2024: The Year Ahead
One year ago, we along with the vast majority of mainstream economists were predicting that the US economy would experience a cyclical recession. Not a deep one, not a cataclysm like 2008 or a manufactured one like 2020, but a regular old end-of-the-business-cycle recession. After all, interest rates had gone up by more than at any time since the draconian “Volcker shocks” of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Household savings were dwindling down to their lowest levels in decades as those extra cushions from pandemic-era stimulus payments wore off. Corporate management teams were warning of trouble ahead: “uncertain macro conditions” was one of the most frequently-heard phrases in quarterly earnings calls. Credit conditions would tighten on already-indebted households.