What is the unemployment rate? We don’t know. How many filed for unemployment last week? No clue. Data, data, data…how are we to make bricks without clay? I will freely admit that my name is Chuck and I am an economic-data-aholic. It has been 20 days since my last economic data update.
Are we in an AI bubble? As Mark Twain supposedly said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” We are not in the same place today that we were in the 1990s, but there are certainly similarities. AI is an exciting new technology with huge potential, much as the internet was 30 years ago.
All the best stuff happens on Fridays. After a rather quiet summer, potential market-moving news hit us two Fridays in a row. First, on Aug. 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the president does not have the authority to issue to so-called reciprocal tariffs. Then, on Sept. 5, we received a weak jobs report.
Last week we received a surprisingly high first estimate of second-quarter GDP growth of 3 percent, which some touted as proof positive of the wonderful impact of tariff policy. Then we received a very poor jobs report, which others touted as proof positive that government data is rigged and can’t be trusted. How does the economy grow at 3 percent, yet create so few jobs?
The one thing that can be guaranteed in any financial plan is that the future will not be exactly as predicted. It may be close, but it could also be dramatically different. The one universal thing that every single financial plan needs is flexibility. Yet, it is hardly ever discussed. It is the missing ingredient.
