It's a new year and we wanted to get a sense of where the economy is at.

So we called up our colleague, Gwen Gilford.

In one word, how would you describe the economy in 2022?

Confusing.

Okay, so looking at 2023, what do you see?

So 2023 will possibly be even more confusing than 2022.

Last year was confusing because inflation was rocketing up and yet the economy kept

chugging along with low unemployment and rising wages.

So, yeah, that's confusing.

We have all these signs where you can look at them and be like, oh, yeah, like things

are really not good.

I mean, inflation is one of them and also like different labor market indicators.

It's just like going through a month of economic indicators is an exercise in a lot of whiplash.

And where you're like, this is good, but it's bad.

Right.

This is bad, but it's good.

Right.

There's a lot of internal inconsistency right now.

So it is a little bit hard to figure out whether the economy is really as strong as some

measures make it look or really as weak as some measures make it look.

So what will happen to the economy in 2023?

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

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