FEATURED POST
June 24, 2025
From good to gloom. Main Street is bracing for a slowdown.
By almost every metric that matters, the U.S. economy has delivered in the first six months of 2025. Unemployment stayed low, consumers kept spending, and inflation retreated. Despite this encouraging performance, the economic outlook has dimmed. When Federal Reserve policymakers met last week to decide whether to cut interest rates, their individual forecasts combined painted a cautious picture.
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February 20, 2024
Main Street Macro: Spring means homebuyers—and a big test of inflation
This year, the spring housing market will be watched closely by more than just would-be buyers. Investors, economists, and monetary policymakers also are eying listings in both the inventory-starved for-sale market and the rental market. Here are three reasons why.
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February 12, 2024
Main Street Macro: Normal? What’s that?
After last month’s blockbuster government jobs report, I’ve been looking for signs of a normal economy. But as economists and market watchers talk of a “new normal” and “normalization,” I’ve been wondering just what a normal economy is.
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February 5, 2024
Main Street Macro: What to do with good news?
Wall Street has a complicated relationship with good news, especially when interest rates are high, like they are now. Investors know that economic growth is good for their portfolios, but economic growth plus rock-bottom interests are even better.
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January 29, 2024
Main Street Macro: What color is your collar?
This week brings the first jobs report of the new year, and already people are asking about the outlook for 2024. Worries about inflation and recession have been supplanted by labor-market anxiety. Layoffs in technology and finance have triggered unease that white-collar jobs might be vulnerable to a hiring slowdown this year.
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January 22, 2024
Main Street Macro: The power of Davos: Networks
Davos, Switzerland, site of last week’s World Economic Forum gathering, is where movers and shakers meet. Leaders of companies, governments, and nonprofits around the world do here what they do best: Network.
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January 15, 2024
Main Street Macro: Reality check
You’ve probably heard that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. In reality, when it comes to the future path of the economy, the line is rarely straight.
We saw this last week, when a key measure of consumer inflation rose after three months of decline. This kind of volatility isn’t unusual, especially during times of geopolitical uncertainty.
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January 8, 2024
Main Street Macro: The trust factor
The annual World Economic Forum gathering in the mountainside retreat of Davos, Switzerland, is commonly described with a single word: Elite. But this year, Davos is attempting to draw attention to a new descriptor: Trust. The theme of this month’s Davos meeting, which begins Jan. 15, is rebuilding trust. The gathering will take place as the world confronts new and significant challenges and opportunities.
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December 18, 2023
Main Street Macro: North pole wage report
Did you ever wonder how much Santa Claus makes? Turns out it’s a little more than $35 an hour.
And how do I know this?
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