The one key takeaway from last week's Fed meeting is that monetary policymakers are set to keep short-term interest rates near zero for as far as the eye can see. Not forever, but at least until 2023. Keep this in mind in the week ahead, as we get more reports confirming the economic recovery started [...]
A full recovery from the COVID-19/Shutdown Crisis is going to take a long time. We don't anticipate reaching a new peak for real GDP until the end of 2021; we don't anticipate a 4% unemployment rate until 2024. However, there is a growing amount of evidence that the economy may have hit bottom in May. [...]
When the employment report for April is released this Friday, the economic damage from the deepest of the Coronavirus shutdowns will become clear. We estimate that nonfarm payrolls will be down roughly 22 million versus March, and the unemployment rate will skyrocket to around 17.0%, the highest reading since at least 1948. To put that [...]
Doctors think differently than economists. They put patients with a potential for brain damage in an artificial coma to stop swelling, and when it stops, they bring them out. This fits with the Hippocratic Oath all doctors take, which states "First, do no harm." The idea is to "limit" damage and then "restart" a more [...]
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. [...]
We are in the midst of a Coronavirus Contraction. The news keeps highlighting worst case scenarios. The markets are volatile. Data in the months ahead may get ugly. But this too shall pass. How do we navigate this storm until the clouds part? https://youtu.be/7pazQdPe2Ws
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 [...]
We’re moved to check in with you today as it has come to our attention that some of you may have not heeded our long-standing advice and have been watching the mainstream news media (MSM). Specifically as it portends to the most recent outbreak of a strain of viruses known as coronaviruses, first discovered in [...]
One of the worst bipartisan policy decisions in the past generation was the aggressive government push in the 1990s and 2000s to promote homeownership, beyond what the free market could handle. Policymakers encouraged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to gobble up lots of subprime debt, in turn boosting lending to borrowers who couldn't handle their [...]