Brian Wesbury is a really good who I usually disagree with as too bullish.
However, his comments about imports, profits and valuation are opposite to what Wall Street analysts are saying.
I especially like his sentiment take on “Economic Hypochondria.”
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. —John Kenneth Galbraith
Retail Sales in Jan rose .4% headline m/o/m, .7% ex auto's, .6% ex auto's and gasoline and .7% at the core. The headline figure was less than expected while the rest were slightly better. But, with respect to non headline sales, because Dec figures were revised lower, taking the two months together were about in line with forecasts overall. Sales rose in electronics, building materials, food/beverages, clothing, sporting goods, dept stores and restaurant/bars and fell interestingly for online retailers, health/personal care, furniture and motor vehicle/parts. Bottom line, headline sales were below expectations due to the greater than expected fall m/o/m...
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August 30th, 2010 at 11:13 am
This guy was dead wrong in 2008, so why should we listen to him now?
January 01, 2008
The Economy Is Fine (Really)
February 25, 2008
Brian Wesbury Sees No Recession Ahead
June 16, 2008
The Phantom Recession is Already Over
August 19, 2008
Inflation Is a Clear and Present Danger
October 21, 2008
Velocity And The V-Shaped Recovery: Why the recession will be quick
August 30th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
truly, to tradeking13′s point, I thought ‘Brian Wesbury’ had become the punchline of Jokes that noone wants to hear..
August 31st, 2010 at 7:58 am
Oh Please have you gone soft Barry? Totally concur with the comments above, this guy has one of the worst track records in history. How he has kept his job is beyond me. Below is a sampling of my all time favourite Brian Wankbury quotes:
Brian Westbury on CNBC on, 12/24/2007, “The US Equity market is about 25% undervalued today.” S&P500 at the time 1496
Brian Westbury on CNBC on, 1/22/2008, “There is really no evidence that the economy has turned over” “Initial unemployment claims were at 301 thousand in the latest reporting week. This is so far from a recessionary level I’m like, I’m shaking my head at anybody who thinks we’re in a recession.”
Already 1 month into the great recession
Brian Westbury on CNBC on, 1/24/2008, “Well I’ve never felt like we even came close to a recession, nor would we come close to a recession”
as above
Brian Westbury on CNBC on, 3/20/2008, “We’re not going to have a recession. In fact the economy is going to finish the year on a very, very strong note……Our forecasts say about 2% growth here in the first quarter and probably about one to one and a half in the second quarter. So we think we’re going to avoid anything that looks like a recession this year, yeah there’s some weak data right now, ahh but to me it does not look like recessionary kinds of data.”
3 months into recession
Brian Westbury on CNBC on, 5/30/2008, “I think the thing that’s different here, is that it’s now very clear that the economy, at least to me, is going to avoid a recession that the Fed is now done cutting rates dramatically, in fact may be raising rates pretty soon and that’s a whole different environment and that’s I think good for the stockmarket which means the economy is stronger and is also negative for oil”
5 months into recession
Brian Westbury on CNBC on, 5/30/2008, “I think that they will take it back mainly because we’re gonna be growing at a three and half to four percent rate in the second half of the year and inflation is not gonna go away, in other words it’s gonna be so obvious to everyone that they need to be raising rates that it’s not just taking it back it’s really they’re gonna have to react or they’re gonna have a problem the other way.
as above
Brian Westbury on CNBC on, 5/30/2008, “I think we’re gonna, I think this market is gonna take off, our Dow forecast by the end of the year is still 15,000.
Brian Westbury on Kudlow and Co, 06/21/2008, “The economy is now coming out of its slow period, our forecast is that we’re going to have three, three and a half percent growth in the second half of this year.”
6 months into recession
Brian Westbury on Kudlow and Co, 09/05/2008, “….between December and June, gasoline prices went up 17 cents a month, it was a killer, people were shocked, and I believe that’s what we’re seeing here, it’s just a shock to the system, we’re now bouncing back, auto sales soared and truck sales soared in August, I think this economy is nowhere near a recession.”
9 months into recession
Brian Wesbury on Kudlow and Co, 1/8/2009 in answer to the question what will the unemployment rate be after the December unemployment report:
probably up to about seven and quarter percent but that’s going to be the worst Larry, this is it, it’s the worst.
unemployment subsequently hit 10%
Brian Westbury on CNBC on, 12/22/2009, “But I still think by the end of next year we will have 5 maybe even 5 and a half percent interest rates because I expect an economy that’s growing at 5, 5 and a half percent.”
September 2010 and we are at 0-0.25% and a high probability we will be there well into next year.
I give you Brian Wesbury the consummate economic charlatan
September 2nd, 2010 at 4:17 pm
make it unanimous
Wesbury made his bones a kudlowite, monetarist, supply sider in the 90s. proving every planet R fantasy you can remember.
on his latest
is a bad attitude and shell shock from the recent past maybe 30% of the slowdown now? yes.
so if he wants to call that hypochondria, cant quarrel too much.