No matter what horizon you're looking at this is too high. (Although there is a case that it is transitory due to tariffs.)
Here are the full set of numbers.
Services excluding housing is the one slice that is muted. But that is what we were counting on to get inflation back to 2%. The problem is goods inflation of this magnitude was not expected (prior to tariffs).
There were massive timing shifts that shifted reported growth from Q1 to Q2. The much better way to look at the data is averaging the two which is a 1.2% annual rate. That is well below the pace in 2024 or the Nov 2024 forecast for 2025-H1.
Here are the GDP numbers. In Q1 inventories added 2.6pp but imports subtracted 4.6pp. In Q2 it was the reverse, with inventories subtracting 3.2pp and imports adding 5.0pp. These are volatile categories and inventories, in particular, have large measurement error.
Here are those import and inventory numbers. In Q1 firms imported a lot to get ahead of tariffs. Then in Q2 imports fell back down to a more normal pace (about the same as in 2024). A lot of those imports went into inventories in Q1 and came out of them in Q2.
You can see signs of tariffs in these numbers and that is only likely to grow.
Here are core goods and core services. The service increase is relatively normal (even muted as shelter was low this month). Goods was unusually high including increases in tariffs sensitive items like appliances and apparel.
Here are the full set of numbers. Notably everything ex housing is worse for the month of June, a reversal of the pattern we had seen earlier.
Senator's Cassidy and Kaine outline a plan to "rescue" Social Security. Both Senators are very thoughtful, bipartisanship on this issue is essential, but unfortunately I'm mostly skeptical on this proposal.
This 🧵 outlines some of the major considerations:
They propose the government borrowing $1.5 trillion to invest in stocks..
Simultaneously general revenue would cover full Social Security full benefits.
The way the government, or at least the Social Security acturies, does its accounting their plan works. Eg assume a 5% borrowing cost & 9% stock return then after 75 yrs govt hedge fund has net ~$640T, or ~$25T NPV--same as Social Security shortfall.
The extraordinary U.S. economy continues to be extraordinary. 147K jobs added in June with upward revisions to April and May. Unemployment rate ticks down to 4.1%. Some contrary signs: participation rate down and hours down + weak wage growth.
Note all of this while the Federal government continues to shed jobs--although the job reductions (averaging 11k per month this year) are still small compared to underlying private sector job trends. (And in June state and local education increases overwhelmed federal cuts.)
Core PCE inflation came in just as expected. It has been very tame for the last three months--but shouldn't think of them in isolation but as part of a noisy process where inflation was much higher before.