Survey results are out, for responses as of 12/4. FT article here.
Survey median GDP matches the SPF November outlook pretty well, taking today’s GDPNow nowcast for Q4:
Figure 1: GDP (bold black), GDPNow estimate as of 12/6 (light blue square), FT-IGM 2024Q4 GDP (red square), 90%ile band (gray +), and November 2023 Survey of Professional Forecasters median (blue line). Source: BEA 2023Q3 2nd release, Atlanta Fed (12/6), FT-IGM December 2023 US Macroeconomists Survey, and Philadelphia Fed.
Median q4/q4 2024 growth forecast is 1.2%, compared to November SPF median of 1.3%.
What’s anticipated Fed policy? This critically depends on expected inflation. Median survey response is 2.7% q4/q4 in 2024, compared to 2.4% from November SPF.
Source: FT-IGM December 2023 survey.
When do respondents think the Fed will start cutting rates? About 1/3 in 2024Q2, and 1/3 in 2024Q3. I predicted cuts in 2024Q2.
Notes: Red arrow at my response. Source: FT-IGM December 2023 survey.
My relatively early date for predicted Fed funds rate cuts is partly ascribable to my view that if a recession (as determined by NBER eventually) hits, it will hit in 2024Q1-Q2. Interestingly, as of today, CME Fedwatch indicates a greater than even probability of a rate decrease by end-March. The Atlanta Fed probability tracker also indicates a drop in Q1.
Why might rates be reduced more slowly than market anticipations. Jim is quoted in the FT article:
“I still see a lot of momentum for the economy, so I don’t see a need for lowering rates right away, and I don’t think the Fed plans to do that either,” said James Hamilton, a professor of economics at the University of California in San Diego who participated in the survey.
What about the date for the beginning of a recession?
Notes: Blue bars are my response. Source: FT.
My view of recession likelihood is at variance with most others, where almost half of respondents do not view a recession as imminent. My interpretation is that even if we get a manage to “land the plane” (aka “soft landing”) avoiding a deep downturn, we still might still get a recession, possibly mild (the 2001 recession always comes to my mind, wherein GDP essentially trended sideways, while unemployment rose about 1.5 percentage points from a low in 2000M09 to the NBER defined trough, and ultimately about 2.5 percentage points by 2003M06 (recall the jobless recovery?). That reading is based on historical correlations using domestic and foreign term spreads, and debt service ratio.
Figure 2: Recession probability forecasts, from term spread only specification (blue), term spread, national financial conditions index, foreign term spread (tan), and term spread, national financial conditions index, debt service ratio, foreign term spread (green). Debt service ratio 2023M04-09 extrapolated using 3 month Treasury yield, in first differences specification. Red dashed line at 50% threshold. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray.
Note that recession is defined here as a binary indicator. A high probability of recession does not necessarily correlate with a deep recession.
It’s fairly common for market pricing and economists forecasts to be slightly different, both when it comes to Fed funds and when it comes to inflation. The discrepancy isn’t large for funds in the current case.
Interesting chart–US GDP {not GDO or GDI) has been doing well after (as a result of?) the Russian invasion…Eurozone has been flatlining. (I already acknowledged that I got blowback wrong…it was the Eurozone that got hit, not America.)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLVMNACSCAB1GQEA19
Russia’s GDP growth is not unlike the Eurozone’s, though more variable.
“Russia’s GDP growth is not unlike the Eurozone’s, though more variable.”
Johnny wrote about Russia and economics, so of course he lied. Whenever he writes about either of those, he lies. It’s also pretty telling that he made a claim comparing Russan growth to Eurozone growth, but linked to a chart showing only Eurozone data.
Here are the data for recent quarters:
Russian Real GDP
-2.6 % YoY in Q1 2023
-3.2 % in Q4 2022
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/russia/real-gdp-growth
Eurozone Real GDP
+0.1% YOY in Q3 2023
+0.5% in Q2
+1.2% in Q1
+1.8% in Q4 2022
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLVMEURSCAB1GQEA19
The Eurozone is growing, Russia shrinking – a far cry from “not unlike”.
Notice that the Eurozone has reported two more quarters than Russia, both showing continued growth.
Thanks for noting that. Wiith Jonny boy – it is so many lies, so little time.
Tricky Ducky mysteriously left out any Russian economic data since 1Q23! YOY 2Q23 Russian GDP was up 4.9% and 3Q23 5.5%.
https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/97061/
2023 growth of the Russian economy is estimated come in at 2-3.0%. Meanwhile the Eurozone is forecasting 0.6% in 2023.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/eu-exec-cuts-euro-zone-2023-growth-forecast-sees-rebound-2024-2023-11-15/
Overall, Russia’s growth in 2022-23 has been somewhat slower and more variable than the Eurozone, which in turn has been much slower than the US.
Tricky Ducky just loves to cherry pick data, misrepresent the situation, and then accuse others of lying. ..an imperative of his need to spew propaganda.
Johnny has changed his story. “Not unlike” has become “somewhat slower”. I checked FRED, the IMF, the World Bank and various other sources for Russian data beyond Q1 and none was to be found. Johnny sems to have run into the same problem, since he relied on quotes from a news story, with no indication whether the growth rate is real or, nominal, quaterly annualized, y/y or just what, and then pretended to compare that to Eurozone data.
So Johnny is at it again, being dishonest about Russia and economics. This is the same nasty little man who supports Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Lies are to be expected.
Who is Interfax you ask?
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/interfax-russia-bias/
Overall, we rate Interfax – Russia Right-Center Biased based on support for the Russian government. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to the promotion of propaganda and two failed fact checks.
Yea – Jonny boy goes to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to “reliable” sources.
Hey moron – you were talking about the US economy. I get it – you are indeed a retarded arse.
The US economy is doing well because Putin is committing war crimes? Dude – can you be more stupid? Oh wait, you can and you will.
The US economy is doing well because Putin…blah, blah, blah. Isn’t that what the chart suggests–some mysterious connection between the invasion of Ukraine and US economic growth? How do you read it?
“Isn’t that what the chart suggests”
Dude – I grow tired of dealing with a complete moron and serial liar. No it is not what the chart suggests.
Off topic but RUDY is ticking off this judge!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rudy-giuliani-skips-hearing-in-election-worker-defamation-case-drawing-judge-s-ire/ar-AA1l44NW?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=1baf0b0488b44400bfe2c4d58c985d9d&ei=14
Rudy Giuliani skipped out on a court hearing Tuesday ahead of his defamation trial, drawing the ire of a federal judge. A pre-trial hearing was held in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday ahead of next week’s jury trial to determine how much Giuliani will have to pay in damages to Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, two Georgia election worker he was found liable for defaming. Judge Beryl A. Howell began the hearing by asking the attorneys on each side to state their names and specify who was at their table. Giuliani attorney Joseph Sibley, who was alone at the defendant’s table, introduced himself before the judge asked him where Giuliani was. When Sibley replied that Giuliani was in New York, the judge reminded him that her standing order instructed all counsel and parties to be in attendance for the hearing. “How could you have missed that? Or did you miss it?” Howell asked Sibley, saying it “sets the tone, doesn’t it, for the whole case.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/larry-kudlow-trump-linked-economic-growth-with-the-value-of-work/ar-AA1l6YBc?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=53cddee990514b7790e150612cea6020&ei=6
I get Larry Kudlow is a lying Trump toadie but this rant is beyond absurd. Let’s see – anti-immigration to the extreme, drill baby drill, and tax cuts for the rich are pro-growth policies that value the working man? I guess Kudlow has been on way too much cocaine.
Reports in the popular press don’t make things truer (contrary to what Johnny seems to think), but they do improve the odds of public funding for research. Hydrogen deposits are getting increased coverage:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/business/energy-environment/clean-energy-hydrogen.html
Tricky Ducky actually makes a valid point!!! “Reports in the popular press don’t make things truer.” I agree (despite Ducky’s usual misrepresentation of what I think.) For proof, all you have to do is look at reports of Russia’s economy imploding, or Russia’s running out of weapons, or how Putin is on death’s doorstep…exactly the kind of reports that Tricky Ducky seemed to revel in. The media seems to large doses on hopium–if only the hopes and desires of the delusional foreign policy establishment could magically materialize!!!
Of course, the same could be said of many “economic truths.” As Jeremy Rudd put it, “Mainstream economics is replete with ideas that “everyone knows” to be true, but that are actually arrant nonsense.” My favorite nonsense is the regular assertion by Krugman and others that labor drives inflation by demanding higher wages. Hello??? Anybody home???
Want proof? Real wages have been stagnating, not driving inflation. Also, maybe economist should get out of their ivory towers and ask people on the street how much of a wage increase they will be demanding. How many people on the blog are in a position to “demand” higher wages? It’s just arrant nonsense…but it does serve to conveniently deflect blame for inflation from Corporate America…the people who set prices…and have the means, the motivation, and more recently the golden opportunity to raise prices faster than costs.
More lies from Johnny. Naturally.
Naturally Tricky Ducky is loath to actually ask people on the street how much of a wage increase they will demand from their employer.
(Actually most employees, including economists here, are expected to be grateful for whatever meager wage increase their employer deigns to bestow upon them.)
People on the streets? What streets little Putin poodle> Oh yea – the streets outside the Kremlin where they take you for your daily walk.
So a disjointed pack of lies. Duide – you need to see a therapist.
pgl and Ducky’s constant refrain: “Liar!” But can’t identify the lie, summarize it, or refute it!”
I guess they’re afraid to go out on the street and ask people how much of a wage increase they demanded…and what the response was. My guess is that they would actually learn something if they actually got some fresh aire outside the ivory tower–that most anyone who had the chutzpah to demand a wage increase either got laughed out of the room, told to just suck it up, or fired.
But economists never tire of lecturing on the wage-price spiral and how labor demands higher wages…it’s part of the economics catechism.
I can identify the lies. Every effing comment you make is a lie.
“I guess they’re afraid to go out on the street and ask…..”. Well, when you were surveying out on the street—where? When? Numbers contacted—what were your results?
“My guess is …..” what did you personally learn? And “my guess” is a knee slapper with much guffawing.
“economists never tire of lecturing…”. Much like you never tire of the same boorish commentary?
But do tell, OGreat, Powerful. All Seeing Sage, what exactly is it your blithering adds here?
Evidence that the mainstream macro economists’ catechism that wage-price spiral is NOT driven by labor demanding increased wages.
1) “A quarter of workers are confident they could get a raise: survey” Only a quarter? To drive inflation the vast majority would have to demand and receive substantial wage increases. https://www.axios.com/2023/12/07/workers-asking-for-a-raise-poll-labor-market
2) “60% of women say they’ve never negotiated their salary” Since women make up almost half the workforce, at least quarter of the workforce has never negotiated their salary! https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/31/women-more-likely-to-change-jobs-to-get-pay-increase.html
It makes you wonder if economists have ever examined their arrant nonsense that labor drives inflation by demanding higher wages.
So who has been driving inflation? Surely not greedy corporations!!!
John Hofer? Oh yea little Jonny boy’s Mary Rosh.
Evidence that the mainstream macro economists’ catechism that wage-price spiral is a driven by labor demanding increased wages.
1) “
White hydrogen has had some very promising developments. The big question that still remains is cost. If it comes in at a cost lower than natural gas, then private oil/NG companies would likely jump in, without government subsidies. That would be a great way for the companies to become part of the future rather than fossils of the past. If white is more expensive than green hydrogen then it would be hard to get private companies interested without subsidies and price guarantees. They have become extremely reluctant to build more NG power plants, fearing that those will become stranded assets within the next 10-15 years. Similarly a white hydrogen drilling project would risk being unable to recover their investments, if solar power produced hydrogen were to be cheeper.
The switch to and use of hydrogen would be much faster if we could quickly increase production of it. We may even be able to switch newly build NG plants to use hydrogen as fuel instead. So governments should subsidize white hydrogen as a way to move to net zero faster.
This discussion of negotiation between Russia and Ukraine is from Russia. No indication of Ukraine’s position. The fighting season is more or less overs, though aerial bombardment continues. Maybe that means it’s time for cajoling:
https://iz-ru.translate.goog/1615240/semen-boikov/trialogovoe-okno-v-rf-dopuskaiut-peregovory-s-kievom-v-zapadnoi-strane?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Been there, done that…”The head of Zelensky’s faction in the Ukrainian parliament, Davyd Arakhamia said that internationally mediated negotiations in Istanbul, shortly after the March 2022 talks in Belarus, actually produced an agreement between Ukraine and Russia to bring the fighting to an end — based on those same points.
“[The Russians] were ready to end the war if we accepted neutrality like Finland once did. And we were ready to make a commitment that we would not join Nato. When we returned from Istanbul, [then-British Prime Minister] Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said: ‘Do not sign anything with them at all; just go to war,’” Arakhamia said.
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who was also in Istanbul, confirmed that a Russia-Ukraine peace deal was nearly reached in the spring of 2022. His remarks were reported in an interview with Berliner Zeitung on October 21…”
“What is becoming all too apparent is that this conflict didn’t have to still be going on right now; it didn’t have to stretch into the bloody war of attrition that it has turned into. The killing could have ended long ago.”
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/us-repeatedly-blocked-ukraine-peace-deals-it-rethinking-its-strategy-yet
But Ducky and pgly and others here were gung-ho chicken hawks, Instead of demanding their government support negotiations, they were intent on cheering on the killing to “protect Ukrainians,” many of whom are now dead with scant gains for the US in geopolitical terms. Isn’t that exactly my point about the whole NATO proxy war being pointless and futile, a point I have harped on for almost two years now? To make matters worse, after the quagmires in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the result was utterly foreseeable and avoidable had people bothered to remember the US’ string botched f military misadventures.
Still touting your pack of discredited lies. Gee with CoRev banned, you have clinched the 2023 troll of the year award.
At least a half a dozen people directly involved in peace negotiations have now publicly stated that the US and/or UK put the kibosh on the peace process.
But pgl, who has absolutely no inside knowledge, tells us that these folks are liars. HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.
John Hofer: Yeah, I imagine Hitler was ready to stop any more claims once he got the Sudetenland. Pretty sure he said as much. Bestimmt!
John Hofer – the Mary Rosh for little lying Jonny boy. Dude – your credibility is zero regardless of the fake name you use.
Gee little lying John Hofer – our host has called out your dishonesty too. Be careful saddling up to little little Jonny boy lest both your pathetic rear ends get banned.
“At least a half a dozen people directly involved in peace negotiations have now publicly stated”
Could you at least give us the names of those “directly involved” people and links to where they “publicly stated” what you postulate that they stated. Aha you can’t because it is just some BS lies you plugged from a right wing website, because it “sounded good” and supported your favorite pro-Russian narratives.
The biggest problem with this Russian narrative that US/UK is preventing Ukraine from seeking peace, is that the Ukrainians are not interested in peace negotiations (until Russia has left their country). Furthermore, US/UK has no interest in keeping the war going unless Ukraine is willing to fight it. They neither can nor want to put NATO boots on the ground, so they cannot and have no interest in stopping Ukraine from seeking peace.
‘Been there, done that’
Yea you have repeated these LIES many times. Repeating a lie does not make it true.
Why was there an invasion to begin with? Why do you claim to be anti war while refusing to condemn the Russian invasion? No invasion, no need for negotiations. What’s so difficult to understand about that?
Your own harping has revealed you’re a proud Putineer—everyone here knows that—who somehow thinks he’s fooling others. Please. Your transparency precedes you.
But do go on about a pointless, futile war, a war that you have supported from its beginning. And, really. You want us to believe You are now grieving dead Ukrainians?
Once again, you’ve proved you have no shame.