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I made two claims: i) the economic conditions you mentioned as comprising the 'real economy' save wage growth are in fact improving, hence rendering the claim that the economy is "dead" hyperbole; and, ii) the labor market and GDP growth are liable to improve more quickly than many suppose due to a conjunction of inventory replenishment in the 2nd quarter and an uptick in small business hiring over the next year and a half.
Claim (i) pertains to the
relative improvement in the economy, not about whether the economy is where it should be, could be, or would be (with different policy), etc. Therefore, citing metrics indicating that the economy isn't where it should be don't even begin to address my claim.
My argument for (i) was: If the economic conditions comprising the 'real economy' are improving, then it is hyperbole to label the economy 'dead'; the economic conditions comprising the 'real economy' are improving; therefore, is it hyperbole to label the economy 'dead'.
We don't want to get bogged down in semantics by debating whether the label 'dead' is appropriate or not, and it's clear that our disagreement boils down to the truth of premise 2 -- whether the economy is improving or not. So that's obviously where we need to focus attention.
Let's take the most salient metrics you rebutted me on. The facts -- mere facts -- are that U6 unemployment is down by nearly a third from its peak 4 years ago and that most of the decline in labor force participation since then has been driven by retirements and disabilities. This
study makes the latter point, but even without a study we could have figured it out: since U6 includes discouraged workers, we wouldn't see a nearly one-third drop in U6 if discouraged workers were driving down the labor participation rate over the same period.
Unfortunately, you seem intent on demonstrating that the economy isn't where it should be, something that we more or less agree about. Meanwhile, the charts you post are evidence for the claim that I
actually made: the savings rate chart evinces a 33% higher savings rate from the beginning of the Great Recession; what it leaves out is that savings rates were negative starting in the second quarter of 2005 (thus making the relative improvement even more significant). And the leverage chart evinces similar, albeit less significant, directionality. it also ignores the relative
cost of administering that (declining) leverage, which is what I referred to in my original post. I used 1980 because that is as far back as that particular dataset goes.
Are these metrics where they should be? I have no clue. Luckily, this is literally irrelevant to my claim that they are all evincing gradual improvement.