The crack Chicagoboyz all-blogger precision drill and synchronized swimming team heads to the beach to hone its skills.. . . .
Month: July 2014
Is the Stock Market a Leading Indicator of Growth or Inflation?
John Cochrane on Larry Summers on economic stagnation.
It’s a good post and there are many good comments in response.
What it comes down to is that no one yet knows the extent to which current economic weakness results from tech-driven structural changes in the economy, and demographic changes, as opposed to bad govt policies.
The stock market keeps going up. Is this mainly a result of easy money or is the market telling us something about future growth? My hunch is that the longer it keeps going up, the more likely it’s discounting future growth. The fact that this is an unpopular idea makes me more confident that it’s valid.
Maybe it’s a combo of structural change and anticipation of the lifting of Obama’s boot from the economy’s neck. Time will tell. It may yet turn out to be mostly an inflationary bubble.
Disclaimer: The above is not investment advice. Your cat may understand this stuff better than I do.
UPDATE: Here’s a good presentation of the alternative case.
“How Cancer Caused World War I”
Via Michael Kennedy in a comment on another post, this short monograph is worth reading.
“What if”, or as they call it now, path dependency, is an eternal question. In this case it seems justified.