Despite a weaker than expected payroll employment report – which gets outsized attention from financial markets -- the preponderance of the evidence this week suggests sustained strong growth as we move through the peak of the manufacturing cycle. The revised GDP data show that the economy has been running hotter than earlier reported. The ISM data confirmed we are still running hot in August. The ADP data said hiring remained strong. The personal income data confirms that em

The preponderance of the evidence is that the US economy is running hot due to the AI boom. The explosion in demand for certain products has caused bottlenecks, which naturally result in substantially higher prices – and profits – for select producers. The current and expected future returns to these firms are so high that they are essentially insensitive to prices and interest rates, leading to strong borrowing, and -- as a result of the Federal Reserve defending too low an

Long time readers will know that twenty-five years ago, I was one of the attendees at the NABE conference at the World Trade Center on 9/11. As we all remember that tragedy, commemorating those that lost their lives – and celebrating the heroism of the all the first responders involved across the nation -- I have attached the piece I wrote about six months after escaping the towers, titled: My September 11th Story. For the fifth anniversary of 9/11, my oldest daughter, Sharar