Eric Basmajian, founder and CEO of EPB Research, joins Julia on episode 201 to discuss the economy, housing market dynamics, outlook on unemployment trends, and the long-term economic factors, including the effects of increasing government size on private sector growth.
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Links:
Website: https://www.epbresearch.com/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/EPBResearch
Substack: https://epbresearch.substack.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and welcome Eric Basmajian
01:03 Macro view + Eric's four economies framework
03:17 Explanation of leading, cyclical, aggregate, and lagging economies
07:29 Current state of the economy and growth rates
09:32 How to discern signal from noise in economic data
13:15 Discussion on economic revisions and their significance
16:23 Addressing common misconceptions about the economy
20:55 Inflation trends and relationship to the business cycle
23:03 Analysis of Fed's September rate cut decision
25:22 Impact of backlogs on economic activity post-COVID
30:48 Overview of the residential housing cycle
33:55 Current housing market supply and demand dynamics
37:08 Forecast for unemployment rate trends
43:53 Long-term economic outlook factors (debt, demographics, government size)
48:16 Declining growth rates in real private sector income
50:51 Impact of increasing government size on economic growth
54:15 Optimal government size for economic growth
57:37 Connection between rising home prices and demographic changes
