Month: November 2024

While Trump speaks of wanting a weak dollar, imposing tariffs will strengthen it. It’s because imposing a tariff makes foreign goods more costly and that means fewer such goods will be imported and thus fewer dollars will be converted into…

Pre-election, consumer sentiment rose slightly. However, sentiment among the middle class slid, as did sentiment among the prime breadwinning 35–54-year-olds. Moreover, median wage growth expectations through 10/25 were very weak. Yet 60% of households think the bull market will rage…

The FY24 budget deficit was $1.8 trillion, 6.4% of GDP. Keeping the debt-to-GDP ratio flat requires the deficit not to exceed nominal GDP growth. Assuming that’s 4%/year, the deficit shouldn’t exceed $1.2 trillion in FY25, a decline of $600 billion…

While strongly desired, reality will constrain Republican tax cutters. Trump’s 2016 victory came with a 47 seat House majority, this time it’s maybe 11. In 2016, the deficit was 3.1% of GDP, it’s now 6.1%, and the national debt was…

The Friday File: While the median age of Nobel Prize winners is 55, it can take years for the career-defining work for which they are cited to be recognized. Chemists are in their mid-forties when their winning paper is published,…

Portions of Trump’s 2017 tax cut have already sunset, others will expire in 2025. Extending the unexpired sections will cost $5 trillion through 2034 but will have no impact on GDP or inflation as they will simply extend existing policies.…

While the polls were once again disturbingly poor in telling us how voters planned to vote, prediction markets that rely on the wisdom of markets to offer odds on a candidate winning were materially better. The average odds from five…

While VP Harris has a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics, and former president Trump graduated with a degree in economics, you would be hard pressed to know it from their campaigns. Both candidates haven’t just demoted economic principles…

October employment growth was 12,000, the worst gain since 12/20. However, the Boeing strike reduced employment by 46,000 and the hurricanes undoubtedly also hurt. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1% but only because the labor force declined by 220,000.…

The Friday File: In 2023, Americans spent $2.7 billion eating 5.1 billion servings of instant noodles, good enough for sixth in the world, and a per capita consumption of an impressive 15.2 servings. The U.S. remains well behind #1 China…