Let’s Go Brandon! Looks Like Stagflation Is Already Here

[Geee]

Issues & Insights

On the same day the International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecast for the U.S. economy, Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic warned that the “transitory” bout of inflation “won’t be brief.” How do you spell stagflation? B-i-d-e-n-o-m-i-c-s.

The IMF report, released Tuesday, has the international organization lowering growth globally by a 10th of a percentage point and for the U.S. by a full percentage point.

 

That’s just the latest sign that the economy isn’t building back better under Biden. It might not be building back at all.

Take a look at the GDPNow estimate produced by Bostic’s Atlanta Fed. Basically, GDPNow tries to calculate the current quarter’s GDP in real time by tracking data that the Commerce Department uses to compile the official GDP number — which won’t come out until a month after the quarter has ended.

As a result, the “nowcast” can change as new data emerge. Look what’s happened in the third quarter. The first GDPNow estimate, produced in late July, had growth topping 6%. That’s where it stayed until late August. But then a flood of new data came out showing the economy had sharply decelerated. The “nowcast” suddenly dropped to below 3% growth.

[SDwaters]

Biden rushed out to praise the September report, pointing to the drop in the unemployment rate, which in this case reflected the fact that so many people have dropped out of the labor force (and don’t get counted as unemployed). 

As I recall, that was a favorite Obama tactic - counting people who'd given up looking for work as if they'd gotten a job.  The press let them get away with that "bait and switch" for years, so why not Biden now?