailers borrowing from the FOX news playbook. “Poor executive/boardroom management is not why our earnings are horrid. Oh look see, a shiny thing in my left hand. Oh look….. 3 Black teens running out of one store out of 1500 stores. Leroy, his friend Jalen, and the weed smoking crew have now decimated our 10-Q!!!! Phone WSJ’s editorial board right now, WSJ love the ‘Blacks are destroying company 10-Ks’ story angle. “

    1. pgl

      For decades, some members of the fossil fuel industry tried to convince the public that a causative link between fossil fuel use and climate warming could not be made because the models used to project warming were too uncertain. Supran et al. show that one of those fossil fuel companies, ExxonMobil, had their own internal models that projected warming trajectories consistent with those forecast by the independent academic and government models. What they understood about climate models thus contradicted what they led the public to believe.

      Ah Brucie – have you fed your pet dog CoRev today as you are going to need his incessant barking!

    2. Bruce Hall

      Glad that you and ProLiberalGrowth have finally come to the realization that the so-called academic climate models have grossly overstated the rate of change (warming) and that honest corporate scientists who don’t have the need for government grants can recognize reality as well or better than “we all gonna die” alarmists.

      First, a few observations:
      1) earth has warmed since the mid 1800s; that is colloquially know as the end of the “Little Ice Age”
      2) recent archeological finds in Greenland and northern Scandinavia show that settlements were present in the 800-1000 AD period and subsequently buried under glaciers which indicates a climate as warmer or warmer than present
      3) sea level have not risen much or at all and nowhere near the levels predicted by alarmist models

      Can human activity affect climate? Of course, but not strictly in the simplistic manner that the mockers here like to think. What are some of those activities?
      • clearing forests for farming, urbanization, or lumber
      • expansion of cities resulting in giant heat reservoirs
      https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/urban-heat-islands
      • creating air pollution that darkens glaciers and snowy regions resulting in greater heat absorption
      • air travel that creates areas of contrails that have opposing effects; cooling during the day and an “insulation blanket” at night
      • increased atmospheric CO2 which has raised the global average temperatures primarily by raising nighttime temperatures (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160310080530.htm) … that’s for your elucidation

      Also, because you and ProLiberalGrowth have embraced the corporate science world, I strongly urge you to read posts by Dr. Judith Curry who was former head of atmospheric sciences at Georgia Tech and is now running a consulting company, CFAN, which seeks practical approaches to dealing with climate change.
      https://judithcurry.com
      https://www.cfanclimate.net

      She is not your average “corporate shill” which you seemed to have embraced. Of course, she is not a “climate alarmist”, the kind you previously embraced, but one who incorporates reason into her approach, for example:
      https://judithcurry.com/2023/01/15/academics-and-the-grid-part-3-visionaries-and-problem-solvers/#more-29640
      The previous posts, Part 1 and Part 2 should also be of interest to economists.

      Okay, you can both go back to being the class clown and and class idiot, but sometimes it’s difficult to tell which is which.

      1. pgl

        Gee Brucie – glad to see you have decided to give your “moral” support to the Village Idiot CoRev. It is amazing how much worthless babble you two can create.

      2. pgl

        Dr. Judith Curry who was former head of atmospheric sciences at Georgia Tech?

        Is this like citing Judith Shelton as an authority on monetary policy?

  5. pgl

    For decades, some members of the fossil fuel industry tried to convince the public that a causative link between fossil fuel use and climate warming could not be made because the models used to project warming were too uncertain. Supran et al. show that one of those fossil fuel companies, ExxonMobil, had their own internal models that projected warming trajectories consistent with those forecast by the independent academic and government models. What they understood about climate models thus contradicted what they led the public to believe.

    Ah Brucie – have you fed your pet dog CoRev today as you are going to need his incessant barking!

    1. CoRev

      Ole Bark, bark gets something correct: ” What they understood about climate models thus contradicted what they led the public to believe. ” Even this article shows that the oil industry’s scientists BETTER UNDERSTOOD the science than academia’s and government’s. Having a model which more accurately projects temperature is a bad thing to the “True Believer” set?

      If you notice these authors failed to compare the industry models outputs to those of academia and government.
      “Moreover, projections modeled by ExxonMobil scientists had an average ‘skill score’ of 72 ± 6 %, with the highest scoring 99%. For comparison, NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen’s global warming predictions presented to the U.S. Congress in 1988 had skill scores ranging from 38% to 66%. (When we account for differences between forecast and observed atmospheric CO2 levels, the ‘skill score’ of projections modeled by ExxonMobil scientists was 75 ± 5%, with seven projections scoring 85% or above. Again, for comparison, Hansen’s 1988 projections had corresponding skill scores of 28 to 81%.)” https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/01/12/new-harvard-study-proves-exxon-scientists-far-superior-at-predicting-climate-than-the-ipcc-or-james-hansen/

      And the actual comparison of non-industry models versus reality: https://clintel.org/models-versus-global-surface-temperatures-ecs-discussion/ This paper says:
      The paper’s key finding was that the vast majority of the simulations by the medium and high-ECS GCMs run too hot. From 1980–1990 to 2011–2021, only the simulation of the low ECS GCM group seems to have accurately predicted the warming shown by the surface-based records. For instance, while all temperature data show a warming below 0.6 °C, all GCM averages from the medium and high ECS group forecast a warming over 0.6 °C up to 1.3 °C….”

      1. Moses Herzog

        You know CoRev is getting desperate when he says one scientist is predicting/observing global warming more accurately than another scientist who is predicting/observing global warming. I haven’t seen CoRev in this much of a kerfuffle since he was trying to convince us that U.S. soybean farmers going bankrupt and begging the MAGA White House for government welfare dollars was a really terrific situation for America.

        Good times……..

      2. pgl

        Exxon Mobil’s research more reliable than Hansen’s is your little point here CoRev? Why not focus on what your own link said about their research:

        In the first ever systematic assessment of the fossil fuel industry’s climate projections, researchers at Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have put a number on what ‘Exxon knew’ decades ago about climate science: that fossil fuel burning would lead to 0.20 ± 0.04 degrees Celsius of global warming per decade.

        A range between 0.16C to 0.24C per decade is a LOT higher than your claims that this should be zero. So your own link contradicts your countless BS and confirms what people who get climate change have been saying.

        CoRev once again proves he could care less about reality as he goes of barking WEATHER WEATHER WEATHER all day.

        1. CoRev

          Ole Bark, bark claims: “…what ‘Exxon knew’ decades ago about climate science: that fossil fuel burning would lead to 0.20 ± 0.04 degrees Celsius of global warming per decade. ‘ Yet, the more accurate academia and Government GCMs show an average of less than .5C increase since 1980, and that is being generous. https://clintel.org/models-versus-global-surface-temperatures-ecs-discussion/

          I know how limited his brain cells are, but that is far less than 0.16C to 0.24C per decade. BTW, why no link to these numbers?

      3. pgl

        “Because they imply that anthropogenic global warming for the upcoming decades will inevitably be moderate, the results by Scafetta (2022a) and Lewis (2022) cast serious doubts on climatic alarmism.”

        This is CoRev’s support for climatic denialism? Seriously dude – when your teacher asked you what 2 plus 2 was, how hard did she laugh when little CoRev answered zero? Global warming is a fact – the damage from global warming is becoming more and more evident. And all CoRev has to offer is spin and barking WEATHER WEATHER WEATHER.

        1. CoRev

          Ole Bark, bark relies on a 2009, ~13 year old article, re: Scafeta’s release of the software used. BTW, that was common practice back then amongst Climate Scientists.

          Maybe Ole Bark, bark will show us the actual software and interim results form Mann’s early hockey stick research. Those interim results are critical to make the follow up steps, and still have not been made public. This study was also released in the late 1990s.

          1. pgl

            A very feeble defense for a very questionable person. Come on CoRev – stop pretending we do not check your shaky sources.

          2. CoRev

            Feeble defense? Science is a funny thing. It progresses with questioning other(‘s) findings. Religion, as you are practicing with Climate, questions nothing outside the religious tenants.

            Just how many brain cells do you still have working? It appears to be few.

      4. pgl

        On his 2022 paper – something else CoRev omitted:

        https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2022/03/issues-and-errors-in-a-new-scafetta-paper/

        Issues and Errors in a new Scafetta paper
        30 MAR 2022 BY GAVIN

        Earlier this week, a new paper appeared in GRL by Nicola Scafetta (Scafetta, 2022) which purported to conclude that the CMIP6 models with medium or high climate sensitivity (higher than 3ºC) were not consistent with recent historical temperature changes. Since there have been a number of papers already on this topic, notably Tokarska et al (2020), which did not come to such a conclusion, it is worthwhile to investigate where Scafetta’s result comes from. Unfortunately, it appears to emerge from a mis-appreciation of what is in the CMIP6 archive, an inappropriate statistical test, and a total neglect of observational uncertainty and internal variability.

        I, together with John Kennedy and Gareth Jones from the UK Met Office, have put together a short explanation [updated to fix typo in equation, see comment below, 4/1/22] of what we think was done wrong. There are three main points:

        Not taking into account uncertainty in the observational data.
        Not looking at the individual simulations instead of just the model ensemble mean.
        Applying a statistical test that is guaranteed to reject any specific realization of internal variability if the forced signal is well constrained.

        Read the entire critique of a paper that CoRev thinks is gospel but it seems people who get what Scafetta wrote have their doubts.

        1. CoRev

          Ole bark bark quotes without marks again, so we can’t tell if he is including his own beliefs.

          This part of his response if hilarious: “Not taking into account uncertainty in the observational data.” But, but existing uncertainties was the ExxonMobile argument. Even the the low Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity ECS models. For those as ignorant as Ole Bark bark, that is the estimated sensitivity to atmospheric CO2.

          So what we find is that ExxonMobile scientists are as error prone as the other climate scientists accepting the CO2 as driver hypothesis. 😉

          Just here to help the ignoranti.

          1. pgl

            Read the entire critique. But nice try to spin this as something I made up.

            Dude – we get you are the most dishonest troll ever.

        2. CoRev

          Ole Bark, bark compares a BLOG ARTICLE published by one of the GCM developers against a PEER REVIEWED paper evaluating results from said GCM and others. Are there any brain cells working in his head?

          1. pgl

            Blog posts are peer reviewed? BTW – peer reviewed does not mean that smart honest people cannot go back over what turned out to be a very shaky piece of research. But nice try.

          2. CoRev

            Ole Bark, bark did not even read the title of his own reference:” Issues and Errors in a new Scafetta paper

            30 Mar 2022 by Gavin

            Earlier this week, a new paper appeared in GRL by Nicola Scafetta (Scafetta, 2022)…CMIP6 models with medium or high climate sensitivity (higher than 3ºC) were not consistent with recent historical temperature changes.”

            Even your BLOG article showed the truth of this statement in its included figure, with the exception it failed to show the actual temperatures let alone their departure from it. So what was Scafeta’s error? It appears to be to question the validity of temperature GCM projections.

            your following religious tenants does not make truth nor science.

            Show us again your brain cell performance, or lack thereof.

  6. pgl

    Kevin Drum reminds us of something he wrote 11.5 years ago:

    https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/07/what-if-you-held-class-war-and-no-one-showed/

    “Today is one of those days where I hardly know how to react to things anymore. Part of me shrugs at this stuff: politics is politics. Of course Republicans are going to call a Democratic president a failure. What else would they do?

    But then, for about the thousandth time, my mind wanders over the past ten years. Republicans got the tax cuts they wanted. They got the financial deregulation they wanted. They got the wars they wanted. They got the unfunded spending increases they wanted. And the results were completely, unrelentingly disastrous. A decade of sluggish growth and near-zero wage increases. A massive housing bubble. Trillions of dollars in war spending and thousands of American lives lost. A financial collapse. A soaring long-term deficit. Sky-high unemployment. All on their watch and all due to policies they eagerly supported. And worse: ever since the predictable results of their recklessness came crashing down, they’ve rabidly and nearly unanimously opposed every single attempt to dig ourselves out of the hole they created for us.

    But despite the fact that this is all recent history, it’s treated like some kind of dreamscape. No one talks about it. Republicans pretend it never happened. Fox News insists that what we need is an even bigger dose of the medicine we got in the aughts, and this is, inexplicably, treated seriously by the rest of the press corps instead of being laughed at. As a result, guys like Marco Rubio have a free hand to insist that Obama — Obama! The guy who rescued the banking system, bailed out GM, and whose worst crime against the rich is a desire to increase their income tax rate 4.6 percentage points! — is a “left-wing strong man” engaged in brutal class warfare against the wealthy. And Rubio does it without blinking. Hell, he probably even believes it.

    We are well and truly down the rabbit hole. The party of class warfare for the past 30 years is fighting a war against an empty field and the result has been a rout. I wonder what would happen if the rest of us ever actually started fighting back?”

    Of course Republicans wanted to blame their failures on Obama and not Bush43. Fast forward to today when the damage reaped on our economy by Trump is being blamed on Biden.

  7. pgl

    Catch the latest excuse from Trump for his taking classified documents:

    https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-throws-new-defense-of-mar-a-lago-docs-at-the-wall-i-saved-the-folders-not-the-classified-documents/

    President Donald Trump floated a new and seemingly absurd defense for the hundreds of classified documents retrieved from his Mar-a-Lago residence a year and a half after leaving the White House. According to the former president, he didn’t actually keep the many documents reported to have been retrieved, but he just kept the empty folders that the documents came in because “they were a ‘cool’ keepsake.” Yes, that’s really is what he said via TruthSocial posts sent Wednesday morning.”

    Only a person with an IQ in the single digits would believe this BS. Then again – Trump’s base consists of some really incredibly stupid people. MAGA.

      1. AS

        You are correct. My misstatement. Should have said more negative instead of beyond high range (meaning more negative).
        Thanks for the comment.

  8. AS

    Regarding PPI, I was thinking about the strength of the economy, not inflation per se when mentioning results for PPI. The decline in PPI while good for inflation, perhaps means that recession may be on the horizon.

    1. Moses Herzog

      It must be a special feeling being Larry Summers. Walking around to wherever the nearest TV camera is, saying “I can’t wait until the next American gets his A$$ fired from his job” all the while the Brad DeLong’s of world shove each other around for a chance to lick his toes.

      Brad Delong is shoving over all those other Black Friday shoppers at Wal Mart so he can lick the toes of the Larry Summers pull string talking doll. Pull the string “I love Americans getting fired” Pull the string “I am, like, a genius, and stuff”. Pull the string “The Greek people should suffer for eternity, indebted bums”. Pull the string “Providing short-term economic assistance to poor people causes runaway inflation”

      Yes, what a special feeling it must be, being Larry Summers. Great representative of PhDs everywhere. Missed his true calling as a D*ckhead Reaganite.

  9. Ivan

    Barry again makes the point that the Feds attempt to reduce inflation is instead one of the drivers of inflation.

    https://ritholtz.com/2023/01/for-lower-inflation-stop-raising-rates/

    Not saying that cooling the economy cannot be done by making housing much more expensive for the poor people who have to rent or purchase on a 30-year mortgage. However, it is a cruel way to do it when you could simply wait and let the kinks work themselves out. Not saying that the 2% goal is wrong, but to demand that it is reached within 1 year rather than 3 years is to serve the rich at the expense of everybody else.

  10. pgl

    Definitely off topic but maybe something for another post on another day:

    https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/ifdp/files/ifdp1346.pdf

    The Green Corporate Bond Issuance Premium
    John Caramichael and Andreas Rapp, June 2022
    International Finance Discussion Papers 1346. Washington: Board of Governors of
    the Federal Reserve System, https://doi.org/10.17016/IFDP.2022.1346.

    We study a global panel of green and conventional bonds to assess the borrowing cost advantage at issuance for green bond issuers. We find that, on average, green bonds have a yield spread that is 8 basis points lower relative to conventional bonds. This borrowing cost advantage, or greenium, emerges as of 2019 and coincides with the growth of the sustainable asset management industry following EU regulation. Within this context, we find that the greenium is linked to two proxies of demand pressure, bond oversubscription and bond index inclusion. Moreover, while green bond governance appears to matter for the greenium, the credibility of the underlying projects does not have a significant impact. Instead, the greenium is unevenly distributed to large, investment-grade issuers, primarily within the banking sector and developed economies. These findings have implications for the role of green bonds in incentivizing meaningful green investments throughout the global economy.

    If you have ever heard of Sustainable Finance or ESG, maybe you were wondering about how calling a loan a Green Bond v. a Conventional Bond might impact its pricing. I was listening to some podcast from the usual overpriced and arrogant bozos who work for the Big Four when I heard these babbling fools (I’m not linking to the podcast as it is a waste of your time) mention some research on Green Bond premiums. This paper is the best research I have seen on this (the Big Four bozos must have not read it but hey). Now reducing the interest rate by a mere 0.008% is only a very modest benefit.

    My big question for anyone who might know – have the major governments thought about Green subsidies or even loan guarantees?

  11. Moses Herzog

    Well, here’s a shocker. They were driving too fast. I have never seen Americans driving too fast. This has to be a false report because I never see any American drivers speeding on our highways or byways. Especially since Covid started and our fine men in blue decided they weren’t pulling any speeders over on the highways of our great nation. And a girl with her Master’s degree driving with excessive speed?? Impossible. She was apparently smart enough to put on her seatbelt, although Willock wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, which is why his body went flying outside of the car. This must be part of the “liberal media conspiracy” Bruce Hall and CoRev have been warning us about, because no American with a Master’s degree would be driving with excessive speed. The same as the Covid-19 excess death counts given by the CDC, IHME etc, I bet the corpses are fake also. I assume Alex Jones is going to explain to Georgia’s rural illiterates how this is connected to Roswell somehow.

    Now here is another interesting thing. LeCroy had not been tested for drugs or alcohol by police in the accident that happened about two miles from the Athens Georgia campus. I wonder why police didn’t do a blood alcohol test on the driver in an accident involving 4 people associated with the Georgia football program??? Hmmmmm…….. so strange…… the fine men in blue would never skip such drug alcohol tests just to save the University’s football program PR embarrassment would they?? Naaaaaahh!!!!! Police are neutral and objective at all times~~~”It’s part of their training”.

    https://www.yahoo.com/sports/police-speed-no-seatbelt-played-roles-in-crash-fatalities-of-uga-ol-devin-willock-staffer-chandler-le-croy-041159627.html

    1. Bruce Hall

      Gee, CI/CC, astute observations. Just traveled 1200 miles along I-75 and kept to the right lane (of course) at 72-75mph so I wouldn’t get run over. But the fastest were not always the quickest. Georgia, Kentucky, and Ohio had their state police out in numbers and it was interesting to see those 90+mph drivers having a heart-to-heart with the officers. But if you have to speed, try Waze where the crowd sourced information is great for police alerts.
      https://www.yahoo.com/news/average-speeds-topped-100-133-202017416.html

      Next trip I’ll take my Taurus SHO for a spin although I never push it past 115mph because you can’t rely on the road surfaces.

      btw, the fastest drivers are those “tuners” around Tampa.

  12. pgl

    The world’s oldest profession is doing well at Davos:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/prostitutes-charge-davos-attendees-2500-a-night-as-sex-work-demand-booms/ar-AA16uoin

    Scores of sex workers have swarmed to the Swiss ski resort town of Davos to offer their services to the rich and powerful this week — with some said to be charging up to $2,500 a night. Every year, the World Economic Forum hosts a five-day gathering featuring CEOs, dignitaries, captains of industry, and media figures to discuss important global issues. One prostitute who goes by the name “Liana” told the German newspaper Bild that she frequently provides services to an American attendee at Davos who pays $750 per hour — or $2,500 to spend the whole night.

    This makes me what to watch Pretty Woman where she got paid $3000 but for the whole week. Of course she got to go shopping on Rodeo Drive.

    1. Moses Herzog

      I can’t quite make up my mind if this makes me wanna giggle or rinse my mouth out with Listerine and OCD wash my hands. I mean, in my very dark moments in China I was no saint, but I gotta say I consider those “extenuating circumstances”. Anywayz……..

  13. pgl

    OK, OK – I get that Pretty Woman came out in 1990. CPI today is 2.3 times what it was back in 1990 so Julie Roberts got almost $7000 in today’s dollars for the whole week. But that still pales in comparison to $2500 for one night.

    1. Macroduck

      When Nashville’s city council rejected the GOP convention, my second thought was “do hookers like country music?”

      By the way, Tennessee’s state legislature is now punishing the council for daring to put local citizens’ welfare ahead of GOP brownie points. Political conventions are nothing but trouble for local folks who don’t own hotels, restaurants or brothels.

  14. rsm

    Is it fair to translate this as “I’m telling stories about noise, otherwise I would be profiting financially off my forecasts”?

    1. Moses Herzog

      @ rsm
      How do we know he’s not “profiting off his own financial forecasts”?? As far as I know it’s not illegal or even unethical for a university professor to manage their own investment accounts. As long as he’s not “talking his own book” there’s really nothing wrong with that. But he’s not “required” to share his investment moves with the public. I suspect Menzie probably does mostly index type investments or very conservative government bonds/CDs. But it’s his business for the most part, not ours.

      Normally I gravitate to unique people or people who are different. I try to find those oddball people, similar to myself, awkwardly hiding in the corner of the room at the social parties. But you really are a different kind of fish. You don’t need to be cynical only for the cause of being cynical.

  15. pgl

    The Twin Village Idiots (CoRev and Bruce Hall) are touting out questionable “studies” that say climate change is not as fast as most credible experts have suggested, which of course means that the total climate change denialism touted by our Twin Village Idiots is not supported even by the “studies” they dredge up. So what’s new here?

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/greenland-ice-sheet-highest-temperatures-in-1000-years/

    The Greenland ice sheet, one of the coldest and most remote regions of the world that serves a pivotal role in the Earth’s climate, is now clearly feeling significant effects of climate change. Researchers found that central and northern areas of the sheet have recently seen the hottest temperatures in a millennium. It has been long clear that many parts of Greenland are warming, but the latest research, published in Nature on Wednesday, took a deeper look at the central part of Greenland’s ice sheet, where the impact of climate change has long been unclear. To learn more about that impact, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research drilled ice cores to create a “high-quality reconstruction” of temperatures in central and north Greenland from 1,000 AD to 2011. With that data, it became clear: Not even some of the coldest, most remote and highly-elevated areas of the world can escape the impacts of global warming. “This data shows that the warming in 2001 to 2011 clearly differs from natural variations during the past 1,000 years,” the study’s lead author, glaciologist Maria Hörhold said. “Although grimly expected in the light of global warming, we were surprised by how evident this difference really was.” According to the study, researchers can say with “virtual certainty” that temperatures in that area are roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in the 1900s. Data shows that Greenland experienced a cooling trend until about 1800 and has seen a steep warming trend ever since. The industrial revolution, which amplified global mass use of fossil fuels, began at roughly the same time.

    Of course Brucie Boy has no clue where Greenland even is and I’m sure his retarded puppy will find some chart of temperatures that date back to 100,000 BC.

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