Daily update
Daily update
- Third quarter GDP data comes out of some European economies, and the US. The data will be wrong because (as recent US revisions so clearly demonstrated) economic statistics fail to capture the rapid pace of structural economic change. Comparing headline GDP in countries like Italy and Germany (declining populations) with countries like the US (rising population) is unfair.
- The general narrative of benign economic growth continues. The US is hovering around trend growth, and Spain may be a little above it. Spanish economic activity has been helped by the trend to spend on having fun. That trend is less helpful for Germany, which prioritizes making goods rather than fun.
- Does any of this matter to the political cycle? It is difficult to believe that anyone will change their vote simply because of the publication of an abstract and somewhat dodgy data point. People already have their perceptions of economic performance, and those perceptions rarely match up to reality. Politics is focused on spin—only economists seem to care about substance.
- Several Eurozone economies give October preliminary inflation data, which may have some slight upside from energy prices. In the UK, the new government delivers a budget, which is of mild interest as it may signal global trends in taxing wealth.
