ECONOMICS

Authored by Frank Shostak via The Mises Institute,

According to some commentators, to counter inflation interest rates in the US must increase to a level that effectively restrains the economy. It is held that this increase in interest rates does not have to cause a recession if Fed’s policy makers could orchestrate a “soft landing.” The economy is portrayed as a spaceship that occasionally deviates from a path of “stable” economic growth and “stable” prices. All that is (more…)

After June's Boeing-driven collapse, US Durable Goods Orders were expected to rebound strongly in July (preliminary data released today) and they did – jumping 9.9% MoM (vs +5.0% exp) from June's 6.9% MoM plunge. That is the biggest MoM jump in orders since July 2020's post-COVID lockdown bounce…

Source: Bloomberg

However, ex-Transports, orders dropped 0.2% MoM (worse than the 0.1% decline expected) and leaving core orders up just 0.6% YoY… (more…)

Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World,

Today’s economy is like that of the late 1920s…

Today, there is great wage and wealth disparity, just as there was in the late 1920s. Recent energy consumption growth has been low, just as it was in the 1920s. A significant difference today is that the debt level of the US government is already at an extraordinarily high level. Adding more debt now is fraught with peril.

Figure 1. US Gross Federal Debt as a percentage of (more…)