How do you track the (U.S.) economy?

June 16, 2004 7:12 AM

How do you track the (U.S.) economy? There are, in addition to the old stalwart indicators (GDP, interest rates, unemployment), all sorts of more specialized ones (new home owners, CEO confidence, etc.). So I ask you, ye Armchair Economists- what do you follow? What are the numbers that make you go "Oh, the economy's doing better/worse"?
posted by mkultra to work & money (12 comments total)

I try to decipher the hints in Alan Greenspan's phrasing and body language. Sadly, he will probably die before we can adequately quantify them.
posted by mookieproof at 7:24 AM on June 16, 2004

I use the number of headhunters that leave voice mail for me at work, asking how my staffing needs are. By this metric, the U.S. economy is still in the tank.
posted by majick at 7:26 AM on June 16, 2004

New home construction starts are a fairly big indicator, of at the real estate/mortgage/consumer market, which ties into the bigger picture.

Then there's consumer confidence, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but some take great stock in it.

I did see an article once tying an increase in marriage/reproduction rates to a positive economic outlook, can't find the link, but it seems pretty interesting (and it did look at more than the baby boom).
posted by loquax at 7:33 AM on June 16, 2004

On a more personal level, I gauge the economy's direction based on the performance of my small business.

What I mean is that I feel my business provides a reasonably accurate indication of where the overall U.S. economy is headed in oh, say, six months. When the business hits a lull, I can be fairly certain the overall economy is going to be in trouble soon. And vice versa.

Just something I've noticed over the past fifteen years.

So if you want to know how the economy's going to go, just call and ask your local box company how they're doing! :)

(And majick, by this metric the economy is due to pull out of its slump this fall.)
posted by jdroth at 8:09 AM on June 16, 2004

You've probably seen this, but in case you haven't.
posted by trharlan at 8:36 AM on June 16, 2004

Thanks, trharlan, good link.

I am personally, I confess, more interested in the more "folky" (for lack of a better word) indicators that people look at- things like magick, loquax and jdroth (I assume you're a box company yourself?) pointed out. Anyone have others?
posted by mkultra at 8:47 AM on June 16, 2004

If I'm asked to work on cost-cutting and 'business transformation', the economy sucks.

If I can hire people and spend money, the economy is doing OK.

If I am asked to work on silly projects and spend obscene amounts of money, the economy is booming.
posted by Argyle at 8:48 AM on June 16, 2004

I look at how easy or difficult it is to find contractors, masons, carpenters, etc. It's flawed in more ways than I can count but what economic-pulse-indicator isn't? I ues the price of a pint of beer to track inflation.
posted by Dick Paris at 9:34 AM on June 16, 2004

Sulfuric acid shipment volume is supposed to be wide indicator of industrial production. I don't know if that's true (though it seems reasonable---it's used for just about everything) or just industrial chemistry folklore. It would seem that tracking energy supplies (not just price but amount) would also be useful.
posted by bonehead at 11:45 AM on June 16, 2004

I wonder how the prices of marijuana relates to the economy. Drugs like cocaine, heroin would seem to flux with whether the gov't is cracking down hard on it at the moment, how the production and supply chain is and an assorted other elements. I believe marijuana is more decentralized (home growers, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica) and while the government is certainly not going soft on it, they're not making any huge busts because they can't (the decentralized nature).

Marijuana really doesn't go out of style either, and I would reckon a given percentage of the population would always be given to want to try it and use it. So what I'm getting to is you have a product that has a fairly stable userbase, that has many distributors and a really abritrary value (I don't think a weed should cost hardly anything). Purely market driven. I can't find figures of the price of marijuana at say the start of the war on drugs vs. now and how it fluctulates, but it'd sure be interesting. I can imagine that as the economy gets better or in better economic regions you'd see price inflation on a small scale ($5-$10) to the end user of 1/8 of an ounce or whatever the standard bag is.
posted by geoff. at 11:52 AM on June 16, 2004

Of course now that I think of it, marijuana mostly is purchased by the young, who don't have mortgages, loans, etc. and have a near totally disposable income. Of course some of those get money from their parents and if money's tight they can't get the dough.
posted by geoff. at 12:05 PM on June 16, 2004

pot's hard to track tho--most sales are done off the books, no?

I use the shopping bag method (related to consumer confidence): if people are walking out of stores or on the street with lots of bags on weekend or at lunchtime/after work, things are not terrible. If more people don't have bags than do, or have bags from cheap places only, things aren't that good (which is what i notice now--more people without shopping bags or with Conway/Old Navy/H&M bags on 34th street here rather than Macy's.) It works really well in malls too.
posted by amberglow at 5:21 AM on June 17, 2004