#201 Eric Basmajian On What's Really Going On With The Economy Right Now

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