Like CNY in the afterglow of still another intervention, there are some things that you can easily forecast with good accuracy. This is no great insight on my part, of course, but two days ago I wrote:

The media being what it is, this will very likely be the last time the data so diverges from the narrative. I have little doubt that next year under a President Trump things will be different; by that I don’t necessarily mean the economy, though there is the smallest hope, I suppose, that a new Trump Presidency gets the one thing right the world needs someone to someday get right (“dollars”). Rather, I strongly suspect that if holiday sales or any sales continue to be subdued during his term that they will actually be described that way.

 

After eight years of trying to see recovery where there was none, the constant spin of sunshine will very likely disappear on January 20. It is ironic in one sense since it is this very disparity between mainstream “reporting” and actual economic conditions that contributed to the Trump victory in the first place.

Sure enough, today the Wall Street Journal “reports”:

Housing prices, consumer confidence and corporate profits are up. Unemployment is down. But with Donald Trump pledging to “make America great again,” the question is: could tinkering too much with what’s working stall or even reverse economic momentum?