The Economist (May 18)
“Since Donald Trump took office in January last year, America’s economy has continued to be the envy of the rich world. In 2025, while Britain, France and Japan eked out annual GDP growth of 1%, give or take, and Germany all but stood still, American output grew by 2.1%.” That growth could have been far more impressive. The Economist calculates that without the drag created by “fitful presidential policymaking,” the U.S. “might be rocketing ahead at nearly 5% annualised growth.”
Tags: 2025, 5%, Drag, Economy, Envy, Fitful, France, GDP growth, Germany, Japan, Policymaking, Rich world, Trump, U.S., UK
Washington Post (June 15)
The “U.S. could lose more immigrants than it gains for first time in 50 years.” This would “mark a turning point in the country’s demographic and economic trajectory, and an abrupt shift from the nearly 3 million net migrants the United States gained just last year.” Negative migration “could become a drag on the U.S. labor force,” potentially slowing “economic growth and fueling inflation.”
Tags: 3 million, 50 years, Abrupt shift, Demographic, Drag, Economic growth, Inflation, Labor force, Migrants, Negative migration, Trajectory, Turning-point, U.S.
Atlanta Journal Constitution (October 14)
“Millions of retirees on Social Security will get a 5.9% boost in benefits for 2022. The biggest cost-of-living adjustment in 39 years follows a burst in inflation as the economy struggles to shake off the drag of the coronavirus pandemic.”
Tags: Benefits, Burst, COLA, Coronavirus, Drag, Economy, Inflation, Pandemic, Retirees, Social security, Struggles
Bloomberg (February 16)
“Sleep deprivation is doing more harm in Japan than just making people grumpy and unhealthy. It is also holding back the world’s third-largest economy,” creating an economic drag of nearly $140 billion or roughly 2.9% of GDP. This is a much larger GDP slice than Canada (1.35%), Germany (1.56%), the UK (1.86%) or the U.S. (2.28%) lose to sleep deprivation. Moreover, periodic surveys by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, show the number of people averaging less than 6 hours of sleep per night has risen by about 10% since 2007 to nearly 40% of Japan’s population.
Institutional Investor (July 23)
However you look at it, “positive inflation momentum is apparent” in the U.S. From the top down, unemployment has fallen. As slack lessens, “we may begin to see signs of this tightening appear in the form of wage growth.” And from the bottom up, there were “multiple factors that pushed inflation lower over the past 12 to 18 months: predominantly, disinflation from medical and core goods components.” But these were driven by unique events like the sequester and the strength of the U.S. dollar. “Neither the medical nor the core goods component is likely to be a drag on inflation going forward.”
Tags: Core goods, Disinflation, Dollar, Drag, Inflation, Medical, Momentum, Sequester, Slack, Tightening, U.S., Unemployment, Wage growth
