Political bias aside

There are a few data points I really lean into in trying to understand the macroeconomic climate.

1. The real inflation rate - Truflation

2. What the bond market is doing or not doing

3.Understand the true unemployment rate (this is the hardest to grasp). You have to start with the published rate and then break down who is in and who is out of the labor force. Then break it down further to look at U1-U6 (like a rating system of the kind of work people have/want)

Chatgpt can explain the 3rd point much better than I can.

I think the reason seem so schizophrenic is because there are so many different factors affecting sectors differently. Now that prices are starting to settle after horrible inflation, businesses are making decisions regarding what they look like in light of new costs/prices. Some industries are being heavily affected by AI fever. Some industries have been heavily affected by the on again off again nature of the tariffs. Then you have the true bias bits that come into play, like trumpeting Hooters closing restaurants as though that’s indicative of anything. But if you ignore that silliness, you’re still left with a lot of push/pull that will take a minute to sort itself out.

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How is the economy really doing

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It sucks.

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Political bias aside

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Good luck with that. This isn’t the 90’s anymore.

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Is there a website you all follow for an unbiased take on how the economy is currently doing and future outlook?

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Here's some data you might want to look at:

Inflation - CPI & PCE These give you an idea of price changes and how that's impacting consumer spending. Along with that we also have PPI to show inflation on the producer end (which doesn't move exactly with PCE nor CPI, but can give an idea of what may be coming to consumer prices 30-60 days ahead).

Employment - Initial Jobless Claims & Continuing Jobless Claims - these are for people on Unemployment insurance so you should also look at U3 and U6 unemployment rates to get a better gauge of what's going on than any single chart.

Consumer debt - Consumer Debt, which measures credit cards and other revolving loans along with Credit Card Interest Rates, Credit Card Delinquency Rate (which doesn't break the delinquencies down by timeframe or credit rating, those take a bit more digging to hunt up but generally aren't updated as often) and Delinquency Rate on Single-Family Residential Mortgages can give a bit of a view into the fiscal health of the consumer. More debt means a greater chance for delinquencies to increase.

If you're wanting to take another step into the debt area: Charge-Off Rate on All Loans, All Commercial Banks, or you can refine that down a bit by looking at something like Charge-Off Rate on Credit Card Loans, All Commercial Banks

If you want to start getting into the weeds a bit, you can look at Money:
Real M1 (to account for inflation) and Real M2 (which includes the liquid money from M1 but also includes near-liquid things like savings deposits, CDs, retail money market mutual funds, etc) to get an idea of how much money is entering or leaving the economy, and then the velocity of M1 and velocity of M2 to see (roughly) how fast a given Dollar is being used (lower velocity essentially means less spending).

Looking at how those things are trending should give you an idea of how the economy is doing without the spin of some media agency.

Uncertain is the best word I could choose.

But what I would urge people to remember is that as bad as it is or could be here in the United States, it’s almost certainly much worse everywhere else.

The drums of war are beginning to beat in Europe - as the bank of London/Davis/Dutch Bankers/whatever you want to label them - have set their eyes on Russia. Europes debt levels are unsustainable(as are ours) but their bonds and currency are shite relative to the US options. Capital has been fleeing to safer shores - just look at their gold.

China is facing the specter of tariffs, and is also encountering difficulties in their attempts to transform from a primarily manufacturing-based economy into a more balanced one.

I think that whatever unfolds that the United States has a much better chance of coming out on top vs the rest.