May 21, 2017
COMPARE AND CONTRAST HOOVER/FDR TO W/UR:
Global Economy Is in Sync (Theophilos Argitis and Blaise Robinson, 5/20/17, Bloomberg)
With the first-quarter earnings season coming to a close, the verdict is in on the synchronized global expansion: It's alive and well.A picture of strong earnings growth and positive surprises has emerged across both industries and geography, adding to evidence the world's major economies are increasingly running in lockstep.It's a reassuring development that should bolster confidence in the resiliency of the expansion at a time when economic data have painted a mixed picture. "Hard" data such as gross domestic product have been less convincing than the largely rosier consumer and business sentiment surveys worldwide. A more broad-based recovery should also ease worries about a maturing U.S. business cycle that may no longer be able to do as much of the heavy lifting for the world economy."The global backdrop is going to be constructive and this phase of the cycle has longer to run," said Jean Boivin, head of economic and markets research at BlackRock. "We see these earnings being consistent with this backdrop story."
It was yet another sign of Special Providence that saw Ben Bernanke at the Fed to correct his own mistakes in 2008. Although, it would obviously have been better to directly pay down consumer debts than to transfer money to the banks themselves.
Posted by Orrin Judd at May 21, 2017 8:23 AM