CURRENT ECONOMIC DIGEST (Complimentary)
A snapshot of the current economy here
A one-page summary is posted as soon as any new numbers are released. Formatted for your desktop or smart phone, it is a quick and quotable reference -- so that you always have a concise and accurate overview of the economy. The Current Economic Digest reflects the overarching relationships in macroeconomics: the relationships among unemployment, growth, money supply, confidence, interest rates, and prices.
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Aa we feared in last month’s talking points, the pandemic and inept responses from the Trump government have together created an economic shock from which a depression is now inevitable. The path to a depression is now official. The National Bureau of Economic Research has declared that the economy has been in a recession since February. This Current Economic Digest shows a negative 33 percent growth in real GDP in the second quarter of 2020. The last time real GDP growth fell like this was 1932 (-12.89%) -- and then 1946 (-11.60%). The median growth rate since the Great Depression was 3.12 percent.
That the economy is on such a dismal track is supported by nearly every number and ratio that is derived from national accounts. Ours is a consumer economy, and consumer spending began to slip in the first quarter of 2020. Consumer confidence is now off 30%; the leading economic index is down 8%; employment is off 15 million; in response the treasury was obliged to throw a new $4 trillion into the economy (M2). An adverse change in any one of these indicators is significant. Adverse changes in all of them together forebode a serious threat to economic welfare.