PCE

Goldman Sachs is relatively optimistic about growth in 2017, for three reasons: first, despite the lack of spare capacity, US recession risk remains below the historical average; second, financial conditions should remain a growth tailwind - at least in the first half of 2017; and third, we expect a fiscal easing accumulating to 1% of GDP by 2018. However, uncertainty remains and here is what Jan Hatzius and his team believe are the ten most important questions for 2017.

1. Will growth remain above trend?

Submitted by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk via Bawerk.net,

In a recent article by Kessler Companies (hat tip Zerohedge) they correctly point out that inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, have a tendency to accelerate as the US economy moves into a recession.

Contrary to popular belief, the beginning of a recession is not deflationary but the exact opposite. As can be seen from the chart, consumer prices do indeed move higher into recessions as represented by the shaded areas.

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

For several years now the small coterie of Keynesian academics and apparatchiks who have seized nearly absolute financial power through the Fed’s printing presses have justified the lunacy of unending ZIRP and massive QE on the grounds that there is too little inflation. The bureaucrats at the IMF even invented a lame-brained catch-phrase, calling the purported scourge of money which retains most of its value “lowflation”.