American Economics Thread

[siegecrossbow]

Last year was brutal for the tech sector with 1,186 companies laying off about 262,242 employees in 2023.

Analysts are saying that this will not be a repeat of last year, even more job cuts are expected in the coming months.

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Economy is doing great. Anyone struggling to get hired is either a retard, a Trump supporter, or both.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

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Economy is doing great. Anyone struggling to get hired is either a retard, a Trump supporter, or both.

I read the article and they admit that they're astonished by the fact that just freely printing money to the degree of 25% of GDP actually worked.

It's amazing indeed. The Ukraine War scared people from investing in EU and set up a LNG monopoly. What a harvest. And so little of that free money trickled down.

 

[Sinnavuuty]

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US economy surprises with faster than expected growth​

The US economy grew faster than expected in the final months of last year, driven by robust household and government spending.
The world's largest economy expanded at an annual rate of 3.3% over the three months to December, the Commerce Department said.
That was down from 4.9% in the prior quarter, but much faster than the 2% many analysts had expected.
For 2023, the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5%, up from 1.9% in 2022.
The figures cap a year that has been characterised by unexpected economic resilience, even as the US central bank raised borrowing costs sharply and inflation cooled.
"Whichever way you slice it, this report caps a year of stellar economic growth performance," said Olu Sonola, head of US regional economics at Fitch Ratings. "The momentum of economic growth going into 2024 is looking very good."

The figures are a boon for US President Joe Biden, who has struggled to convince the public that the economy remains healthy, as it downshifts from the boom after the pandemic shock.
In a speech in Wisconsin on Thursday, he argued that White House policies, including investments in green energy, roads and other infrastructure, have contributed to the resilience.
"Experts, from the time I got elected, were insisting that the recession was just around the corner," he said. "Well, we've got really strong growth.... We obviously have more work to do but we're making real progress."
Mr Biden said he believed the message was starting to get through.
In recent months, surveys have shown consumer sentiment improving. The stock market is up, petrol prices are down and unemployment remains low.
While the jump in prices since 2019 remains a sticking point for voters, the inflation rate has also eased, falling to 3.4% in December, after soaring to more than 9% in 2022.

California resident Ha Le said she was conscious of no longer being on a constant lookout for the lowest cost petrol.
But the 44-year-old, a corporate worker in the retail industry and a Democrat, said it was still difficult to accept the big jump in grocery and child care prices of the last few years.
"My general thoughts on the economy are that it's not the worst, right? We've recovered somewhat from the pandemic terror, but it's not great," she said.
Many economists had expected households to cut back spending as prices eroded their budgets and for business activity to cool in the face of more expensive borrowing costs, warning of the risks of a downturn, or recession.
But that scenario has not materialised, as high savings left over from the pandemic, an uptick in wage growth, and other government spending provided a cushion. Compared with the fourth quarter of 2022, the US economy grew 3.1%.
On Wall Street, the improving picture has led to speculation that the Federal Reserve, which raised interest rates sharply to fight inflation, might start to reverse course.

But analysts said the strength of the economy portrayed in the report on gross domestic product (GDP) will relieve pressure on the bank to act quickly.
"Those hunting for clues that the Federal Reserve is ready to take an axe to interest rates will be sorely disappointed," said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

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So the article is saying that infrastructure investment and consumer spending alone in a mature economy can somehow yield a 20% nominal growth over 2 years (23T in 2021 to 27T in 2023).

OK let's see.

Retail sales are flat since initial opening in 2021.

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Construction is growing but slowly at 1.6%.

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This is despite pumping 25% GDP as free money.

How to attribute a 20% increase in GDP to infrastructure and consumer spending when they're either flat or growing slowly?

And this year the construction industry has been absolutely choked by the high housing rates. Nobody wants to sell when buyers must bid lower due to high rates.

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[chgough34]

So the article is saying that infrastructure investment and consumer spending alone in a mature economy can somehow yield a 20% nominal growth over 2 years (23T in 2021 to 27T in 2023).

OK let's see.

Retail sales are flat since initial opening in 2021.

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Construction is growing but slowly at 1.6%.

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This is despite pumping 25% GDP as free money.

How to attribute a 20% increase in GDP to infrastructure and consumer spending when they're either flat or growing slowly?

And this year the construction industry has been absolutely choked by the high housing rates. Nobody wants to sell when buyers must bid lower due to high rates.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

So the article is saying that infrastructure investment and consumer spending alone in a mature economy can somehow yield a 20% nominal growth over 2 years (23T in 2021 to 27T in 2023).

OK let's see.

Retail sales are flat since initial opening in 2021.

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The growth is in services (

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). People started eating out, going to movie theaters, etc once they were allowed to.

Construction is growing but slowly at 1.6%.

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This is despite pumping 25% GDP as free money.

It’s concentrated in nonresidential facilities, structures and software (

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)

How to attribute a 20% increase in GDP to infrastructure and consumer spending when they're either flat or growing slowly?

They are imperfect and incomplete proxies

 

[Sinnavuuty]

The American Military Industrial Complex:

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Foreign Military Sales:

In FY2023 the total value of transferred defense articles and services and security cooperation activities conducted under the Foreign Military Sales system was $80.9 billion. This represents a 55.9% increase, up from $51.9 billion in FY2022. This is the highest annual total of sales and assistance provided to our allies and partners.

The $80.9 billion figure for the FY2023 includes $62.25 billion in arms sales funded by U.S. allies and partner nations; $3.97 billion funded through the Title 22 Foreign Military Financing program; and $14.68 billion funded through other Department of State programs (such as International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement, Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs) and Department of Defense Building Partner Capacity programs (like the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative).
Direct military sales by U.S. companies increased from $153,6 billion in fiscal year 2022 to $157,5 billion in fiscal year 2023, while sales arranged through The US government has increased from 51,9 billion USD in 2022 to 80,9 billion USD in 2023.

 

[Maikeru]

It seems pretty obvious to me that the US is engaging in a debt fuelled 'boom' (such as it is) for the express purpose of staving off a recession until after the election in November, and damn the long term consequences. I don't think people really understand just to what lengths the US establishment will go to avoid another Trump presidency.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

The growth is in services (

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). People started eating out, going to movie theaters, etc once they were allowed to.

It’s concentrated in nonresidential facilities, structures and software (

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)

They are imperfect and incomplete proxies

Box office revenue starts from a very low base since 2020, is small compared to retail and housing, and it is only marginally increasing. Still has not recovered pre-pandemic levels.

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I was told of an alternative reason:

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Box office revenue starts from a very low base since 2020, is small compared to retail and housing, and it is only marginally increasing. Still has not recovered pre-pandemic levels.

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I was told of an alternative reason:

That right there is what you call healthy, organic, sustainable growth.

 

[chgough34]

Box office revenue starts from a very low base since 2020, is small compared to retail and housing, and it is only marginally increasing. Still has not recovered pre-pandemic levels.

I wrote that there to be illustrative, not comprehensive.

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I was told of an alternative reason:

Some of this is due to a definition change in checkable deposits (savings accounts and money market funds were folded into the definition in April 2020); the United States having very unequal wealth distributions is not a novel observation.