I have reproduced the headline of the Economist's piece- and the Economist is no fan of Trump's.
Some eight months into Trump's administration, the US economy is far from plunging into the abyss as his detractors had forecast (and continue to forecast).
The Economist spells out the positives in the US economy:
Growth has certainly slowed. But dig deeper in the data and you do not have to be an uber-bull to see reasons for hope. The slump has been modest and no longer seems to be worsening. America’s 1.4% annualised GDP growth in the first half of the year would be a happy surprise for many Europeans. And the 2% growth America has managed over the past year is better yet in comparison
The jobs situation is not bad because demand for jobs has been reined by the crackdown on immigaation:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has revised down its estimate for net migration in 2025 from 2m to 400,000. Researchers at the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, two think-tanks, peg the figure at between -500,000 and 100,000. Customs and Border Protection reported just 8,000 “encounters” with illegal migrants on the southern border in July, against 100,000 in the same month last year and nearly 200,000 the year before.
Slower population growth lowers the “breakeven” rate of job creation (that needed to keep the employment rate stable), meaning even weak employment figures could be consistent with a healthy economy......For his part, on September 17th Jerome Powell, the Fed’s chair, guessed the breakeven rate was “between zero and 50,000”.
Then, there is greater clarity on tariffs:
Now the outlines of the import-tax regime look more certain. Tariff revenues, after rising sharply, seem to have stabilised in the past few months. Uncertainty measures have fallen, even if not all the way back to the levels of last year.
The Economist thinks Trump's campaign against the Fed could give rise to problems. It is likely to be proved wrong- as it has been proved wrong so far.
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