Economic News Thread | Consumer Confidence declines

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ChileG said:
Where the fuck are all the Trump cheerleaders? I hope their disappearances from this board is a sign that they now recognize that voting for this clown was a mistake. A mistake they will try to fix in 2026 and 2028.
But I have my doubts.
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I posted in January they would vanish once (and it was once, not if) Trump & Musk really screwed things up and the economy started to go down and the tariffs started to hit and all the rest of his and Elon's and his administration's crap started to really hit the fan. Some Trumper posters said here two or three weeks ago that they were just "taking a break from the board" and would return "sometime", but "sometime" seems to be drifting further and further away as the trajectory of events just keeps moving downhill, not only economically, but in pretty much every other way as well.
 
nycfan said:
The market can overreact in either direction — things can still level off and recover, but damage has been done with six weeks of wildly erratic behavior.
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i admit i know nothing about the marketplace.

But given the high likelihood of continued chaos and erratic behavior, I don’t see a leveling off and recovery as a likely outcome.
 
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“… You may have seen people citing the Atlanta Fed’s “nowcast” that attempts to infer GDP far in advance of the official numbers, and which is currently showing a sharp decline in the first quarter. But that’s almost certainly a statistical red herring: It’s mostly about a surge of gold imports in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs, which is screwing up the usually helpful Atlanta model.

But while talk of recession is premature, there’s already a palpable sense of disappointment in the Trump economy. …

… The Trump economic team seems, however, to be pushing a different kind of excuse: The claim that Biden left behind a terrible economy, and that we’ll need to go through a painful period of “detox.”

Now, you may wonder how anyone could characterize the economy when Trump took office, with 2.5 percent growth, low unemployment and inflation only slightly above the Fed’s 2 percent target, as terrible.

But the Trumpist position, coming from multiple officials, seems to be that the prosperity was fake, that the numbers were exaggerated by bloated government spending and employment. Hence the need for a costly transition to an economy where workers are doing useful things.

As usual, one has to ask: Are they ignorant or are they lying? And as usual, the answer is: Why not both? …”
 
nycfan said:


“… You may have seen people citing the Atlanta Fed’s “nowcast” that attempts to infer GDP far in advance of the official numbers, and which is currently showing a sharp decline in the first quarter. But that’s almost certainly a statistical red herring: It’s mostly about a surge of gold imports in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs, which is screwing up the usually helpful Atlanta model.

But while talk of recession is premature, there’s already a palpable sense of disappointment in the Trump economy. …

… The Trump economic team seems, however, to be pushing a different kind of excuse: The claim that Biden left behind a terrible economy, and that we’ll need to go through a painful period of “detox.”

Now, you may wonder how anyone could characterize the economy when Trump took office, with 2.5 percent growth, low unemployment and inflation only slightly above the Fed’s 2 percent target, as terrible.

But the Trumpist position, coming from multiple officials, seems to be that the prosperity was fake, that the numbers were exaggerated by bloated government spending and employment. Hence the need for a costly transition to an economy where workers are doing useful things.

As usual, one has to ask: Are they ignorant or are they lying? And as usual, the answer is: Why not both? …”
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“… Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, has to have people working for him who both understand how GDP is measured and know how to look up data on FRED. So when Bessent says

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nycfan said:
“… Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, has to have people working for him who both understand how GDP is measured and know how to look up data on FRED. So when Bessent says

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…
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… “This created temporary problems with supply chains, which weren’t prepared to handle that many goods in transit. Remember all those container ships sailing back and forth off the coast of California, waiting for a chance to unload? And these supply chain problems were the main reason for the inflationary surge of 2021-22.

But nothing like that is happening now. The whole “detox” thing is just a cover story for policy failure.”
 
CFordUNC said:
I learned a bit of a hard lesson this past November as it pertains to economic sentiment. I was so confident about how so many of the macroeconomic indicators showed that the economy was booming (unemployment at record lows, stock market at record highs, wage growth outpacing inflation, etc.) that I didn't allow myself to consider that the microeconomics for so many people would be the Dems' undoing. As I've shared previously on the board, I grew up pretty poor- SNAP, free lunch at school, etc.- but I've been fortunate to be blessed with economic prosperity now in my 30's. Over essentially the last decade since I graduated from UNC, I've gone from having to basically choose between putting gas in the gar to get to work at my first two jobs working $7.25/hour, or buying groceries. Now I don't even notice the total at the gas pump or at the grocery store checkout. I've gone from eating out at restaurants maybe two or three times per year growing up (always around birthdays) to eating out every day for lunch when I'm not on the road for work. I've gone from having a checking account that I used to overdraw, one that would routinely have single-digit dollars on the day before pay day, to having savings accounts and investment accounts with six-figures in them.

I say all of that to say that I am a bit ashamed that I had apparently forgotten how it is to live paycheck-to-paycheck with grim economic prospects. So when I was touting the historically low-unemployment rates, or the historically-high stock market, or the wage growth outpacing inflation- but forgetting that the economy simply still does not work well for far too many of our fellow Americans- I was definitely doing the Democratic Party for whom I was advocating a disservice. It's easy to feel like everything is great for everyone when you can pull up your healthy savings and investment accounts on your $1,000 smart phone on your way to drop $30 on a random weekday lunch like it's no big deal, but I definitely learned that I need to be more understanding- instead of dismissive of -the plight of so many folks who are hurting economically.
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The statistic showing that the upper 50% of people in the US hild 98% of the wealth while the lower 50% hold 2% of the wealth is the key indicator of why we are where we are.

I've done the same, live only paying attention to where I am and assuming that most are like me. I'm not a week off as many but I'm not in that lower 50%. I couldn't imagine the stress that life brings people in that group.
 
Calheel said:
This new Republican talking point about how the economy is going through a rough patch because of the end of Biden government largess is nutso.

No new budget has been passed. The government is continuing to spend on the same pace it was under Biden. There is absolutely no difference in government spending as of today (despite the DOGE theatrics). The only thing that is moving markets is Trump's erratic and bizarre statements.
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Not what you do, it's what you claim to stand for with the MAGANUT CULT.
 
superrific said:
I think the media likes to compartmentalize issues like "arbitrary arrest of lawful residents" and "the economy is crashing" as if they are separate. I don't think they are.

1. Obviously the economic uncertainty and the tariffs and the firings are the proximate cause for much of the current downturn.
2. BUT, one of the advantages of the US economy has always been the country's commitment to the rule of law. It's one thing for Trump to pardon people corruptly. That's bad but it doesn't necessarily weaken confidence in the economy.

However, the most recent punitive measures would give anyone pause. Why would you invest when:

1. The EPA is trying to steal back $20B from climate groups who already received an award validly;
2. Student loan repayment programs are being used to target political dissent;
3. Trump is going after law firms who have done nothing but represent people Trump doesn't like
4. The government is breaking or terminating contracts left and right?

So with this backdrop, stories like the Columbia student being arbitrarily detained (with Rubio promising more targeted illegal detentions) have to be having some effect on the economy. It's obviously not going to be a single person's detention that will make a huge difference (though if Biden or Harris are arrested, the world economy will probably implode). But these stories add up. They are telling a story about the sudden elimination of the rule of law.

3. SOOO, when Trump took aim at the CHIPS Act, I suspect that's causing a lot of indigestion. It's not because anyone thinks it will actually be repealed (there are definitely not 60 votes in the Senate for that; there are very likely not 50; and it's doubtful it could pass the House). It's because they fear Trump trying to claw back money already given, or target these firms in other ways. According to the Times,

"Chip company executives, worried that funding could be clawed back, are calling lawyers to ask what wiggle room the administration has to terminate signed contracts, said eight people familiar with the requests."

It's all related. The best we can hope for, I think, is a gradual unwinding of the US government as the implicit guarantor of international financial commitments. That will probably damage the economy long-term, but a non-gradual unwinding will cause a Great Depression v.2.0.

The election of Trump in 2024 is going to go down in history as one of the most consequential own-goals. Time will tell if it will rival the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, or the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
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The Trump administration is doing everything to destroy US supremacy that our collective enemies over the past 80 years were incapable of doing. Or, counterpoint, Trump is the end game of a decades long process to cause the US to destroy itself. Regardless, the end result will be the same.
 
TarHeeledTexan said:
The Trump administration is doing everything to destroy US supremacy that our collective enemies over the past 80 years were incapable of doing. Or, counterpoint, Trump is the end game of a decades long process to cause the US to destroy itself. Regardless, the end result will be the same.
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It is pretty staggering when you consider that while we as a country were walking around with our chests puffed out sniffing our own farts and telling the rest of the world how we are the greatest country to ever country in the history of countries, and how the rest of them are a bunch of socialist leeches who should worship at the altar of American exceptionalism, Russia was getting to work devising and then implementing a plan to weaken and decimate the United States socially, culturally, and economically in a way that they could have never dreamed of doing so militarily during the Cold War. And to add insult to injury, they did so by specificallyutilizing the party of “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall” to do it.
 
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The GDP Now thing is pretty important, I think. I didn't realize that the gold adjustment was so big.

So the GDP Now tool is predicting (after stripping out the effect of the gold) an essentially flat GDP reading, at annualized growth of 0.4%. The real pain would come next quarter. I suspect that the GDP Now figure is underestimating because the situation has deteriorated so rapidly that the data from February is stale, but that's the current state of play.

I always thought the -2.8% or -3.5& or whatever was improbable. Economies don't just collapse like that without serious external shock, even with incompetent leadership. Nonetheless, I was willing to believe it provisionally because it told a story that I think is roughly accurate, if exaggerated. Also, I didn't know about gold adjustments. But anyway. . .
 
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