Nowcasts for NY and St. Louis Feds out today; St. Louis up from 1.14% to 1.73% q/q AR. NY Fed, and GS tracking unchanged at 3.2%.
Figure 1: GDP (bold black), Summary of Economic Projections median iterated off of 3rd release (inverted light green triangle), GDPNow as of 10/9 (light blue square), NY Fed nowcast as of 10/11 (red triangles), St Louis Fed news nowcast as of 10/11 (pink x), Goldman Sachs tracking as of 10/9 (green +), FT-Booth as of 9/14 iterated off of 3rd release (blue square), all in bn.Ch.2017$ SAAR. Levels calculated by iterating growth rate on levels of GDP, except for Survey of Professional Forecasters. Source: BEA 2024Q2 3rd release, Atlanta Fed, NY Fed, Philadelphia Fed, Federal Reserve September 2024 SEP and author’s calculations.
The Lewis-Merten-Stock Weekly Economic Index (for data available through 10/5) is at 2.10% AR, while the corresponding Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims Weekly Economic Conditions Index is at -0.11% (so 1.89% if 2% is trend). Hard to see a recession in data available through early October, then.
Finally, with these estimates out, I welcome a new member to the “recession camp”: Mike Shedlock. In addition, EJ Antoni and Peter St. Onge have backdated the recession’s start to 2022.
Speaking of forecasts, 3vwrybody ready for a goose egg for October emoyment?
Whatever number is published, it doesn’t matter much. Weather doesn’t count.
The new guy is a photographer who pretends to write on economics? Well at least he admits he invented his own special indicator. Is this like Koptis and his stupid VMT?
China’s government is due to announce details for its stimulus package tomorrow (Saturday). Here’s a preview:
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/china-economy-fiscal-stimulus-recovery-stock-market-rally-csi-300-2024-10
For those who can get past the firewall, here’s the FT’s explanation of the “real” goal of the stimulus plan, for what it’s worth:
https://www.ft.com/content/008443cd-bb44-4b4f-b60e-17894fdba221
Is this Shedlock dude claiming a rise in this series means we are heading into a recession?
Number Unemployed for 27 Weeks & over
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UEMP27OV
It has increased before and no recession. Now he seems to have meshed (or Mished) different series for some stupid reason. A few of the comments to his blog post have already criticized him appropriately.
Now I have no idea if he has any real training in either labor economics or macroeconomics. From what little I have read from him – he has no real economic expertise.
Shedlock started out as a wedding photographer, if I recall correctly, way back in the age of the dinosaurs, he participated in an online forum together with Bill McBride, who helped him set up his first blog. He most definitely does *not* have any scholarly training in economics. He has been a DOOOMer since way back. He’s called for at least 4 recessions since 2010.
He does find some interesting stuff, which is why I read him, even if i wind up debunking about 90% of his arguments. His latest, relying on long term unemployment, is interesting, but as usual it is a cherry-picked statistic that falls in line with his pre-existing view. It is also subject to the same problem as the unemployment rate and the Sahm Rule at present, which is that it is affected by the 2021-23 surge in immigration. As the economy has cooled, more and more of those recent immigrants are finding it harder to obtain employment, even though they are looking and so are counted as unemployed “new entrants.”
The spike in initial claims this week was partly about Helene (claims in FL, NC, and TN spiked), but also funky spikes in MI and OH for reasons I do not know. Next week, when the effects of Milton first show up, I’m expecting a claims number over 300,000. (BTW, similar spikes happened post-Katrina (2005), Sandy (2012), and Harvey (2017)). It will probably also throw a wrench into next month’s jobs report as well.
You’ can always find optimistic or pessimistic data if you are so motivated. Right now the Lion’s share of the data says we aren’t even close to recession, although it has been weakening..
J.D. Vance Says Trump Was Right to Try to Steal the Election, Because of Twitter
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/j-d-vance-says-trump-was-right-to-try-to-steal-the-election-because-of-twitter/ar-AA1s7jrU?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=72f5ec85013240ac90621a81d67dc61d&ei=14
“A new interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times put Vance’s sweaty dishonesty on vivid, almost uncomfortable display. When first asked whether he believes Trump lost the 2020 election, Vance tries to deflect, as he did during the vice-presidential debate: “I think that Donald Trump and I have both raised a number of issues with the 2020 election, but we’re focused on the future. I think there’s an obsession here with focusing on 2020. I’m much more worried about what happened after 2020, which is a wide-open border, groceries that are unaffordable.”,
Deflection is a familiar move for use when one’s allies do something unacceptable. A hackish response is to insist the unacceptable position should not be discussed because it is a distraction — a move that allows you to avoid endorsing it directly but avoids a breach within your own coalition.
Garcia-Navarro asked this lying weasel FIVE times the same question and this clown deflected like the jerk he is five times. But this line has became JD’s standard pathetic exuse:
‘When Garcia-Navarro repeats the question, Vance pivots to a different claim. Trump’s rhetoric is true, or at least justified, he suggests, because Facebook and Twitter briefly blocked news stories about the Hunter Biden laptop. “Let me ask you a question,” he asserts. “Is it okay that big technology companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, which independent analysis have said cost Donald Trump millions of votes?” Vance, finding this argument easier to maintain, continues repeating it as Garcia-Navarro drills down.’
Hunter’s laptop? Of course the claim that technology companies blocked a real news story is a flat out lie and little JD knows it. But all this pathetic weasel does is to lie like a rug. Could someone please point out that a pathetic and worthless lie this really is?
No appetite: Speaker Johnson sparks scandal with remarks on Ukraine aid
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/no-appetite-speaker-johnson-sparks-scandal-with-remarks-on-ukraine-aid/ar-AA1s7suL?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=dcd0525c8c884e3b926afafba0955249&ei=16
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson expects that further assistance to Ukraine will not be necessary. He “doesn’t have an appetite” for it, according to an interview with Johnson for Punchbowl News. “I don’t have an appetite for further Ukraine funding, and I hope it’s not necessary. If President Trump wins, I believe that he actually can bring that conflict to a close. I really do,” said Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson. He expressed hope that if re-elected, Trump could call Russian President Vladimir Putin and tell him to end the war. Johnson added that everyone in the world is tired of the war and wants to find a solution. However, in the speaker’s view, if Kamala Harris becomes the US president, the war will not end, and such a scenario would be “desperate and dangerous.”
Earlier, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson had refused to bring to the floor of the lower House of Congress a bill for $60 billion in funding for Ukraine. At that point, the US ran out of funds allocated for military aid to Ukrainian defenders, which led to a suspension of weapon packages being sent. As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Forces faced significant problems with artillery ammunition. Additionally, the Russian forces were able to capture Avdiivka.
The Speaker is clearly a puppet of Trump and Trump is Putin’s puppet. The Speaker’s solution is for Ukraine to surrender.
The Biden strategy of sending Ukraine the technology rather than the weapons themselves, is a lot smarter than he gets credit for. If Ukraine can make their own weapons, then a Trump presidency will do much less harm. Sure Putin can order Trump to stop all monetary help, but then Europe can pick up.
The defense industrial base in Ukraine has already gotten its first orders from NATO countries – so it has a high tech money making future after the war ends. The future of war is in drone swarms and Ukraine has already build up production of 4 million drones per year. Some of those are cutting edge (stealth, rocket and fire) drones invented and tested in Ukraine – and produced at remarkably low costs. Because of restricted manpower, Ukraine is also at the cutting edge of autonomous AI driven drone swarms that can operate with little or no human input after launch. Nobody in the west would dare to develop such a thing – but Ukraine has no choice, and will prove if the level of friendly fire incidents is any worse than pilot/human errors in conventional weapon systems.
Not providing Ukraine with the very best of our weapons has forced them to develop their own solutions – and they have done extremely well. But it also has taken oxygen away from Putins warmongering at home. It has become increasingly more difficult for Putin to make the argument to his own people that this is a war against the west. That will make it even more difficult for him to order a general mobilization. He has been forced to offer sign-on bonuses of more than a years average salary – and still cannot field fully staffed battalions. After the current fall offensive culminates, he will very likely have to chose between reducing his offensive goals, or take the risk of at least a limited mobilization.
Update – it’s no longer just some right-wing war bro calling for Israel to attack UN peace keepers in Lebanon:
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4926899-un-israeli-military-peacekeeper-mission-lebanon-hezbollah-gaza-hamas/
Israel has fired on UN peace keepers. Another day, another war crime.
JD Vance now says it’s ‘deranged’ for women not to have children due to climate change
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jd-vance-now-says-it-s-deranged-for-women-not-to-have-children-due-to-climate-change/ar-AA1s9QuE?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=f7908fd80a164482a41c0944a60df3d6&ei=12
Vance went on to call this so-called “pathological frustration with children” “very dark” and suggested it is “sociopathic” to consider climate change when deciding whether or not to have children. “I think you see it sometimes in the political conversation, people saying, well, maybe we shouldn’t have kids because of climate change. You know, when I’ve used this word sociopathic?” he said. “Like, that, I think, is a very deranged idea: the idea that you shouldn’t have a family because of concerns over climate change.” When pressed if he thinks it is “sociopathic” that some women don’t have children because they’re worried about climate change, Vance said: “I think that is a bizarre way of thinking about the future. Not to have kids because of concerns over climate change?… Yeah, I think that’s a really, really crazy way to think about the world.”
Can we say little JD is the sociopath here? Oh wait – the man at the top of his ticket has this deranged view that climate change is a myth. And we all know little JD sees the only role for women is to be baby machines. Hey JD – we got it!