Total deaths in the US from COVID19 look like they'll hit at least 3,000 by the end of March. A potentially brutal April lies ahead. In the meantime, the measures taken to limit deaths have temporarily tanked the US economy. Initial claims for jobless benefits soared to 3.283 million per week, easily the highest ever. [...]
Brian S. Wesbury, Chief Economist Robert Stein, Deputy Chief Economist Date: 3/16/2020 Back in July 2008, then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said he wanted a "bazooka" to deal with financial threats to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Paulson wanted Congress to give him an unlimited credit line for these enterprises. This time around, it's the Federal [...]
Less than a month ago markets were at a record high, as healthy data on the US economy signaled continued growth on the horizon. Then, as Coronavirus made its way to continental Europe and the United States, markets went into a tailspin, suffering one of the fastest declines on record. The last several weeks have [...]
The narrative that the U.S. economy is in trouble – some say teetering on the edge of recession - has become so powerful and persuasive that few investors give it a second thought. So of course, they believe, the Fed should cut interest rates. We haven't seen anything like it since the Fed was hiking [...]
At the Friday close the market consensus was that the Federal Reserve would cut short-term interest rates by 50 - 75 basis points in 2019, with another 25 basis point cut in 2020. We think this is nuts. The US economy doesn't need rate cuts. At present, we are projecting that real GDP is growing [...]
We haven't been worried about a trade conflict with China, which has a long track record of pirating intellectual property and is a potential military rival in the (not too distant) future. The US has enormous leverage with China, given our trade deficit with the country and the ability of firms to shift supply chains [...]
If you take a long hike up a mountain, there's plenty to appreciate along the way. But, sometimes, you just have to stop and enjoy the view. With that in mind, let's forget about the April employment report – which saw a combination of very fast payroll growth and moderate wage growth – and think [...]
Less than two months ago, conventional wisdom thought the US economy was in real trouble. The consensus expected real GDP would barely grow, if at all, in the first quarter of 2019. Many were in a tizzy about the "second derivative," of growth, obsessing that near zero growth in Q1 would mean three straight quarters [...]
What a difference a month makes. Last month many economists had pushed down their estimates for first quarter economic growth to near zero. The Atlanta Fed's "GDP Now" model was projecting real GDP growth at a 0.2% annual rate in Q1, which would have been the slowest growth since the weather-related negative reading in the [...]