Intro

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