Remember all the (hopeful) recession talk recently by many in the mainstream media who found it hard to hide their desire for bad economic times to harm President Donald Trump's 2020 re-election? Some, such as Bill Maher didn't even try to hide their hope for a recession. In fact Maher was publicly hoping for such a recession to stop Trump.
Well, sad news for them but very happy news for most others. Bloomberg on September 20 reported that such dire economic hype is not born out by the economic data in "Hold That Recession: U.S. Indicators Are Trouncing Forecasts" by Jeff Kearns and Steve Matthews.
The U.S. economy is outperforming expectations by the most this year, offering a fresh rebuttal to last month’s resurgent recession fears fueled by the trade war and a manufacturing slump.
The Bloomberg Economic Surprise Index has reached an 11-month high after four indicators released Thursday, including existing home sales and jobless claims, each surpassed expectations. The gauge continued to advance after swinging to positive from negative on Tuesday for the first time this year. The data also pushed a similar measure produced by Citigroup Inc. to the highest level since April 2018.
“It says things are getting better,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group in Minneapolis “There’s a definitive change in the growth profile and there’s an acceleration in growth profile and there’s an acceleration in growth. It’s interesting how pessimistic the attitudes still are among investors, yet when you look at surprise indexes, you would think people would feel better about growth. There’s a disconnect.”
Ironically, one of the places that stoked recession fears recently was... Bloomberg. So Bloomberg September 20, meet Bloomberg September 9 with the dire report by Shawn Donnan that "Recession Already Grips Corners of U.S., Menacing Trump’s 2020 Bid."
The attack on trade and globalization that Trump launched in 2016 always had a political calculus, and this helped him win a narrow victory in industrial swing states like Wisconsin. But as Trump bids for a second term there are signs he may have shot his own manufacturing recovery in the foot and undermined his own best argument—a strong economy—for reelection.
But that was bearish Bloomberg then and this is more of bullish Bloomberg now:
Thursday’s raft of U.S. data included the Labor Department’s report on initial filings for unemployment benefits, which matched the most optimistic estimate in Bloomberg’s survey and were just above historically low levels. Elsewhere, the unchanged reading on the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators -- a barometer of future growth -- compared with projections for a decline.
In addition, an industry report on August existing home sales sailed above all forecasts following a report Wednesday showing the strongest pace of housing starts since 2007, signaling that residential construction may add to economic growth in the third quarter for the first time since the end of 2017.
CNN, which a month ago reported that the "good news" of a recession was that it would hurt Trump must be especially hard hit by this bad news for them but good news for almost everyone else.
