Last Looks at the Pre-War World (1): America's Boom
The U.S. economy was doing extraordinarily well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Like many of you, I have spent much of the past month trying to understand the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war and its aftermath will have profound consequences for years, perhaps even moreso than the pandemic.
In this next series of notes, however, I will focus on what the latest data releases—most of which describe the world as of mid-February—tell us about economic conditions in the major economies before Putin upended everything.
This note will focus on U.S. employment, housing, and inflation, mostly with charts rather than text. The next note will update my coverage of the Chinese economy. Subsequent notes will take a closer look at the U.S. balance of payments and financial accounts as of the end of 2021.