Kommentary on the Economy 3

All:

WSJ says job losses last month, but we’re still emerging from recession. These things swing back and forth.

WSJ also has cool article on what muscles should be strengthened and toned to support a great golf swing. What’s important is enabling strong posture through the arc of a swing and the full twist of the hips and spine to impart maximum power and control to the ball. Essentially, the glutes—trained through squats—are the core, as is good hip rotation, trained through spinal twists and similar hip-flexion exercises. Experts say that if you haven’t optimized these muscles, you’re likely to compensate with sub-optimal movements of the shoulders, biceps, wrists, and hands—suboptimal in the sense that they are less powerful, enable less fine control, and risk straining various muscles through repetition.

Somehow, that seems a good analogy for an economy. Economies swing back and forth between boom and bust. Essentially, an economy is an organism with many muscles that are moving together and/or tearing against each other in various combinations. To the extent that you’ve strengthened the deep economy with sound monetary and fiscal controls, it may swing more smoothly and quickly back to prosperity.

But to the extent that countries weaken key segments of their economies with unsound policies, the swings will have a herky-jerky start-and-stop rhythm, with some sectors leading and some lagging, dragging, and delaying the macro recovery.

Jim