According to former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, the U.S. economy will get a Wile E Coyote surprise in 2020. You know, just when everyone thinks he caught the Roadrunner, Wile notices he has run straight off a cliff, plummets seemingly forever before hitting the bottom in a cloud of dust, and then, just for spite, an anvil lands on his head.
In other words, Bernanke sees a 2020 recession looming. Other analysts are saying it, too. And whenever they do, they get their name in the headlines. Scaremongering attracts attention.
But there is good news here: The Pouting Pundits of Pessimism don't think the crisis starts tomorrow. No longer does some exogenous crisis event – say, Brexit, or Grexit, student loan defaults, etc., – threaten imminent collapse. Now, the recession doesn't happen for another two years.
Another interesting detail: the new problem is that the economy is growing too fast. Remember when analysts used to say, "since the economy is growing less than 2% annually, it means a recession is coming"? Now, Bernanke says the U.S. applied stimulus (in the form of a tax cut) "at the very wrong moment," with the economy already at full employment. In other words, real GDP growth is too strong, so the Fed will over-tighten and a recession is inevitable.
Now we agree that a recession is coming – someday. Recessions are a fact of life, like death and taxes. But predicting one in 2020 - and being right about it – is like reading tea leaves, it's pure chance. No one, and we mean no one, can honestly see that far in the future – not with the clarity expressed by these dated forecasts.
No one knows exactly what the Fed will do, not even the Fed. Let's say they follow their forecasts, raising fed funds to 3.5% in 2019. That alone doesn't tell us if policy is "tight."
While most recessions are caused by an excessively tight Fed, we don't think the Fed is too tight until it drives the federal funds rate close to, or above, the rate of growth in nominal GDP. Over the past five years, nominal GDP has averaged about 3.9%. Which means if the Fed were to raise the funds rate by 0.25% three more times in 2018 and four times in 2019 (reaching 3.5%), and if nominal growth slowed to 3.5%, the Fed would be tight at that point. A recession would be possible.
