Tag Archives: US economy

Last Friday I posted five economic questions I'm frequently asked. Earlier this week I discussed: Are house prices in a new bubble? Another common question is: Is a recession imminent (within the next 12 months)? Once again my short answer was: No. Calculated RiskIs a Recession Imminent? Bill McBride

US capitalism is again careening down blind alleys. Earlier it had crashed into the Great Depression from 1929 to 1933 before lurching into the New Deal. After 1945 it concentrated on rolling back the New Deal until it turned sharply to neoliberalism and “globalism” in the 1970s. That provided the comforting illusion of a few decades of “prosperous normalcy.” When the second major crash in 75 years hit in 2008, it exposed the debt-dependent reality of those decades. It also sent capitalism...

Last Friday (October 27, 2017), the US Bureau of Economic Analysis published their latest national accounts data – Gross Domestic Product: Third Quarter 2017 (Advance Estimate), which tells us that annual real GDP growth rate was 3 per cent in the September-quarter 2017, slightly down on the 3.1 per cent recorded in the June-quarter. As this is only the “Advance estimate” (based on incomplete data) there is every likelihood that the figure will be revised when the “second estimate” is...

Since Donald Trump became US president, his core economic agenda has been sidetracked repeatedly by so-called cultural issues. However, now the administration is stepping up its tax reform effort. Even so, other issues threaten to derail this agenda item too (like nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula!). Of course, it’s not even clear we’re talking about tax reform here. Much more likely, Trump has sold out and is now merely pushing for tax cuts for the wealthy. Nevertheless, the risk to the...

With each data release it seems more likely to me that the deceleration in the growth of borrowing from the banks is reflecting a drop in aggregate demand:Growth of C and I loans has been near 0 since the election: No tax cuts, no infrastructure spending either. Trumponomics is dead in the water in Congress so far as the GOP engages in a circular firing squad. It's a party great at unifying on obstruction, but a bunch of losers on governing. The mid-term campaign season is nearing, so they...