Washington Post (January 25)
“The nation’s economy was supposed to have sunk into recession by now, dragged down by the highest interest rates in two decades and a resulting slump in borrowing and spending. Instead, the U.S. economy has kept chugging along. Even more encouraging, inflation, which touched a four-decade high in 2022, has edged steadily lower without the painful layoffs that most economists had thought would be necessary to slow the acceleration of prices.”
Tags: Acceleration, Borrowing, Economists, Economy, Encouraging, Inflation, Interest rates, Layoffs, Painful, Recession, Slump, Spending, U.S.
New York Times (November 9)
The U.S. economy “has accomplished what many, perhaps most, economists considered impossible: a large fall in inflation without a recession or even a big rise in unemployment.” A recent Goldman Sachs report declares “The Hard Part Is Over,” making the case “that we’re managing to combine rapid disinflation with solid growth, and that it expects this happy combination — the opposite of stagflation — to continue.”
Tags: Accomplished, Economists, Economy, Goldman Sachs, Growth, Impossible, Inflation, Rapid disinflation, Recession, U.S., Unemployment
Wall Street Journal (October 26)
“The U.S. economy keeps on growing, and in the third quarter it positively boomed. This is good news by any measure, though it’s striking how few economists think it can keep going. Let’s hope they keep being wrong.”
Bankrate (October 10)
“Recession odds between now and September 2024 have dropped to 46 percent, according to experts’ average forecast in Bankrate’s latest quarterly survey of economists. Those probabilities are still close to a coin flip, but they’re down from an average forecast of 59 percent just last quarter. They’re also the lowest odds since the first quarter of 2022.”
Tags: 2022, 2024, 46%, Economists, Experts, Forecast, Lowest, Odds, Probabilities, Quarterly survey, Recession
Wall Street Journal (October 2)
“Certain spending habits developed during the pandemic—increased purchasing for home improvements and workout equipment, for instance—have waned as part of an expected normalization postpandemic. Other shopping patterns from the last few years, meanwhile, are sticking. Still unknown is what the new normal in spending will look like, according to finance executives, analysts and economists.”
Tags: Analysts, Economists, Finance, Home improvements, New normal, Normalization, Pandemic, Postpandemic, Purchasing, Shopping patterns, Spending habits, Workout equipment
Bloomberg (August 8)
“China’s trade plunged in July as slowing global demand clouded the outlook for exports, while domestic pressures weighed on imports in a hit to the economic recovery.” Exports (dollar denominated) fell 14.5% while imports decreased 12.4%. Both figures “were worse than what economists polled by Bloomberg had expected.”
Tags: Bloomberg, China, Domestic pressures, Economic recovery, Economists, Exports, Global demand, Imports, Outlook, Plunged, Trade
The Economist (July 22)
“Economists are not known for their optimism, but today their good cheer is palpable. Not long ago it seemed that an American recession was inevitable.” Now, expectations are heady that this can be averted, but “the surge of hope is… unusual because the world economy is slowing down.” While “falling inflation is good news,” it remains “too early to hail a ‘soft landing.’”
Tags: Averted, Economists, Expectations, Hope, Inevitable, Inflation, Optimism, Recession, Slowing, Surge, U.S., World economy
Fortune (April 4)
“After the banking crisis, could the next domino be all those empty office buildings in your downtown? Investors and economists are sounding the alarm about the commercial real estate market, seeing trouble ahead with refinancing. This sector has been hit hard for years now with the shift to remote work bringing about rising vacancy rates and falling property values.”
Tags: Alarm, Banking crisis, Commercial real estate, Domino, Downtown, Economists, Empty, Investors, Market, Office buildings, Refinancing, Remote work, Sector, Trouble, Vacancy rates
Wall Street Journal (January 15)
“Despite signs that inflation has started to recede, economists still expect higher interest rates to push the U.S. economy into a recession in the coming year…. On average, business and academic economists polled by the Journal put the probability of a recession in the next 12 months at 61%, little changed from 63% in October’s survey.”
Tags: Academic, Business, Economists, Economy, Inflation, Interest rates, Recede, Recession, Survey, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (January 2)
Citing “red flags” like housing market decline, the spend down of pandemic savings, and tighter bank lending standards, “more than two-thirds of the economists at 23 large financial institutions that do business directly with the Federal Reserve are betting the U.S. will have a recession in 2023. Two others are predicting a recession in 2024.”
Tags: 2023, Decline, Economists, Fed, Financial institutions, Housing market, Lending standards, Pandemic savings, Recession, Red flags, Tighter, U.S.
