Tape 136 - The new business year begins
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- | And once again is MIT professor Paul Samuelson | 0:02 |
discusses the current academic scene. | 0:04 | |
This program series | 0:06 | |
is produced by Instructional Dynamics Incorporated, | 0:07 | |
this program was recorded September 6th. | 0:10 | |
- | This is the week when children are going back to school | 0:14 |
and you could really say that although the calendar | 0:17 | |
officially begins on January 1st, | 0:21 | |
that as far as the business season is concerned | 0:24 | |
that new year's arrives early in September. | 0:27 | |
So we're starting a new year | 0:31 | |
and everybody is taking a fresh look at where we are. | 0:32 | |
Let me therefore comment on recent developments | 0:37 | |
and try to interpret for you as best I can | 0:41 | |
what the various cross currents that are going on | 0:44 | |
seem to point toward. | 0:47 | |
I might begin by saying that it seems to me | 0:50 | |
that people who observe the current economic scene | 0:54 | |
thinking of business and banks and analysts generally, | 1:00 | |
have turned a little more confident, | 1:05 | |
or at least a little less despondent | 1:08 | |
about the certitudes of our going into a genuine recession | 1:12 | |
next year and perhaps there is even a little more optimism | 1:19 | |
you can't call it very much optimism yet, | 1:27 | |
that our rate of inflation may not soon, | 1:30 | |
but ahead down the road, come under slightly better control. | 1:34 | |
You can see this in many different straws in the wind, | 1:40 | |
and I don't think we should add them up to very much, | 1:45 | |
but I think it's fair to report this slight eddy | 1:51 | |
and cross current, because that's how winds change, | 1:56 | |
when a first burst or blast in a particular direction | 1:58 | |
develops and finally becomes a steady trade wind. | 2:04 | |
The stock market has been doing a little bit better, | 2:09 | |
and since so much of the pessimism in the money market | 2:12 | |
is related to just how the market's | 2:14 | |
been doing for you lately, | 2:18 | |
the fact that you've had a few days after Labor Day | 2:19 | |
of the stock market going up, | 2:23 | |
that has given a certain rosiness to the forecasters. | 2:24 | |
Then too, you've had something a bit surprising, | 2:30 | |
namely, two, three weeks of good long-term bond performance. | 2:35 | |
This is the face of still very high short term rates, | 2:42 | |
and I think there too, the people who were expecting | 2:46 | |
a money crunch and speaking about money crunches already | 2:50 | |
on us have been surprised, perhaps pleasantly surprised | 2:53 | |
on the more optimistic side. | 3:00 | |
Although, we have to be very careful | 3:03 | |
about using words like optimism, | 3:05 | |
since as you know, as we have discussed earlier, | 3:06 | |
there are some people who think that a turn down | 3:10 | |
at this time is a good thing and not a bad thing. | 3:13 | |
And therefore, it's pessimistic if things superficially | 3:17 | |
become a bit more optimistic. | 3:24 | |
Now, in addition, you've had some decreases | 3:26 | |
just in very recent weeks, in some food prices. | 3:33 | |
We can't make too much about this, | 3:38 | |
because just as I'm speaking, there's about to be | 3:40 | |
made an announcement of the awful August numbers | 3:43 | |
in which an index number of food prices | 3:48 | |
to the consumer will go up in one month 20%, | 3:51 | |
if anybody is foolish enough to multiply | 3:54 | |
a one month rate by 12 to get an annual rate, | 3:57 | |
I guess we're talking about annual rates of 300%, | 4:00 | |
but 20% in one month on food is so big | 4:05 | |
that for the wholesale price index as a whole, | 4:09 | |
and of course food is only one component of that, | 4:12 | |
you are having in the one month a 5% increase | 4:15 | |
and those same foolish people who multiply | 4:20 | |
a one month figure by 12 will turn that into 60%, | 4:22 | |
in fact we're getting such big numbers, | 4:28 | |
we have to begin to worry about interest on interest | 4:30 | |
and compound rates of return, | 4:33 | |
so it's more than 60% annual rates. | 4:35 | |
But remember the index numbers are always behind the times | 4:39 | |
and they reflect August and hope springs eternal | 4:45 | |
in the breast of the active speculator | 4:49 | |
in the close watcher of the money market, | 4:53 | |
and he's turning to the fact that some pork prices | 4:55 | |
are lower than they were earlier. | 4:59 | |
It still however, is the case | 5:03 | |
that as far as analysts are concerned, | 5:06 | |
who look at what's been happening to food prices, | 5:07 | |
the ups and downs and the ups in those, | 5:11 | |
and realize that it takes time for the prices | 5:13 | |
in the early stages of production to work their way down | 5:18 | |
into the final goods arena, those people know | 5:21 | |
that we still have plenty of difficulties ahead | 5:27 | |
in terms of food prices. | 5:32 | |
The public of course is very much alerted to this, | 5:35 | |
the congressmen have come back from their fence mending | 5:38 | |
and political soundings in the summer recess, | 5:44 | |
and they have all pretty much universally been reporting | 5:47 | |
that some people are getting a little bit tired of Watergate | 5:51 | |
but even the people who think that Watergate hearings | 5:57 | |
are important and who are sensitive to that issue | 6:00 | |
even such people admit that the number one issue, | 6:04 | |
the thing about which they're thinking | 6:07 | |
is about economic conditions and about inflation still. | 6:09 | |
So that puts us on our mettle, we still have to face | 6:16 | |
the fact that almost all the forecasters are looking | 6:22 | |
to a slowdown in the rate of real growth | 6:30 | |
in the four quarters ahead, in this new year | 6:34 | |
which is just starting. | 6:37 | |
And this at a time when we still have inflation. | 6:40 | |
That's why the expression stagflation, | 6:46 | |
stagnation with inflation, is very much in vogue these days. | 6:50 | |
I have reported to you fairly regularly | 6:57 | |
on the different general forecasters. | 7:00 | |
I've told you how the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis | 7:03 | |
seems to be doing, I've told you about how | 7:07 | |
Data Resources Incorporated has been doing, | 7:10 | |
and how the Wharton School Model has been doing | 7:14 | |
and also but not in such detail, | 7:16 | |
on the University of Michigan model | 7:19 | |
and Chase Econometrics of Dr. Michael Evans. | 7:21 | |
Well perhaps, since I'm very sporadic | 7:25 | |
and unsystematic in my samplings, | 7:32 | |
I ought to say something more | 7:34 | |
about the Chase Econometrics forecast. | 7:37 | |
This because they deserve our careful scrutiny. | 7:42 | |
Dr. Evans has an enviable track record | 7:48 | |
in recent quarters. | 7:51 | |
You remember when I cited how the different forecasters | 7:52 | |
were doing as given in a roundup | 7:56 | |
by Professor Ray Fair of Princeton, | 8:01 | |
that at the top of the list was the University of Michigan | 8:04 | |
forecast in recent times at the top, | 8:09 | |
and right next to that was the Chase Econometric forecast. | 8:12 | |
Well now both of those groups have a very good track record | 8:16 | |
and a little bit better track record in recent times | 8:21 | |
than the other names which I have mentioned, | 8:24 | |
but it would look as if, | 8:27 | |
as we move into this difficult juncture of turning point, | 8:28 | |
that it's likely that Chase Econometrics | 8:35 | |
will move to the head of the list | 8:38 | |
at the expense of the University of Michigan. | 8:39 | |
I wanna warn you and warn myself | 8:42 | |
that one shouldn't make too much of these hare | 8:44 | |
and tortoise races, one forecaster runs a little bit ahead | 8:47 | |
at one time runs a little bit behind, | 8:52 | |
it's only long run forecasting track record | 8:54 | |
that we can use to distinguish among the people | 8:58 | |
in awarding any blue ribbons. | 9:03 | |
But still Chase Econometrics I think can claim | 9:06 | |
that they foresaw the second quarter turndown | 9:10 | |
earlier than most, and more accurately than most. | 9:16 | |
And they can take some pride and self satisfaction | 9:21 | |
because as you know, one of the taunts that is made against | 9:25 | |
computer forecasts, against GNP models, | 9:28 | |
is that the computer is very poor | 9:33 | |
at anticipating turning points, | 9:35 | |
at correctly forecasting turning points. | 9:39 | |
It's pretty good at catching a change in the weather, | 9:41 | |
after it's happened. | 9:44 | |
And that's no mean achievement | 9:45 | |
because the weather is a very cloudy story to read. | 9:47 | |
But the computer is not supposed to be as good | 9:53 | |
as judgmental people in forecasting in advance | 9:55 | |
actual turning points. | 9:59 | |
Economists I think, give too much weight | 10:00 | |
in the ohs and ahs which they issue | 10:03 | |
and too much weight in the penalties that they also issue, | 10:07 | |
on being good at turning points, | 10:12 | |
because it's thought that's really the name of the hard game | 10:14 | |
the easy game is just following a trend once it's developed. | 10:17 | |
I'm not sure that one shouldn't even handedly | 10:22 | |
think of an error as an error, | 10:25 | |
and a squared error as a squared error, | 10:27 | |
and not penalize a forecaster | 10:29 | |
who has a very good average performance | 10:33 | |
just because he wasn't early in the turning points, | 10:35 | |
but since I'm here to bestow praise, | 10:37 | |
let me go on to bestow it. | 10:39 | |
Because the Chase Econometrician model, Dr. Evans, | 10:42 | |
did forecast before the event, | 10:48 | |
the slowdown in the real rate of growth. | 10:52 | |
And I think this makes it especially in season | 10:57 | |
for us to consider what they generally think is ahead. | 11:00 | |
Now it's not my purpose to reveal any propriety secrets, | 11:05 | |
I'm not gonna go into the details of the methods used, | 11:12 | |
first place I'm not privy to those methods, | 11:17 | |
and those who take the service, | 11:20 | |
will have a rich amount of detail, | 11:25 | |
which anybody who wants to appraise the future | 11:29 | |
will need to take into account. | 11:33 | |
But just going in the general thing | 11:36 | |
with the surface generalities, | 11:41 | |
let me mention that the Chase Group has looked to see | 11:44 | |
what the forecasters were saying back in April, | 11:51 | |
before the facts revealed to us the second quarter slowdown. | 11:56 | |
Who was on the ball at that time? | 12:01 | |
And who finally got on the ball in June? | 12:05 | |
Now the final rate of growth you know | 12:10 | |
in the second quarter was low and was revised downward. | 12:16 | |
And Chase Econometrics already in April, | 12:21 | |
predicted the lowest rate of growth. | 12:26 | |
They didn't predict quite a low enough rate of growth, | 12:28 | |
but by June, they had hit the target right on the head | 12:31 | |
having predicted 2.2% in June and in April 3.3%. | 12:37 | |
I wanna point out that the University of Michigan | 12:42 | |
one of the reasons it deserved and earned its gold star | 12:44 | |
for recent years was it's been | 12:49 | |
systemically a high model forecaster. | 12:52 | |
It led the pack this year in very early saying | 12:57 | |
that the money GNP would increase by a whopping 119 billion, | 13:01 | |
and it's going to increase I guess probably, | 13:06 | |
we'll all find in a couple of months, | 13:10 | |
more like 130 billion dollars. | 13:12 | |
But unfortunately the University of Michigan | 13:16 | |
confidence board in April, still thought | 13:20 | |
that the second quarter was going to be | 13:22 | |
a real rate of growth of 6.7%, | 13:24 | |
and even in June, they had not revised the number downward. | 13:25 | |
So the two leaders are gonna be separated | 13:31 | |
by their performance on current events. | 13:34 | |
As you know from remarks I've made earlier, | 13:36 | |
the Data Resources Incorporated model | 13:39 | |
also was picking up in the second quarter itself | 13:42 | |
a slow rate of growth and in April, | 13:47 | |
they reported a 4.3% forecast, | 13:51 | |
not down to 3.3% and not down to the 2.2 or three | 13:54 | |
that actually happened. | 13:59 | |
But by June they were down to 2.9%. | 14:00 | |
I think it's very salutary for me to linger | 14:03 | |
just a moment on these statistics, | 14:07 | |
because it reminds us how imperfect | 14:09 | |
our forecasting ability is even though | 14:14 | |
there has been a great improvement in forecasting ability | 14:17 | |
among economic analysts. | 14:20 | |
If we take for example | 14:22 | |
the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, | 14:23 | |
they were saying in April 6.3%, | 14:27 | |
and in June they were down to 3.8% rate of real growth. | 14:31 | |
That is in two months time, | 14:37 | |
a very considerable downward revision. | 14:40 | |
And so it is with a number of other forecasters. | 14:44 | |
Let me by the way not just stick | 14:48 | |
with equation model forecasters, | 14:51 | |
the American Statistical Association | 14:55 | |
through the good offices | 14:57 | |
of the National Bureau of Economic Research, | 14:58 | |
does a round up on the median forecaster | 15:00 | |
of an extended sample of business economists, analysts, | 15:03 | |
and those chaps in April, still, | 15:08 | |
and remember they're talking about the quarter then | 15:12 | |
and being, were forecasting a 5.5% rate of real growth, | 15:14 | |
and in June, they dropped it to 5.0%, | 15:19 | |
but that is still more than twice as large | 15:23 | |
as actually took place, | 15:27 | |
even though by that time the quarter was almost over. | 15:28 | |
Now we shouldn't fault anybody for a lag of perception | 15:32 | |
of that amount because as you know, | 15:36 | |
the second quarter was a very special quarter, | 15:38 | |
it was a quarter in which the rate of price increase | 15:43 | |
surprised everybody and since the money growth | 15:45 | |
in the GNP was large expected to be large, | 15:50 | |
but when you put in these much larger price increases | 15:57 | |
as deflators, then as a residual so to speak, | 16:00 | |
you got the slow rate of growth of the real output. | 16:03 | |
In fact there are still people who swear | 16:07 | |
that the second quarter wasn't as weak, | 16:09 | |
if there had been a proper seasonal correction. | 16:12 | |
Let me simply say that since Evans is at the moment, | 16:17 | |
doing very well, and we want to know roughly speaking | 16:21 | |
what his forecasts are for the future, | 16:26 | |
he is fairly confident that his forecasts | 16:29 | |
are providing the nucleus for that new fashionable forecast | 16:32 | |
which will begin to harden | 16:36 | |
as the remaining months of this year pass by. | 16:38 | |
Dr. Evans does foresee a growth recession. | 16:43 | |
That's a pretty safe statement for any analyst to make, | 16:49 | |
because almost nobody I think believes | 16:54 | |
that we will have in the 12 months ahead, | 16:57 | |
as much as a four and a third percent rate of real growth. | 17:02 | |
But, if this makes you pessimistic, | 17:06 | |
let me hasten on to say, | 17:10 | |
that he does not have a genuine recession | 17:12 | |
in which for a couple of quarters the real output declines, | 17:14 | |
on the contrary, he has the worst happening early next year | 17:18 | |
in which under 2% rate of growth takes place, | 17:25 | |
1.8% I guess, | 17:32 | |
but you're coming back from that | 17:34 | |
and by the second quarter of 1975, | 17:36 | |
well by 1975 calendar year itself, | 17:40 | |
you are no longer in the growth recession. | 17:43 | |
So although this can be expected | 17:47 | |
to hit after-tax corporate profits, | 17:51 | |
according to his best way of estimating them, | 17:54 | |
it does not result in any cataclysmic change | 17:56 | |
in the economy, and I think a lot of people | 18:02 | |
would certainly gladly settle for the Chase Econometric | 18:04 | |
horoscope, they would say that's a good thing | 18:08 | |
in order to bring prices down, | 18:12 | |
and actually, as Gabriel Heater would say, | 18:13 | |
if you look at the consumer's price index, | 18:16 | |
now not the real GNP deflator which analysts use, | 18:20 | |
but the consumer's price index | 18:24 | |
is I believe what the man I the street uses | 18:25 | |
and we know that unions have their sliding scale contracts | 18:29 | |
adjusted according to it, and even Social Security | 18:34 | |
these days is adjusted according to it, | 18:36 | |
then I think that the Chase people are quite optimistic. | 18:38 | |
In fact I don't wanna editorialize, | 18:46 | |
but I wish I could convince myself | 18:50 | |
of the likelihood of their horoscope developing, | 18:52 | |
because we are at our worst with an 8.8%, | 18:57 | |
almost 9% increase in the third quarter | 19:03 | |
according to this particular forecast, | 19:05 | |
but that drops to five and a half in the fourth quarter, | 19:08 | |
and miracle of miracles, we're down way below 3% | 19:10 | |
for a couple of quarters in the first half of 1974, | 19:15 | |
and you average about three and a half percent | 19:20 | |
in the last half of '74, | 19:24 | |
but going into 1975, we're back again below 3% rate. | 19:26 | |
And it seems to me, and now I'm giving my gloss on this, | 19:33 | |
that if those are believable figures, | 19:37 | |
if they are figures which in fact materialize, | 19:42 | |
then that is quite cheerful news | 19:44 | |
for the economy | 19:50 | |
and it might even be cheerful news | 19:51 | |
for people in the bond markets, | 19:54 | |
trying to guess interest rates, | 19:57 | |
it would be cheerful news for people interested in equities, | 19:59 | |
because as such a scenario becomes more credible, | 20:06 | |
you can expect farsighted speculators in Wall Street, | 20:13 | |
to see beyond the immediate valley of growth recession | 20:18 | |
to the period of recovery afterward. | 20:22 | |
And you could therefore, pitting this against | 20:26 | |
the low price earnings multiples, | 20:30 | |
which are currently being reported, | 20:34 | |
you could expect that Wall Street | 20:36 | |
might have a very nice recovery. | 20:40 | |
However, although I think a consensus is being to form | 20:44 | |
perhaps and it's forming | 20:48 | |
in the direction of growth recession | 20:53 | |
rather than real genuine recession, | 20:55 | |
I don't believe that as yet, | 20:59 | |
I can detect signs of a consensus | 21:02 | |
on this kind of cheerfulness on the consumer's price index. | 21:04 | |
Of course, you must remember this, | 21:09 | |
that the volatile prices which go up so horrendously | 21:11 | |
in a month like August just behind us, | 21:15 | |
those prices will also eventually go down, | 21:18 | |
and they will go down presumably in a horrendous way. | 21:22 | |
You have only to have a slight sense of history, | 21:27 | |
you mustn't have too much of a sense of history | 21:30 | |
because you then are remembering things | 21:32 | |
that are less relevant than cross sectional data | 21:34 | |
now available to current analysts, | 21:40 | |
but if you go back to a period like 1920, | 21:43 | |
you had all over the world in the aftermath of World War I, | 21:47 | |
a speculative commodity price boom, | 21:52 | |
and then suddenly the silk market broke in Tokyo, | 21:58 | |
I think that was around May of 1920, | 22:02 | |
and like a set of dominoes, other markets broke | 22:04 | |
and you began to have actual price decreases. | 22:10 | |
Well, when we finally get good soybean crops | 22:16 | |
and good wheat crops and good corn crops, | 22:22 | |
good grain crops generally, | 22:24 | |
and when that translates itself into meat, | 22:26 | |
when the mines all over the world | 22:31 | |
begin to spit out large supplies, elicited | 22:36 | |
by the very high prices that now prevail, | 22:42 | |
and when this coincides with what we, | 22:46 | |
I think must also expect, namely, | 22:49 | |
just as the rest of the world has been booming | 22:54 | |
at the same time that we have been booming, | 22:58 | |
the rest of the world, if I were to report | 23:01 | |
as I will on another occasion on a set of forecasts | 23:05 | |
for other countries, for Germany, for Japan, | 23:08 | |
for Western Europe, for the rest of the world generally, | 23:12 | |
they too can expect to move into a growth recession. | 23:16 | |
Now I don't say that these forecasts are correct, | 23:22 | |
but that is the fashionable forecast | 23:25 | |
which is beginning to develop | 23:28 | |
for a number of these countries, | 23:29 | |
and so at a time when the supplies are increasing, | 23:31 | |
of these flexible priced items, | 23:34 | |
you will have some cessation of demand | 23:39 | |
and some cessation of speculative demand. | 23:43 | |
And those people who now are doing some hedging | 23:45 | |
by getting into real things, | 23:48 | |
will begin to spit out those inventories, | 23:50 | |
they don't wanna hold inventories on a falling market, | 23:53 | |
and so this will show itself in some degree, | 23:57 | |
in the consumer's price index, it will show itself less, | 24:00 | |
from the nature of how the waiting takes place, | 24:05 | |
in the GNP deflator. | 24:09 | |
But it will also show itself in some degree there. | 24:11 | |
Now, just as a control, | 24:16 | |
let me compare the Chase Econometrics general forecast | 24:18 | |
with that of Data Resources. | 24:26 | |
I only picked that particular item for comparison | 24:30 | |
because both the forecasting groups | 24:35 | |
have had a good record, | 24:39 | |
you do not have according to Data Resources, | 24:41 | |
the implicit price deflator going down to anything like 3% | 24:46 | |
in well, through '74 and into '75, | 24:54 | |
you finally get around three and two thirds percent | 25:00 | |
when you get in the last part of 1975, | 25:03 | |
and remember that's a very iffy period, | 25:06 | |
a very far distance away. | 25:09 | |
On the other hand, the profit picture, | 25:12 | |
holds up better for Data Resources | 25:16 | |
than it holds up in the Chase Econometrics. | 25:21 | |
So there really is no substitute for | 25:24 | |
let's say a large money market group | 25:26 | |
who want to be well informed | 25:32 | |
in subscribing to these different services, | 25:33 | |
and getting the interplay of analysis. | 25:39 | |
The most valuable thing that you can get of course, | 25:44 | |
is to compare one with the other. | 25:48 | |
And to be alerted to what may happen. | 25:51 | |
Now if you're not sophisticated, | 25:54 | |
it's quite possible that you'll just be confused. | 25:56 | |
My function here is to mention the various groups | 26:01 | |
who've been having a good track record, | 26:06 | |
and who have been worth listening to. | 26:08 | |
I say that because it is amazing, | 26:10 | |
how in let's say an anti-trust case, | 26:14 | |
and let's make it a civil anti-trust case, | 26:20 | |
you will have one very large corporation let us say, | 26:23 | |
being sued by a medium size corporation, | 26:27 | |
and it's like the difference between day and night. | 26:31 | |
Between the competence of the case | 26:33 | |
as counsel presents that case, | 26:37 | |
very often, of one of the litigating parties. | 26:41 | |
Now I'm perhaps sorry to say, | 26:45 | |
that usually the bigger company has the better counsel. | 26:48 | |
This is not a universal rule. | 26:53 | |
Who's to say this? | 26:59 | |
I mean in the opinion of competent third parties. | 27:01 | |
Well, it's unfortunately the case, | 27:08 | |
that the bigger organizations is also better able to use | 27:14 | |
the forecasts and to judge among forecasters. | 27:20 | |
I don't wanna mention any names by way of this praise, | 27:23 | |
but my listeners will recognize | 27:27 | |
that there's certain people who periodically | 27:30 | |
say that the Dow Jones Averages are gonna drop below 500, | 27:33 | |
who periodically predict not growth recessions, | 27:37 | |
not mini recessions, not recessions, | 27:42 | |
but actual depressions. | 27:45 | |
And most of those people cannot give you cogent | 27:48 | |
and good reasons for their argumentation. | 27:52 | |
They don't aim to do that. | 27:56 | |
And most of them have a very poor track record. | 27:58 | |
And so although I have been stressing here today | 28:01 | |
the fallibility of forecasting, | 28:06 | |
I think that certain forecasts | 28:09 | |
and certain roundups of forecasts | 28:13 | |
are much more valuable | 28:15 | |
and worth relying upon than others. | 28:19 | |
Nevertheless, there's no substitute | 28:23 | |
for the passage of time itself | 28:24 | |
and to the anxious observer, | 28:26 | |
each month passes extremely slowly | 28:29 | |
and you want to know the answer to the whodunit, | 28:33 | |
what's gonna happen as we go into 1974, | 28:35 | |
but nature doles out only one month at a time. | 28:39 | |
- | If you have any comments or questions | 28:44 |
for Professor Samuelson, address them to | 28:46 | |
Instructional Dynamics Incorporated. | 28:48 | |
166 East Superior Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611 | 28:50 |
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