Prices Getting Right: Absent some external shock to the system (e.g., Covid), most of the significant aspects of the economy don’t change overnight. The unemployment rate, interest rates, GDP etc. typically change relatively slowly and the change is often well underway before we became aware of it in our employment or financial lives, at which point they may feel more like bolts out of the blue when they really aren’t.
The emergence of inflation as a real economic problem after a forty-year hiatus was a surprise to many. It may also surprise you to learn that despite the despair you may be experiencing at the checkout line, there are signs that inflation is abating which may make the steps needed to reign it in less painful.
Dr. Alan Beaulieu of ITR Economics looks hard at the inflation data and makes a strong case for “Signs of Relief.”
Indigestion, not Implosion: A remarkable feature of the pandemic was the hot housing market created by cheap money and an enhanced propensity to move created by the option “to work from anywhere.” Trees don’t grow to the sky, and the residential housing market has cooled. Are we headed back to the grim housing market of 2008?
Dr. Brian Wesbury thinks not. In a one page analysis, he explains why the current dynamics of housing reflect “Housing Prices Plateauing, Rents Catching up:, and why this is more like “indigestion” in the housing market, not an “implosion” like 2008. Also, his “High Frequency Data Tracker for the week” provides interesting sector and industry data.
