10 ms·

Regardless of your ideological background, you cannot possibly assert the U.S economy is healthy. 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. QE is not

by dataker 11y ago

Regardless of your ideological background, you cannot possibly assert the U.S economy is healthy. 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. QE is not healthy. 100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. Inflating assets is not healthy. A vanishing middle-class is not healthy.

forgetsusername 11y ago
>QE is not healthy QE is over (though, I wouldn't be shocked to see more). >0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. Why not? >100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. Why not? I mean, I wouldn't call the US economy "flourishing" or anything. But it's not sick, and relative to the rest of the world it's looking pretty good (as the strong dollar and low rates imply).
- cm2187 11y ago
  QE is not over. The balance sheet of the Fed hasn't gone down. What is over is QE expending.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Well... what maturity bonds did the Fed buy? How long ago did they start buying them? The Fed's current plan is to let them expire. If I recall correctly, a big part of what the Fed bought was 2-3 year duration (but I could be mistaken). Some of that should have already expired; more should do so soon.
- dataker 11y ago
  QE is 'over'(for now), but it has shaped today's economy. There may have QE4. Artificially low interest rates is the main cause of most malinvestment and inflating assets. Usually ends with a pretty rough recession. For debt, I could just say 'Greece/Argentina/Brazil/Japan/...', but(yes) these aren't the world's reserve currency. U.S could just pay its debt to China by 'printing money' Still, it also severely hurt Americans and is probably the main problem for the middle class. Wages don't keep up with inflation and assets are inflated, so their purchasing power is smaller and citizens usually get indebted themselves.
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    "'Greece/Argentina/Brazil/Japan/...'" ... were all just barely over 100% debt / GDP when things went bad? I don't recall that being the case. It is surely true that there can be unsustainable levels of debt. You have not made the case that those are anywhere near 100% GDP. I would be surprised if there were any fixed number of GDP where it goes from good to bad - it's going to at least depend on the cost of borrowing that money, and that also looks much different between the US and many other countries (very much including the countries you listed).
    - forgetsusername 11y ago
      >were all just barely over 100% debt / GDP when things went bad? Indeed. It's amazing to me that people don't blink an eye at borrowing 8-10x their annual income to buy a home in California, but think the US economy, which can print its own currency, is going to fold with debt levels at 1x income and rates at historic lows.
      - sillygeese 11y ago
        Perhaps those are not the same people? Bear in mind that printing currency is not without consequences either. It's not like each printed (and used) dollar is worth exactly as much as the previous one - otherwise hyperinflations could not happen.
      - dllthomas 11y ago
        I think that metaphor is useful for driving intuition about how it might not be a problem, if people aren't seeing that. I do worry about relying on it much beyond that. Households, companies, and governments all have balance sheets, but there are tremendous differences.
      - bsbechtel 11y ago
        Actually, debt is held by the US Government, which has had historic average revenues of ~18% GDP. Therefore, to have 100% debt/GDP is actually the US Government borrowing 5.5x their annual income.
cryoshon 11y ago
I keep trying to tell people, but they've drank the koolaid from the mainstream media, unfortunately... the facts as you have listed them are there for anyone to think about, but the rabid "EVERYTHING IS FINE, SHUT UP AND BUY MORE" crowd won't have the thought of weak fundamentals in their head. Many of the problems are "easy" to fix with government action, but the consequences of the easy fixes are problematic.
- golergka 11y ago
  > they've drank the koolaid > the rabid ... crowd won't have the thought of weak fundamentals If you've been telling people using the same level of rhetoric and the same amount of facts as in this comment, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't listen to you, regardless of whether you're actually right or not.
  - jazzyk 11y ago
    It is probably out of frustration, because whatever language you use to argue something which is not supported by the mass media is rejected by most people as being 'fringe' or 'kooky' (Ron Paul being a well-known example). The public is only slowly waking up to the fact that mass media ownership has been consolidated among 5-6 major corporate/industrial conglomerates. Slowly, hence the frustration.
    - cryoshon 11y ago
      Yes, this is exactly it. You can use whatever technical indicators or statistics you want to create your alternative narrative, but if it isn't the MSM's narrative (which is frequently very poorly researched and extremely corrupted by outside interests) you won't be listened to because you're not "the authority" on the issue. The media has been on the bullhorn about "the recovery" for years now, trying to make it happen by repeating that it's already happening. It's no surprise that this language rings hollow for many people; the GDP of a country and the stock valuations on an index do not necessarily mean that there is a genuinely healthy economy. These kinds of discussions never take into account labor force participation, only rarely QE, geopolitics, actual volume of consumer goods moved, actual market liquidity, etc.
czbond 11y ago
You're on such a roll with truth, I'll add too it. Wholesale orders are falling off a cliff, huge backlogs of oil, railroad shipments down sharply, container shipments down sharply, chinese currency re-set, etc.
- notNow 11y ago
  #TRUMP2016 Let's make America great, again?
notNow 11y ago
Cherry picking much?
pvnick 11y ago
Agreed. The stock market has been propped up by the FED for the past 6 years with free money from near-0% interest rates. Great for the folks close to the money supply (bankers, rich folks with lots of investments, etc), not so great for the middle/lower class. The best thing that can happen is to bite the bullet and raise interest rates.
walod 11y ago
If the economy picked up there wouldn't be a problem. It's apparently better than a total crash, because the economy has to go on either way. The problem is what products and services can we make to make the economy grow again and to employ people. Also you may get malinvestments, but that is what risk is all about. No risk, no gain, you know. You just need a few homeruns to cushion the bad ones and the big homeruns are the ones that create whole new markets and longer employment. How to function and survive in the economy is difficult for everyone and it's a big clusterfuck of complexity and short term thinking, so it's all related in many ways. I think QE and 0% interest rate is the smallest of our problems as far as long term goes
fweespeech 11y ago
Honestly, I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about. You aren't wrong, per-say, you just list all things that have literally 0 to do with the actual problems. Its a very common political trick for an ideologue like yourself to grab a bunch of things they think are bad and argue they are the cause of all your ills. You are approaching things from a "this is good for people, it must be good for the country" point of view. A national economy is not a person and doesn't function on the same economic rules as a person does. The real problem in this country, frankly, is the Federal Government has been badly mismanaging economic & tax policy for 30+ years. They've repeatedly used short term solutions and short-changed everything from highways to R&D in the name of military, taxes, & social spending. Many long term investments in physical goods [e.g. buildings] are really only rated for a 30ish year timeline for depreciation for a reason. That combined with the demographic shifts, labor market arbitrage, massive private debt load are the actual problems. Did you bitch when the private debt to gdp was over 120%? Did you even think about it, honestly? I'd list sources but I honestly think you wouldn't believe me. ---- > A vanishing middle-class is not healthy. By that logic, the US economy has in the shitter since the 1980s. > Inflating assets is not healthy. Actually, inflating prices is the definition of healthy and has been for a long time in economic theory. No economist argues we should have deflation. > QE is not healthy. & 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. Having deflation would be less healthy than 0% interest and QE. QE is also over. > 100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. That isn't a serious issue as long as the US is considered the reserve currency. National debt doesn't have a direct correlation with economic growth. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/government-debt-isnt-the-problemprivate-debt-is/379865/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/governme... > Government Debt Isn't the Problem—Private Debt Is > What was the big problem? Look at the line representing private debt. It clearly is not parallel to the GDP line and, indeed, reflects a rapid growth of private debt relative to GDP. > Look familiar? Time and again, that’s the story we found: A major financial crisis is preceded by a runup in private debt relative to GDP. In fact, there seems to be only one other ingredient required for a crisis: that the absolute level of private debt is high to begin with. We found that almost all instances of rapid debt growth coupled with high overall levels of private debt have led to crises.
- civilframe 11y ago
brianclements 11y ago
>100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy By itself, there's no reason it's unhealthy if it's spent on solid investments in the country. After WWII when it was last way above 100%, the composition of that spending had a much better effect on the country. Now? What's the nature of the current debt? I'd agree that it's not so wisely spent.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Regardless of your ideological background, you cannot possibly assert the U.S economy is healthy. Sure you can (note, I wouldn't, but that's a different issue); standards for "health" of an economy are deeply ideological.
CWuestefeld 11y ago
A vanishing middle-class is not healthy. Everyone's been picking at all your claims except this one, so let me jump in on this part. You've been drinking too much of the kool-aid. It's certainly fashionable for talking heads to spout platitudes about the middle class, but it doesn't match the real world. The picture that's being painted is that the vast majority of us will be living lives as serfs, while a group of oligarchs (the arbitrarily mythical 1%) determine our fates while eating grapes and being fanned. That's not what's happening. In fact, the VAST majority of Americans are better off than they ever have been. Check out this [1], for example, based on US census data. Yes, the middle class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower class, they’ve risen into the upper class Further, in the demographics where we have seen increases in inequality, the lion's share of the change has been the result of lifestyle choices made by the individual. Imagine a social order - call it "A" - in which most people are paired off and raising a family. In that world, a large portion of the families have two incomes, which are going to pay for a single rent or mortgage bill, a single set of utility expenses, etc. Imagine another society, "B", in which many of the folks corresponding to those paired adults have instead decided to go it alone, either by way of divorce, or even deciding to have a family with no mate. Isn't it obvious that in society "B", the un-paired "families" are going to have far less aggregate income ('cause there's not a second breadwinner earning that income), and are going to have much greater expenses at the same time ('cause there's not a mate to share housing and utilities, and in fact other things like dining may need to be outsourced, that being the result of not having a mate to cooperate with)? And compared to those families that are following the "A" model, it'll appear that the "B"s have a disadvantage? It doesn't apply for every case, but for most "B"s, a decline in purchasing power for the family is directly explainable by their own choices. We might wish that our choices had fewer side effects, but we can't blame it on others who made different choices. [1] http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been-disappearing-but-they-havent-fallen-into-the-lower-class-theyve-risen-into-the-upper-class/ http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been...
- api 11y ago
  I started reading and after the second sentence was waiting for a reference to AEI. I was not disappointed. There's something very ironically Soviet about certain sectors of the American right. I'm sure at the height of Communism there were official mouthpieces that talked bout how everything was getting better, and I'm sure reading them was just as bizarre and vertigo-inducing like "what parallel universe do these people inhabit?" Ideologies die hard. You can cherry pick statistics to attempt to argue anything, but the scenario you describe does not match the real world.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
It's nearly unknowable what the optimum debt/GDP ratio is. This being said, GDP isn't growing fast enough. And what inflation? Outside VC money and the stock market ( and the peripheral real estate markets to those ) there isn't any.
jusben1369 11y ago
> 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy That's not healthy or unhealthy. It's just a thing. > QE is not healthy Ask Europe that didn't do quantitative easing (or did too little too late) which economy they'd rather have right now. And it's no longer a thing - because it ran its course and largely worked. >Inflating assets is not healthy Some classes of assets are inflating. Some are deflating. Again it's a little vague. > 100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. It was never higher than right before the boom of the 50's and 60's so... Agree with you on the impact on the middle class. But I think you can assert on the balance of things that the economy is healthy vs not. You've obviously ignored a lot of positive stats around employment growth and economic growth.
- wutbrodo 11y ago
  >> 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy > That's not healthy or unhealthy. It's just a thing. I agree with you generally, but this response is a little silly. What does "it's just a thing" even mean? Given that there's no ironclad economic consensus on this question yet, it's more comfortable to not spend too much time sitting on the ZLB. Now that doesn't suggest anything specific about what costs should be incurred to get away from the ZLB[1], but all else held equal, it's not unreasonable to suggest that staying near zero for so long is a bit more uncomfortable than having a bit of a buffer to lower rates. [1]i.e., I'm not taking the oft-heard position that we need to do what it takes to raise rates NOW before it's too late
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - jusben1369 11y ago
    There's this general sentiment that it should be between 1-3%. But it's just a sentiment mostly based on historical experience. But the global economy is constantly evolving; China wasn't really even a blip on the radar 15-20 years ago. So whose to say what the right level is except the one that is attempting to balance inflation and employment goals.
wahsd 11y ago
But at least home prices are back to bubble levels ... so there's that, right?

by dataker 11y ago

forgetsusername 11y ago

>QE is not healthy QE is over (though, I wouldn't be shocked to see more). >0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. Why not? >100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. Why not? I mean, I wouldn't call the US economy "flourishing" or anything. But it's not sick, and relative to the rest of the world it's looking pretty good (as the strong dollar and low rates imply).

cm2187 11y ago
QE is not over. The balance sheet of the Fed hasn't gone down. What is over is QE expending.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Well... what maturity bonds did the Fed buy? How long ago did they start buying them? The Fed's current plan is to let them expire. If I recall correctly, a big part of what the Fed bought was 2-3 year duration (but I could be mistaken). Some of that should have already expired; more should do so soon.
dataker 11y ago
QE is 'over'(for now), but it has shaped today's economy. There may have QE4. Artificially low interest rates is the main cause of most malinvestment and inflating assets. Usually ends with a pretty rough recession. For debt, I could just say 'Greece/Argentina/Brazil/Japan/...', but(yes) these aren't the world's reserve currency. U.S could just pay its debt to China by 'printing money' Still, it also severely hurt Americans and is probably the main problem for the middle class. Wages don't keep up with inflation and assets are inflated, so their purchasing power is smaller and citizens usually get indebted themselves.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  "'Greece/Argentina/Brazil/Japan/...'" ... were all just barely over 100% debt / GDP when things went bad? I don't recall that being the case. It is surely true that there can be unsustainable levels of debt. You have not made the case that those are anywhere near 100% GDP. I would be surprised if there were any fixed number of GDP where it goes from good to bad - it's going to at least depend on the cost of borrowing that money, and that also looks much different between the US and many other countries (very much including the countries you listed).
  - forgetsusername 11y ago
    >were all just barely over 100% debt / GDP when things went bad? Indeed. It's amazing to me that people don't blink an eye at borrowing 8-10x their annual income to buy a home in California, but think the US economy, which can print its own currency, is going to fold with debt levels at 1x income and rates at historic lows.
    - sillygeese 11y ago
      Perhaps those are not the same people? Bear in mind that printing currency is not without consequences either. It's not like each printed (and used) dollar is worth exactly as much as the previous one - otherwise hyperinflations could not happen.
    - dllthomas 11y ago
      I think that metaphor is useful for driving intuition about how it might not be a problem, if people aren't seeing that. I do worry about relying on it much beyond that. Households, companies, and governments all have balance sheets, but there are tremendous differences.
    - bsbechtel 11y ago
      Actually, debt is held by the US Government, which has had historic average revenues of ~18% GDP. Therefore, to have 100% debt/GDP is actually the US Government borrowing 5.5x their annual income.

cryoshon 11y ago

I keep trying to tell people, but they've drank the koolaid from the mainstream media, unfortunately... the facts as you have listed them are there for anyone to think about, but the rabid "EVERYTHING IS FINE, SHUT UP AND BUY MORE" crowd won't have the thought of weak fundamentals in their head. Many of the problems are "easy" to fix with government action, but the consequences of the easy fixes are problematic.

golergka 11y ago
> they've drank the koolaid > the rabid ... crowd won't have the thought of weak fundamentals If you've been telling people using the same level of rhetoric and the same amount of facts as in this comment, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't listen to you, regardless of whether you're actually right or not.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  It is probably out of frustration, because whatever language you use to argue something which is not supported by the mass media is rejected by most people as being 'fringe' or 'kooky' (Ron Paul being a well-known example). The public is only slowly waking up to the fact that mass media ownership has been consolidated among 5-6 major corporate/industrial conglomerates. Slowly, hence the frustration.
  - cryoshon 11y ago
    Yes, this is exactly it. You can use whatever technical indicators or statistics you want to create your alternative narrative, but if it isn't the MSM's narrative (which is frequently very poorly researched and extremely corrupted by outside interests) you won't be listened to because you're not "the authority" on the issue. The media has been on the bullhorn about "the recovery" for years now, trying to make it happen by repeating that it's already happening. It's no surprise that this language rings hollow for many people; the GDP of a country and the stock valuations on an index do not necessarily mean that there is a genuinely healthy economy. These kinds of discussions never take into account labor force participation, only rarely QE, geopolitics, actual volume of consumer goods moved, actual market liquidity, etc.

czbond 11y ago

You're on such a roll with truth, I'll add too it. Wholesale orders are falling off a cliff, huge backlogs of oil, railroad shipments down sharply, container shipments down sharply, chinese currency re-set, etc.

notNow 11y ago
#TRUMP2016 Let's make America great, again?

notNow 11y ago

Cherry picking much?

pvnick 11y ago

Agreed. The stock market has been propped up by the FED for the past 6 years with free money from near-0% interest rates. Great for the folks close to the money supply (bankers, rich folks with lots of investments, etc), not so great for the middle/lower class. The best thing that can happen is to bite the bullet and raise interest rates.

walod 11y ago

If the economy picked up there wouldn't be a problem. It's apparently better than a total crash, because the economy has to go on either way. The problem is what products and services can we make to make the economy grow again and to employ people. Also you may get malinvestments, but that is what risk is all about. No risk, no gain, you know. You just need a few homeruns to cushion the bad ones and the big homeruns are the ones that create whole new markets and longer employment. How to function and survive in the economy is difficult for everyone and it's a big clusterfuck of complexity and short term thinking, so it's all related in many ways. I think QE and 0% interest rate is the smallest of our problems as far as long term goes

fweespeech 11y ago

Honestly, I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about. You aren't wrong, per-say, you just list all things that have literally 0 to do with the actual problems. Its a very common political trick for an ideologue like yourself to grab a bunch of things they think are bad and argue they are the cause of all your ills. You are approaching things from a "this is good for people, it must be good for the country" point of view. A national economy is not a person and doesn't function on the same economic rules as a person does. The real problem in this country, frankly, is the Federal Government has been badly mismanaging economic & tax policy for 30+ years. They've repeatedly used short term solutions and short-changed everything from highways to R&D in the name of military, taxes, & social spending. Many long term investments in physical goods [e.g. buildings] are really only rated for a 30ish year timeline for depreciation for a reason. That combined with the demographic shifts, labor market arbitrage, massive private debt load are the actual problems. Did you bitch when the private debt to gdp was over 120%? Did you even think about it, honestly? I'd list sources but I honestly think you wouldn't believe me. ---- > A vanishing middle-class is not healthy. By that logic, the US economy has in the shitter since the 1980s. > Inflating assets is not healthy. Actually, inflating prices is the definition of healthy and has been for a long time in economic theory. No economist argues we should have deflation. > QE is not healthy. & 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. Having deflation would be less healthy than 0% interest and QE. QE is also over. > 100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. That isn't a serious issue as long as the US is considered the reserve currency. National debt doesn't have a direct correlation with economic growth. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/government-debt-isnt-the-problemprivate-debt-is/379865/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/governme... > Government Debt Isn't the Problem—Private Debt Is > What was the big problem? Look at the line representing private debt. It clearly is not parallel to the GDP line and, indeed, reflects a rapid growth of private debt relative to GDP. > Look familiar? Time and again, that’s the story we found: A major financial crisis is preceded by a runup in private debt relative to GDP. In fact, there seems to be only one other ingredient required for a crisis: that the absolute level of private debt is high to begin with. We found that almost all instances of rapid debt growth coupled with high overall levels of private debt have led to crises.

civilframe 11y ago

brianclements 11y ago

>100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy By itself, there's no reason it's unhealthy if it's spent on solid investments in the country. After WWII when it was last way above 100%, the composition of that spending had a much better effect on the country. Now? What's the nature of the current debt? I'd agree that it's not so wisely spent.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Regardless of your ideological background, you cannot possibly assert the U.S economy is healthy. Sure you can (note, I wouldn't, but that's a different issue); standards for "health" of an economy are deeply ideological.

CWuestefeld 11y ago

A vanishing middle-class is not healthy. Everyone's been picking at all your claims except this one, so let me jump in on this part. You've been drinking too much of the kool-aid. It's certainly fashionable for talking heads to spout platitudes about the middle class, but it doesn't match the real world. The picture that's being painted is that the vast majority of us will be living lives as serfs, while a group of oligarchs (the arbitrarily mythical 1%) determine our fates while eating grapes and being fanned. That's not what's happening. In fact, the VAST majority of Americans are better off than they ever have been. Check out this [1], for example, based on US census data. Yes, the middle class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower class, they’ve risen into the upper class Further, in the demographics where we have seen increases in inequality, the lion's share of the change has been the result of lifestyle choices made by the individual. Imagine a social order - call it "A" - in which most people are paired off and raising a family. In that world, a large portion of the families have two incomes, which are going to pay for a single rent or mortgage bill, a single set of utility expenses, etc. Imagine another society, "B", in which many of the folks corresponding to those paired adults have instead decided to go it alone, either by way of divorce, or even deciding to have a family with no mate. Isn't it obvious that in society "B", the un-paired "families" are going to have far less aggregate income ('cause there's not a second breadwinner earning that income), and are going to have much greater expenses at the same time ('cause there's not a mate to share housing and utilities, and in fact other things like dining may need to be outsourced, that being the result of not having a mate to cooperate with)? And compared to those families that are following the "A" model, it'll appear that the "B"s have a disadvantage? It doesn't apply for every case, but for most "B"s, a decline in purchasing power for the family is directly explainable by their own choices. We might wish that our choices had fewer side effects, but we can't blame it on others who made different choices. [1] http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been-disappearing-but-they-havent-fallen-into-the-lower-class-theyve-risen-into-the-upper-class/ http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been...

api 11y ago
I started reading and after the second sentence was waiting for a reference to AEI. I was not disappointed. There's something very ironically Soviet about certain sectors of the American right. I'm sure at the height of Communism there were official mouthpieces that talked bout how everything was getting better, and I'm sure reading them was just as bizarre and vertigo-inducing like "what parallel universe do these people inhabit?" Ideologies die hard. You can cherry pick statistics to attempt to argue anything, but the scenario you describe does not match the real world.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

It's nearly unknowable what the optimum debt/GDP ratio is. This being said, GDP isn't growing fast enough. And what inflation? Outside VC money and the stock market ( and the peripheral real estate markets to those ) there isn't any.

jusben1369 11y ago

> 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy That's not healthy or unhealthy. It's just a thing. > QE is not healthy Ask Europe that didn't do quantitative easing (or did too little too late) which economy they'd rather have right now. And it's no longer a thing - because it ran its course and largely worked. >Inflating assets is not healthy Some classes of assets are inflating. Some are deflating. Again it's a little vague. > 100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. It was never higher than right before the boom of the 50's and 60's so... Agree with you on the impact on the middle class. But I think you can assert on the balance of things that the economy is healthy vs not. You've obviously ignored a lot of positive stats around employment growth and economic growth.

wutbrodo 11y ago
>> 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy > That's not healthy or unhealthy. It's just a thing. I agree with you generally, but this response is a little silly. What does "it's just a thing" even mean? Given that there's no ironclad economic consensus on this question yet, it's more comfortable to not spend too much time sitting on the ZLB. Now that doesn't suggest anything specific about what costs should be incurred to get away from the ZLB[1], but all else held equal, it's not unreasonable to suggest that staying near zero for so long is a bit more uncomfortable than having a bit of a buffer to lower rates. [1]i.e., I'm not taking the oft-heard position that we need to do what it takes to raise rates NOW before it's too late
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jusben1369 11y ago
  There's this general sentiment that it should be between 1-3%. But it's just a sentiment mostly based on historical experience. But the global economy is constantly evolving; China wasn't really even a blip on the radar 15-20 years ago. So whose to say what the right level is except the one that is attempting to balance inflation and employment goals.

wahsd 11y ago

But at least home prices are back to bubble levels ... so there's that, right?