Down from the post-Covid bounce but not in any kind of collapse:

More evidence we had a soft landing, cushioned by the rate hikes that supported personal income.

And no sign the rate hikes have slowed lending. If anything looks like they support it:

Back to pre-Covid levels of GDP growth:

As previously discussed, with oil prices coming down the inflation problem ends.

(The month to month change in CPI was 0)

And what happens next depends on what oil prices do next.

I suspect they go a lot higher as Saudi OSPs remain elevated and speculative long positions taken on when the war in Ukraine started seem to have been sold in anticipation of recession. And while refining margins are down from the highs, they remain elevated, indicating refiners, the only buyers of crude oil, are continuing to run flat out.

This is about borrowing to spend, indicating positive spending and GDP:

Pressures easing here:

And this may indicate global spending is holding up:

So in short we had Covid deficit spending north of 15% of GDP supporting strong growth, followed by a collapse in deficit spending that resulted in a strong deceleration of growth. However sufficient deficit spending remains (about 5% of GDP) to sustain more modest levels of growth.

This is adding support to employment and output, even as consumption weakens. The relatively low cost of energy should keep it going for a while:

No sign of recession here:

Still falling short of price increases so obviously not the cause:

Still in positive growth:

A bit softer after a post-Covid acceleration:

Took a zig down last month but still very high and still trending higher:

Lending continues higher well after the rate hikes, which presumably work to cut demand by dampening lending:

Flattening with the fiscal contraction, but no recession yet:

Thank goodness for the rate hikes and their support of personal income ;)

Weak headline, but so far not looking as bad as most mistakenly expected with Fed rate hikes:

Slowing in real terms but growing:

Growing fast in nominal terms:

This is telling:

They’ve generally been falling off for several years, though up a bit for the last three months since the rate hikes:

Not adjusted for inflation but not showing signs of recession:

If oil prices remain near current levels the inflation is over and we’re back to pre-Covid low inflation and slow growth, with a government deficit of maybe 5-6% of GDP (including the new interest expense from the rate hikes which support the economy) supporting demand and a Congress that believes the deficit has to come down to contain inflationary pressures.

This makes sense to me. We have had a post-Covid war slowdown in federal spending that is evidenced by the decelerating economy. But the federal deficit is still high enough to keep things muddling through at modest growth, helped some by the rate hikes which
are universally believed to slow things down when in fact the increased deficit spending for the additional federal interest expense adds a bit of (highly regressive) support for the economy:

It has fallen off with the slowdown but remains reasonably high historically:

Worst of the shipping issues are behind us:

Wholesale price growth is moderating as well:

Core CPI growth also moderating:

Headline CPI continues to grow, and it is mainly driven by energy prices:

Recently, however, energy prices, which have been the primary driver of higher prices, have dropped substantially, so the next CPI report will show a substantial reduction: