A Booming Economy?

WSJ Opinion: Free Expression

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The U.S. is enjoying one of its best stretches of economic performance in years. Growth is strong, unemployment is low, and, though it remains elevated, inflation has fallen sharply. As the rest of the world stagnates, America seems to be booming. But how good are things really and can they last? And will the Fed’s continuing struggle to get inflation down eventually push the economy under? On this episode of the Free Expression podcast, economist and former presidential adviser Glenn Hubbard tells Wall Street Journal editor at large Gerry Baker how the Fed is facing a tough challenge to get inflation under 3%, and why he thinks policy will remain tight for some time. But he also says the U.S. is undergoing structural changes such as the rise of generative artificial intelligence that could be improving productivity performance in the long run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Boardrooms love buzzwords.
0:01.9	AI, climate, resilience.
0:03.7	But what do they actually mean for CFOs and execs trying to survive the next earnings call?
0:08.3	That's where the pre-read comes in.
0:09.8	Real experts and real talk.
0:11.6	Subscribe to the pre-read, presented by Workiba.
0:17.1	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.
0:24.5	Hello and welcome to Free Expression from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal.
0:28.4	I'm Jerry Baker, editor at large of the journal. If you're not already subscribing to Free Expression,
0:32.5	please do sign up at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you do, you're listening.
0:36.4	This week, are we in the midst of a
0:38.3	Biden boom? US economy has been on a run of exceptionally strong economic data for months now.
0:44.3	In 2023, gross domestic product expanded by 2.3%. Now, that's somewhat above the trend for the last
0:50.6	few years, but the data suggests that activity was accelerating in the second
0:54.3	half of the year. Growth in the fourth quarter was 3.3% and that followed a rate of 4.9% in the
0:59.9	third quarter. These are exceptional numbers by recent standards. In 2024 started in the same vein.
1:05.9	The jobs market remains buoyant, with employers adding over 300,000 jobs in January, and the unemployment rate
1:11.3	staying near its recent low of well below 4%. Other data have also been strong. Federal Reserve Bank
1:16.8	of Atlanta's estimate of real-time economic growth right now is pointing to growth in the current
1:22.6	quarter of 4.2%. So again, I say this is not only well above trend, but it also makes the US comfortably
1:28.4	the top-performing large economy in the world. Europe is stagnant, Germany's in mild recession in
1:33.7	particular, and China seems locked in a slump. This US strength is all the more remarkable because
	...

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