The Government Has A Clip Full Of Ammo To Fight The Next Recession

Summary: It’s time to prepare for a possible recession in 2016. The manufacturing slump continues to deepen. A toxic combo: high inventories in November and weak retail sales in December. In February this expansion will tie for the 3rd longest expansion. {2nd of 2 posts today.}

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPnow model just lowered its est for Q4 real GDP from +0.8% to +0.6%. It is not better than carbon-based economists, but provides a different perspective. The *average* revision of real GDP is 1.2% from the advance announcement (coming Jan 20) to the final. The standard deviation is 1.0 — so a 2.4% revision is commonplace (roughly once every five years). Q4 real GDP could easily be red. We might already be in a recession.

Many people believe that the “government is out of bullets” to fight the next recession. We can take reassurance in the fact that they are wrong, and that the government has powerful tools to fight the next recession. We are not back in the horrific late 19th century, with its frequent and deep recessions — and no government counter-cyclical action.