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mpaer said:
I wonder about the Life Sciences firms in NC?
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Less-and-less talk about that proposed “life sciences” complex between Franklin and Rosemary from about the old Fowler’s Building to about Mama Dip’s.

The 6-7 story building at the NE corner of Rosemary and Columbia rarely gets mentioned.
 
Zoo_View said:
Less-and-less talk about that proposed “life sciences” complex between Franklin and Rosemary from about the old Fowler’s Building to about Mama Dip’s.

The 6-7 story building at the NE corner of Rosemary and Columbia rarely gets mentioned.
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Are you hoping those projects get built or canceled?

I thought 15-30 months ago that those projects might have made sense; although the life sciences project seemed a stretch and the Rosemary/Columbia project seemed a bit BS since it required no on-site parking for residents. The idea seemed to be that the residents would walk to work at the life sciences project and they wouldn’t need vehicles.

Long ass walk to a Harris Teeter or Whole Foods.

The strangest two long-term “no movement ahead” projects are the old property at the NW corner of Weaver Street ad N. Greensboro Street and the long-proposed mixed development at Hwy. 54 West and Fayetteville Road on that old farm property.
 
1moretimeagain said:
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The inbred nature of data center contracting may be creating phantom growth … or maybe the numbers are just all fudged upward because the most recent data had an extremely large amount of estimates based on limited or no responses in various industries. Or maybe the economy is growing rapidly in a few key tech-reliant sectors and Main Street just can’t feel it because of productivity gains eliminating the need for human capital.
 
donbosco said:
Can you, or someone, explain this?
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That GDP reading of 4% was complete bullshit. A couple of caveats:

1. I don't know if the numbers can be cooked. People who know say they can't. On the other hand, the numbers have been really wacky ever since Trump fired the BLS commissioner. Could be coincidence. Probably is coincidence. But it's a thing that makes me say hmm.

2. It was 3Q and the data cited here is current. But an economy doesn't go from 4% to zero overnight.

Basically, the issue is that all of the auxiliary signs of economic health, like consumer confidence, employment growth, issues with debt servicing, late or defaulted consumer debt, etc -- all of that points to an economy that is bad. Then this GDP number comes along and it's amazing. Something isn't right.

My theory has been that inflation is being undermeasured. Essentially, the GDP figure is calculated like this: businesses report their production in terms of what they actually pay or receive. Then the total is adjusted downward for inflation. If inflation is understated, then the GDP would be insufficiently deflated and thus would be too high. And it would also explain why everyone is feeling pinched in terms of affordability even though the data looks OK.
 
nycfan said:
The inbred nature of data center contracting may be creating phantom growth
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ChatGPT confirms that can't work. GDP only measures actual activity, not valuations. Now, I've been intuitively pushing back against that idea because the number was so ridiculous, but I don't think the accounting allows it and that's been my understanding for years. Not something I would claim to have "known" but something that matched my understanding. ChatGPT is pretty convincing in saying it's not possible.

Also, the ISM report is -- this was a surprise to me -- not dollar weighted. So if the biggest sectors are growing, then dollar-weighted perhaps 50% of the economy is growing even if only 11% of industries by enumeration are growing. A lot of weirdness would be required to make that happen, but it's theoretically possible, especially since health care is a big sector and has been basically all the growth in the last year, save possibly for AI. That said, it's hard to square that with the employment picture.

Whatever cause, I don't give the 4.3% number any credence at all.
 
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