Never just look the headline number. The “why’s” matter. GDPNow down from 3.3% q/q AR to 2.8%, while GS tracking at 3.0%
Consumer Confidence Surprises on the Upside
108.7 vs. 99.5 (Bloomberg consensus). Is positive economic news percolating into surveys? From the Confidence Board today:
Consumer Price Levels
A comparison:
Gasoline Prices and Brent
From EIA:
McService Job Nation?
Reader Moonmac argues the case that we are in a recession, in a rejoinder my paper “Recession since 2022? A Critique“:
McService Job Nation disagrees even though they’re employed. Gainfully is a different matter.
Trump 2.0 Tariffs and Wisconsin
Be prepared. It doesn’t look good for Wisconsin (just like Trump 1.0 didn’t but this time there isn’t $18 billion on tap to bail out the soybean farmers).
Revised Paper: No, We Haven’t Been in a Recession since 2022
EJ Antoni and Peter St. Onge argue we have been deceived by incorrect deflators. Rebuttal, showing the irreproducibility of their results, and non-deflator sensitive indicators, downloadable here, with new data.
Guest Contribution: “The Economics Nobel Prize and Settler Mortality”
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. An earlier version appeared at Project Syndicate and the Korea Herald.
If the Official Inflation Rate Is Correct, the Real Policy Rate In Russia Is Now 12.4%
The Central Bank of Russia today raised the policy rate from 19% to 21%.
September Coincident Indexes
Three month growth rate 2.7% ann’d, 3 month diffusion index at 48.