April 21, 2014
The Wall Street Journal noted that this recovery is about to pass the average duration for post-war recoveries with no recession clouds on the horizon. The piece also noted the weakness of the recovery and that the unemployment rate is higher now than at the same point in any prior post-war recovery. This weakness is treated as a source of mystery.
Of course arithmetic fans have no difficulty explaining the weakness. In the last business cycle the economy was being driven by the housing bubble. This led to record rates of housing construction (measured as a share of GDP) and record consumption, with the savings rate falling to near zero. Now that the bubble has burst housing has fallen to below normal levels due to the overbuilding of the bubble years and consumption is closer to normal levels, albeit still unusually high relative to income.
What did anyone think could fill the resulting gap in demand? The government sector could do it, but the balanced budget cultists will not let the government run large deficits. Investment is not going to spike to record highs in a weak economy. The trade deficit could close to fill the demand gap, but that would require a sharp fall in the dollar which we have not seen.
In short there is nothing surprising about the weakness of this recovery. The only aspect that is surprising is that economists seem surprised.
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