Forget Politics, are we heading for a recession

[JustWinBaby]

(09-05-2023, 02:31 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: if you are looking for the sign, it's in the third one.

I was going to say a "soft landing" has never been engineered, but I believe it has once or twice in the last 40 years.

A lot of traditional economic indicators seem to have broken after the 2008 financial crisis.  We had a record long expansion, in years (but likely not in total growth).  And then they papered over a recession during Covid.

We are again pretty highly levered, not unlike in 2008.  Difference is that leverage may be more widespread as opposed to being concentrated [in the mortgage market].  But I think the recent banking stress shows we're on pretty fragile footing.  So they are really trying to thread the needle for a "soft landing".  My guess is we won't see anything as severe as 2008, but something akin to 2001 is a distinct possibility.  There's a bubble in VC/Tech/SPAC that looks a lot like the old dotcom bubble.

I haven't looked at Uber in a while, but perfect example.  There guidance had been, basically, that they'll never be profitable until their fleet is all self-driving cars.  When you jack up interest rates like this, you're going to kill companies like that who have been propped up with easy money.