Maury Obstfeld at PS says it better than I ever did (along with the best graphic *ever*):
“Is the Boom-and-Bust Business Cycle Dead?”
That’ s leading question in the NYT a little while back (just getting to this now that I’ve finished grading).
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off to FX War We Go!
I’ve only now gotten around to writing about this Trump policy proposal: “Trump trade advisers plot dollar devaluation” . I was befuddled by how they Trump brain trust was going to effectively force the weakening of the dollar: sterilized intervention, dropping interest rates in the US, or forcing foreign countries to re-peg their currencies at stronger values. They all seem to be problematic.
“You have to look pretty hard to find the “trade war” effect in the data”
That’s a quote from Bruce Hall, referring to the period 2011 onward. For his reference, I present key indicators of the manufacturing sector during the Trump trade war.
Manufacturing Malaise?
Manufacturing employment is up relative to 3 years ago. Why so much dissatisfaction?
Wisconsin Macro Conditions and Economic Sentiment
In Recession? Real Time vs. Final Revised Data
Di Martino Booth points to the McKelvey rule, which uses a 0.3 ppt threshold instead of the Sahm 0.5 ppt threshold. This indicator does seem to signal a recession as shown in the figure below.
Legislative Fiscal Bureau (Aug 2017): “August 2017 Special Session Assembly Bill 1: Foxconn/Fiserv Legislation”
Here’s the entire Legislative Fiscal Bureau document on Foxconn (since links to original site do not work in my previous post “Wisconsin FoxConned by Walker et al.”:
Russia Slows, Struggles to Supply the War Effort
From BOFIT: