Viewpoints: October 2019

In mid September of this year, the Fed lost control of the federal funds rate to the upside. On September 17, the effective federal funds rate exceeded the midpoint of its target level by 17.5 basis points (see Chart 1, the blue [...]

Its now nearly two year since the Trump Administration and Congress passed major tax cuts for businesses and individuals and followed that legislative initiative up with a relatively large increase in spending for defense and [...]

Federal budget deficits need to be analyzed nowadays in the context of how much it is propping up the economic growth cycle because after a decade of record federal deficits the current business cycle would ran out of gas without [...]

How strong is the consumer sector? It depends on where you sit in the food chain of consumer sales and finance. Nominal growth of consumer spending in 2019 has slowed to its weakest growth rate in three years, with many traditional [...]

State labor markets were on the soft side in September. Only three states (Hawaii, Idaho, and Kentucky—clearly a group with little in common!) reported statistically significant gains, while two (New Hampshire and Virginia) had [...]

After 18 months of negotiations, the trade talks ended with the US achieving very little. It is wrong to call this a "trade" deal, let alone a "substantial " one since the focus, almost exclusively, of the Trump Administration has [...]

Is it possible for a policy recession to occur when successive rounds of policy-stimulus have worked to extend the economic cycle and the policy-fuel runs out or cannot be provided in the same scale? We may soon find out. The current [...]

Is it possible for a policy recession to occur when successive rounds of policy-stimulus have worked to extend the economic cycle and the policy-fuel runs out or cannot be provided in the same scale? We may soon find out. The current [...]