Category SMITH’S RESEARCH & GRADINGS

Forecasting the U.S. economy has become much more challenging, increasingly akin to reading tea leaves than analyzing the results of finely tuned algorithmic models. Part of the problem is that the U.S. economy has drifted into the Great Uncertainty, which is being defined by a multitude of contradictory data signals, a greater emphasis on state-led industrial policy (with massive amounts of money being pumped into targeted sectors over a relatively short period of time), and the popping-up of unexpected geopolitical problems.