The Recession Call Revisited

There was a noisy minority of analysts thinking we were in, or imminently in, recession (see a list here). It’ll be interesting to see how those views are revised. However, as I noted, while the data was not supportive of being in a recession as of October, three possibilities could reconcile observations with such views: (1) the model is wrong, (2) the recession is here, but we don’t know it, or (3) the recession is still to come.

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Everyday Price Inflation at 0.3% y/y?

Versus 2.4% for the CPI (in logs). Lots of people think the government’s statistics understates the true inflation rate. It used to be John Williams at ShadowStats. Now it’s EJ Antoni at Heritage Foundation (who touts the use of Primerica’s everyday price index). But the American Institute for Economic Research’s “Everyday Price Index” (EPI) says otherwise (over the past year and a half).

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Farmers of the Nation, Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose but Possible Retaliation against Soybeans and Corn

From the National Corn Growers Association:

U.S. soybeans and corn are prime targets for tariffs. As the top two export commodities for our country, together they account for about one-fourth of total U.S. agricultural export value. As such, a repeated tariff-based approach to addressing trade with China places a target on both U.S. soybeans and corn. Farmers and rural economies pay the price as a result.

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