Now, however, the Fed is set to raise interest rates again next week for the second time in three months, a marked acceleration of monetary tightening. Over the last 10 years, the Fed has raised rates only twice.
Partisan rancor dominates Washington. The national debt is surging toward the $20 trillion threshold as the debt ceiling looms again. Corporate earnings growth is contending with headwinds including fresh weakness in energy prices, rising unit labor costs/weak labor productivity and a strengthening U.S. dollar.
And while confidence and survey data is strong, thanks to hopes of tax reform, deregulation and infrastructure spending from President Trump, the “hard” economic data has pushed down the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow real-time estimate of first-quarter 2017 growth to a pitiful 1.2 percent.