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Correspondant à ces filtres : 11 articles
Articles
- ÉclairageTrade & Investment
Imports fell once in five years and that fall is the least reliable number in the series
Imports of goods and services dropped from 3.97 to 3.86 trillion dollars in 2023, the only decline in the run. Producer prices fell that same year, which means the one movement most often read as evidence of reshoring is the one that can least bear the reading.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
Two thirds of the M2 increase since 2020 arrived in a single year
The money stock is 4.26 trillion dollars larger than in 2020. Of that, 2.84 trillion came between 2020 and 2021, and the four years since have added half as much again, including the only contraction in the window.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
The policy rate has given back less than a fifth of its climb
On annual averages the federal funds rate rose 5.06 percentage points from its 2021 low to its 2024 peak, then fell 0.93. Everything priced against the policy rate is still being priced against most of the increase.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
Nearly two thirds of the five-year export gain arrived in a single year
Exports of goods and services rose 0.47 trillion dollars in 2022 and then 0.03, 0.15 and 0.10. A series that never falls looks like steady growth until you write it as steps, at which point it looks like one event followed by three quiet years.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
The consumer price index has not fallen in a single year since 2020
Prices rose more slowly after 2022, and the index kept rising anyway. It stands at 322 against 258.9 five years earlier, a level about 24 percent higher.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
Real output per person rose again in 2025, by less than in any earlier year of the window
Output per person has risen at every reading, from 61,127 chained 2017 dollars in 2020 to 69,749 in 2025, but the step into 2025 is 1,068 dollars and it is the smallest of the five. The total the figure is drawn from slowed in the same year, adding 0.49 trillion dollars against 0.64 in each of the two years before it, so the flatter step is not a story about population alone.
- ÉclairageTrade & Investment
Goods imports from China fell 11 billion dollars a month in 2025, taking the series below its 2020 level
The monthly average rose from 36 billion dollars in 2020 to 45 in 2022, then fell to 26 in 2025, the lowest of the six readings. Exports in the other direction also ended at their lowest reading, so the narrower bilateral difference comes from buying less rather than selling more.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
Federal debt rises every year but the annual addition has no trend
The stock goes from 28.7 to 37.1 trillion dollars across five observations. The four annual additions behind that run 2.1, 1.9, 2.6 and 1.8 trillion, and the most recent is the smallest of them.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
The industrial index has spent six years going almost nowhere
Industrial production ended 2025 at 101.2 on a 2017 base of 100. It has moved 1.9 points in four years, and the 2025 reading sits 0.2 above 2022.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
American payrolls keep growing, and each year adds less than the one before
Total nonfarm payrolls rose in every annual reading from 2020 to 2025. The size of the rise has fallen three years running, from 6.2 million jobs to 700,000.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
Retail sales rose in every year of the window, counted in dollars
The monthly rate went from 601.2 billion dollars in 2021 to 724.4 in 2025 with no down year. The largest single-year rise landed in the same year as the largest rise in the price level.