Employment is growing, yet reports of mass layoffs are running rampant. Inflation is falling, yet food and energy prices are still sky-high. It's no wonder economists don't know what to expect.
The New Yorker delves into the divided opinions among economists about where the economy is headed. The National Association for Business Economics' latest survey of 48 professional forecasters was all over the place about the future of inflation, jobs, and interest rates.
And at a conference on monetary policy that the University of Chicago Booth School of Business hosted in New York recently, the only thing experts could agree on was the "further the Fed raises interest rates, the more likely it is that its inflation-fighting exercise will end in a full-on recession."
The takeaway is that there is no easy answer. Buyers beware of anyone who claims to know precisely where the economy is headed. And give the economists a little mercy, even those at the Fed level. These are unprecedented times for them, too.
