Political Economy

Today's ADP jobs report makes plain that the US economy's V-shaped recovery is moving toward the reverse radical section of the upturn. The question is whether politics and the Covid-19 crisis add to downside risk. My view until now has…

Quick weekend post because of the news flow I am moving to double dip as my base case for the global economy because of the lockdowns rippling across Western Europe. I have seen confirmed or likely lockdowns in France, Germany, Spain,…

I want to run something by you I haven't thought through 100%. It's on the coronavirus where I am by no means an expert. But it's troubling me and putting virtual pen to virtual paper will help me tease out some of the variables. I'll try…

It ain't over until the fat lady sings. That's what they say, isn't it? Well, apparently this is also true about my September/October economic pivot call too. If you recall, I'd been saying that September and October would be a tricky…

I want to take the most macro view possible today. We have a major US election upon us. And we are also experiencing significant increases in Covid-19 infections in Europe and North America. These are events with a wide dispersion of…

I was reading something this morning about Fed Governor Lael Brainard recommending monetary and fiscal support to stop a K-shaped outcome where the less well-off lose and the most well-off win. “This strong support from monetary policy - if…

The thread that ties today's topics at Credit Writedowns together is the novel coronavirus pandemic. That's because how various countries have fared economically is very much dependent on what they are doing to control the virus. Let me…

Real quick here as I want to highlight two other analysts' thinking. This morning, I saw two novel ways of conceptualizing what's happening during this pandemic that I wanted to run by you because I think they add value. It's not…

In the US, after the initial V-shaped basing effect of the re-opening, we have moved into a more steady state uptick in output and growth. Having seen the data since June, I believe we exited recession with the re-opening and are now far…

The jobless claims series came out again this morning showing 840,000 initial claims plus a modest revision upward of last week's number to 849,000. These numbers just aren't coming down fast enough. And we know from the last recovery that…