A few words about the economy – and ELEVATE

Elliot Eisenberg, Ph.D. loves to speak about economics. And in fact, he will be the opening keynote speaker at our Boating Industry ELEVATE Summit Conference in Atlanta, November 8 – 10.

For those of you who haven’t seen him in the past at ELEVATE, know that he will both educate and entertain when he talks about the economy. Which isn’t always easy. For those of you who have seen him you know he helps to make the event memorable.

In his fast-moving presentation he will cover macroeconomic conditions such as GDP growth, interest rates, unemployment, inflation, currency movements, the health of the housing market and real estate, demographics, energy prices, household behavior, wage growth, income inequality, automobile sales and then tie it all back to how those things might impact or influence the recreational boating industry operating environment.

Besides speaking about economics, Elliot also likes to write about economics. In December of 2010, he began writing a daily 70-word blog on the economy. As a personal challenge, he decided to take a current economic concept or issue and explain the topic in 70 words or less. He writes and posts a blog every weekday except holidays, and has written nearly 2,500 blog posts.

Elliot’s blog is delivered daily to the inboxes of almost 22,000 people. You can subscribe to receive Elliot’s daily blog by clicking here. You can also text the word “BOWTIE” to 22828 to sign up to receive the daily blog via email. Here are a few of his most recent posts.

Infrastructure

The bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill that recently passed in the Senate will boost GDP just marginally because it includes only $550 billion in new spending to be disbursed over five to eight years, much of which will be paid for with higher taxes. Through 2029 this spending should boost GDP by, at most, 0.30%/year. The newly built infrastructure should permanently boost GDP by 0.05%/year. Not huge but still consequential.

Extraordinary Employment

July payrolls rose a strong 943,000, and June’s number was revised up 88,000 to 938,000, pushing the unemployment rate down from 5.9% to 5.4%! This suggests that through mid-July the Delta variant had no negative impact. Moreover, the broadest measure of unemployment dropped from 9.8% to 9.2%, just 2.2 points higher than pre-Covid. The only negative, the labor force participation rate rose by just a tenth of a point.

Olympic Overachievers

Prior to this Olympics, only five athletes had won Olympic medals in both the summer and winter games, including two men and three women, two of which are Americans. With the USA men in the gold medal game in baseball, Eddy Alvarez is the sixth, having also won a silver medal at the 2014 Sochi games as part of the USA’s 5,000 meter short-track speedskating relay team.

Strong Savings

As government stimulus slowly fades, the personal savings rate has generally declined from a one-month peak of 33.8% in 4/20 to the current rate of 9.4%, slightly above the pre-covid rate of 7.5%. This suggests that the abnormal addition to savings from stimulus checks and the lockdown is ending. While the added savings exceeds $2.0 trillion, the question now becomes how quickly and how much of it gets spent.

Growing GDP

Having now seen the 21Q2 GDP data and June household income and spending data, my initial estimate (please don’t call it a guess) of 21Q3 GDP is 6.5%. It could go as high as 9% or as low as 4%. My baseline assumptions: household consumption’s contribution to quarterly GDP growth softens from the very strong 7.9% boost in 21Q2, but inventories rise from their -1.1% subtraction from GDP in 21Q2.

That is just a sample. To see – and hear – more, come to ELEVATE!

ELEVATE SUMMIT is where top marine industry visionaries and emerging leaders convene over strategic content to CONNECT, COLLABORATE, CULTIVATE & CELEBRATE.

Think of it as Boating Industry magazine LIVE, bringing all of our content and resources and experts to one immersive setting.

WHEN IS ELEVATE SUMMIT?
• November 8, 9, 10 – 2021 
• Spring 2021 One-Day 

WHERE IS ELEVATE SUMMIT?
Conference headquarters will be the iconic Hyatt Regency Atlanta, downtown, at 265 Peachtree Steet NE.

To register or get more information, click here. Elliot will be in Atlanta. You should be too!