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Key Insights:
The disjunction between all the economic data having been very good and very strong for the past year and tons of reports and commentary about how people “weren’t feeling it” is mostly the result of the fact that things work with lags.
There are other factors: partisan politics, and the insistence of Republicans that they must not only vote but also at least say that they agree with their tribe.
There are other factors: the old journalistic adage that “what bleeds, leads”, exponentiated by the effects of our current short attention-span clickbait culture.
There are other factors: journalists, commentators, and the rest of the shouting class are depressed as their industries collapse around them, and somewhat of their situation leaks through.
There are other factors: while people think they personally are doing well, they do remember stories of others not doing wellm and are concerned.
But mostly it was just that things operate with lags: that was the major source of the “vibecession” gloom-and-doom which was at sharp variance with the actual economic dataflow.
We are not the modelers: we are, rather, the agents in the model.
The metanarrative is always harder than the narrative: trying to answer “why don’t people say they think the economy is good?” is very hard to answer in a non-stupid way, and most of us are much better off just saying: “hey, guys, the economy is really good!”
It is good to be long reality—as long as you are not so leveraged that your position gets sold out from under you before the market marks itself to reality,.
Lags gotta lag.
And, finally, hexapodia!
References:
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Cummings, Ryan, & Neale Mahoney. 2023. “Asymmetric amplification and the consumer sentiment gap”. Briefing Book, November 13. <http://briefingbook.info/p/asymmetric-amplification-and-the>.
El-Erian, Mohamed. 2024. “A warning shot over the last mile in the inflation battle’. Financial Times, January 15. <https://www.ft.com/content/497499b1-0e9f-4215-a536-ecd483ad42b9>.
Faroohar, Rana. 2024. “Is Bidenomics dead on arrival? The time is ripe for the administration to rethink its messaging”. Financial Times, December 18. <https://www.ft.com/content/816ccbf7-d0d5-47be-9c8d-8a8a0cbd0afe>.
Fedor, Lauren, & Colby Smith. 2023, “Will US voters believe they are better off with Biden? Under pressure after a string of damning polls, the US president is resting his hopes for re-election on his personal economic blueprint”. Financial Times, November 6. <https://www.ft.com/content/23687b6b-ac6f-46ab-a701-917a5ed64f4f>.
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Ghosh, Bobby. 2022. “Biden’s a Better Economic Manager Than You Think:
On more than a dozen measures of relative prosperity, he’s outperformed the last six of his seven predecessors. On reducing the budget deficit, he has no peers”. Bloomberg, November 8. <https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-08/midterm-elections-joe-biden-led-us-economy-surprisingly-well>
Greenberg, Stanley. 2024. “The Political Perils of Democrats’ Rose-Colored Glasses: Paul Krugman’s (and many Democrats’) beliefs about the economy and crime miss the reality that Americans still experience”. American Prospect, February 5. <https://prospect.org/politics/2024-02-05-political-perils-democrats-rose-colored-glasses/>.
Hsu, Joanne. 2024. “Surveys of Consumers: Final Results for January 2024”. February 2. <http://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/>.
Krugman, Paul. 2024. “Is the Vibecession Finally Coming to an End?” New York Times, January 22. <https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/22/opinion/biden-trump-vibecession-economy.html>.
Lowenkron, Hadriana. 2023. “Biden’s Approval Rating Hits New Low on Economic Worries, Poll Shows”. Bloomberg, December 18. <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-18/biden-approval-hits-new-low-on-economic-worries-poll-shows>,
Millard, Blake. 2024. “Consumer confidence highest in 2 years, still below pre-pandemic levels”. Sandbox Daily, February 6. <http://thesandboxdaily.com/p/consumer-confidence-plus-apple-and>.
Omeokwe, Amara, & Chip Cutter. 2024. “Job Gains Picked Up in December, Capping Year of Healthy Hiring”. Wall Street Journal, January 5. <https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/jobs-report-december-today-unemployment-economy-58801a70>.
Rubin, Gabriel. 2024. “What Recession? Growth Ended Up Accelerating in 2023”. Wall Street Journal, January 25. <https://www.wsj.com/economy/gdp-us-economy-fourth-quarter-2023-9fc372f0>.
Scanlon, Kyla. 2022. “The Vibecession: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”. Kyla’s Newsletter, June 30. <http://kyla.substack.com/p/the-vibecession-the-self-fulfillin>.
Sen, Conor. 2023. “Unhappy American Consumers Will Welcome a Slower Economy”. Bloomberg, November 29. <https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-29/unhappy-american-consumers-will-welcome-a-slower-economy>
Scanlon, Kyla. 2023. “It’s More than Just Vibes”. Kyla’s Newsletter, December 7. <http://kyla.substack.com/p/its-more-than-just-vibes>.
Torry, Harriet, & Anthony DeBarros. 2023. “Economists in WSJ Survey Still See Recession This Year Despite Easing Inflation”. Wall Street Journal, January 15. <https://www.wsj.com/articles/despite-easing-price-pressures-economists-in-wsj-survey-still-see-recession-this-year-11673723571>.
Winkler, Matthew A. 2023. “The Truth About the Biden Economy: As the president launches his reelection campaign, his biggest challenge may be getting voters to ignore perception and focus on reality”. Bloomberg, April 25. <https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-04-25/biden-s-economy-deserves-more-appreciation-from-americans>.
Wingrove, Josh. 2024. “Biden Refines Economic Pitch for 2024 in Bet Worst Is Behind Him”. Bloomberg, January 13. <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-13/biden-refines-economic-pitch-for-2024-in-bet-worst-is-behind-him>.
+, of course:
Vinge, Vernor. 1992. A Fire Upon the Deep. New York: TOR. <https://archive.org/details/fireupondeep00ving_0>.
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