Conventional Wisdom — Often Wrong
Author: Greg Valliere
May 23, 2024
THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM, especially in this city, is often wrong. Let’s take a look this morning at where it could be wrong again . . . Could the experts get a surprise from some of these developments?
THE FEDERAL RESERVE, citing stubborn inflation and surprisingly strong economic growth, begins to consider rate increases.
SOLID RECEIPT GROWTH drives the budget deficit lower, under $1.5 trillion, still too high but under earlier forecasts.
JOE BIDEN EXCEEDS LOW EXPECTATIONS and delivers a good debate performance on June 27 — and Donald Trump looks very rusty on policy.
TRUMP GETS MORE AND MORE DELAYS in his court cases and never spends a day in jail.
DEMOCRATS RALLY AROUND BIDEN, Chicago protests in late August fizzle and the race suddenly looks winnable for Biden.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY, the contrarians’ favorite, begins to fade as more revelations about his past and his eccentric views start to erode his popularity.
THE HOUSE CALMS DOWN, as leaders curb the erratic Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
UKRAINE INTENSIFIES ITS AIR STRIKES against Russian infrastructure and new U.S. weapons help to turn the tide. The conventional wisdom is that Russia will win this war; we disagree.
ISRAEL GRUDGINGLY ACCEPTS A TRUCE, which key Arab nations accept, and the war ends this summer.
INTERNAL UNREST PERSISTS in Iran and begins to percolate in China.
THE SAFE BET WOULD BE TO DISMISS all of these contrarian predictions. But we have a hunch that at least a couple of these could develop in the coming weeks — after all, a year ago the experts were predicting an economic slowdown in the U.S., yet here we are with the Atlanta Fed GDP forecast for this quarter at 3.6% — far above what the conventional wisdom anticipated as this year began.
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