Chamath @ 01:09:28Wrong
economypolitics
Between late 2022 and the 2024 U.S. presidential election, underlying U.S. economic conditions will remain weak or 'bad' even absent major new policy shocks.
I think that we need to sort of have stasis so that nothing bad happens between now and 2024, because I think the economic conditions on the ground are going to be bad in and of themselves.View on YouTube
Explanation
Macroeconomic data between late 2022 and the November 2024 U.S. election point to a surprisingly resilient economy, not persistently “bad” underlying conditions.
Growth and jobs:
- Real U.S. GDP grew 1.9% in 2022, 2.5% in 2023, and 2.8% in 2024, with especially strong quarterly growth in late 2023–2024, indicating solid, above‑trend expansion rather than sustained weakness. (apps-fd.bea.gov)
- The unemployment rate stayed below 4% from early 2022 through the end of 2023, averaging 3.6% in both 2022 and 2023, and only drifted up to about 4.0–4.2% in 2024—still near levels economists consider “full employment.” (ycharts.com)
Inflation and the “soft landing”:
- Inflation did surge in 2022 (peaking around 9% in June 2022), but then fell steadily to roughly 3–4% in 2023 and below 3% by late 2024, while growth remained positive. (en.wikipedia.org)
- Major forecasters and analysts (Goldman Sachs, S&P Global, Morgan Stanley, among others) and retrospective commentary describe this outcome as a U.S. “soft landing”—inflation coming down without a recession and with continued job creation. (goldmansachs.com)
Conditions on the ground:
- Consumer sentiment hit an all‑time low in mid‑2022 but then rebounded sharply; by January 2024 the University of Michigan index had risen to around 79, well above its 2022 trough, and later readings in 2024 remained far off crisis levels, even though opinions about the future were mixed. (news.umich.edu)
- Households still felt the sting of higher price levels, but combining robust GDP growth, very low unemployment, and moderating inflation is inconsistent with a claim that underlying economic conditions were broadly “bad” throughout the 2022–2024 pre‑election period.
There were no large, new negative macroeconomic policy shocks in that window that would flip this assessment; instead, the economy outperformed many pessimistic forecasts. Given the data, Chamath’s prediction that the baseline conditions between late 2022 and the 2024 election would be inherently “bad” is best assessed as wrong.