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The Tension Between The Near- And Medium-Terms

Today’s news highlights the dilemma facing the Fed at this week’s meeting. This, for instance, from Bloomberg: The first Covid-19 vaccine shots were administered by U.S. hospitals Monday, the initial step in a historic drive to immunize millions of…

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Today’s news highlights the dilemma facing the Fed at this week’s meeting. This, for instance, from Bloomberg:

The first Covid-19 vaccine shots were administered by U.S. hospitals Monday, the initial step in a historic drive to immunize millions of people as deaths passed the grim milestone of 300,000.

And this, also from Bloomberg:

New York is headed toward a second full shutdown if Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations continue at their current pace, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

But we also have this from the New York Federal Reserve:

The November Survey of Consumer Expectations shows that consumers’ year-ahead spending growth expectations rose to 3.7 percent—the highest level in more than four years—despite flat income and earnings growth expectations.

Interesting, the spending outlook improved across all income groups but the gains among households making less than $50k were particularly notable:

The message is clear: The surge of Covid-19 cases this winter has had terrible health consequences and softened the economy in the near-term while the vaccine raises medium-term hopes and households are prepared to spend next year. The Fed will likely navigate this space by holding the size and composition of asset purchases constant while providing guidance on the path of the program. They can’t do much about the near-term but can stand ready to change the asset purchase program as needed if the economy struggles to rebound as spring approaches.

If the Fed surprises, they will do so by extending the maturity of purchases in some manner that matches the updated guidance. I wonder though that this sets the Fed up to disappoint market participants. What change is the Fed going to make that would have substantial impacts on the economy? It seems like the Fed would have to do something large to have such impacts but nothing indicates they are prepared for a substantial change in the asset purchase program. If the Fed shifts buying out along the yield curve, how far are they willing to go to hold down long rates? If the Fed doesn’t do enough to hold down long rates, it will engender expectations for more action. Is the Fed prepared to go big?

Separately, the Fed is updating the SEP’s information on the balance of risk into more user-friendly charts. Consider the diffusion of uncertainty and risk for participant’s GDP and core inflation outlooks:

With these visuals, the Fed’s decision not ease policy further already arguably demands some additional explanation. As of September, participants were very unconfident about the outlooks for growth and inflation while they saw the risks to the outlooks as weighted toward the downside. In other words, participants feared that their forecasts were too optimistic even though those forecasts anticipated a slow return to full employment and price stability. Why fail to take additional action when not only is the outlook soft but you think the outlook is both likely wrong and too optimistic? Market participants might reasonably be confused on your policy intentions with this kind of signaling.

I would like to see journalists push on Powell for a clear explanation of this disconnect (assuming of course that the Fed doesn’t move to ease policy further). The answer probably has multiple parts: Yes, the risks are on the downside but the high degree of uncertainty still includes the possibility of large upside surprises. Yes, meeting the Fed’s objectives takes a seemingly long time but it is within an acceptable policy horizon. The economy is simply in a deep hole that requires some minimum amount of time to correct. Yes, they could take further action but they may be concerned about the efficacy of additional policy when financial conditions are already very accommodative. Indeed, the Fed elevated the importance of financial stability in the recent update to its policy strategy; the Fed might be concerned about easing further into already loose financial conditions.

Fiscal stimulus negotiations continue, keep your fingers crossed. While the recovery may be self-sustaining absent additional support, such support would both increase confidence in a positive outcome and minimize the burden to households most impacted by the crisis.

Bottom Line: Regardless of the outcome of the Fed meeting we should get some additional clarity on the role the Fed believes it can play in the recovery process. It would be nice to pin down the Fed on the issue of if they can accelerate the recovery, why have they so far declined to do so?

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World Bank: Global Economic Growth Expected To Slow To 2008 Levels

World Bank: Global Economic Growth Expected To Slow To 2008 Levels

Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

Most people in the mainstream…

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34 mins ago

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June 7, 2023

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World Bank: Global Economic Growth Expected To Slow To 2008 Levels

Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

Most people in the mainstream concede that the economy is heading for a recession, but the consensus seems to be that downturn will be short and shallow. Projections by the World Bank undercut that optimism.

According to the World Bank, global growth in 2023 will slow to the lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis.

In other words, the World Bank is predicting the beginning of Great Recession 2.0.

You might recall that the Great Recession was neither short nor shallow.

In fact, World Bank Group chief economist and senior vice president Indermit Gill said, “The world economy is in a precarious position.”

According to the World Bank’s new Global Economic Prospects report, global growth is projected to decelerate to 2.1% this year, falling from 3.1% in 2022. The bank forecasts a significant slowdown during the last half of this year.

That would match the global growth rate during the 2008 financial crisis.

According to the World Bank, higher interest rates, inflation, and more restrictive credit conditions will drive the economic downturn.

The report forecasts that growth in advanced economies will slow from 2.6% in 2022 to 0.7% this year and remain weak in 2024.

Emerging market economies will feel significant pain from the economic slowdown. Yahoo Finance reported, “Higher interest rates are a problem for emerging markets, which already were reeling from the overlapping shocks of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They make it harder for those economies to service debt loans denominated in US dollars.”

The World Bank report paints a bleak picture.

The world economy remains hobbled. Besieged by high inflation, tight global financial markets, and record debt levels, many countries are simply growing poorer.”

Absent from the World Bank analysis is any mention of how more than a decade of artificially low interest rates and trillions of dollars in quantitative easing by central banks created the wave of inflation that continues to sweep the globe, along with massive levels of debt and all kinds of economic bubbles.

If you listen to the mainstream narrative, you would think inflation just came out of nowhere, and central banks are innocent victims nobly struggling to save the day by raising interest rates. Pundits fret about rising rates but never mention that rates were only so low for so long because of the actions of central banks. And they seem oblivious to the consequences of those policies.

But being oblivious doesn’t shield you from the impact of those consequences.

In reality, central banks and governments implemented policies intended to incentivize the accumulation of debt. They created trillions of dollars out of thin air and showered the world with stimulus, unleashing the inflation monster. And now they’re trying to battle the dragon they set loose by raising interest rates. This will inevitably pop the bubble they intentionally blew up. That’s why the World Bank is forecasting Great Recession-era growth. All of this was entirely predictable.

After all, artificially low interest rates are the mother’s milk of a global economy built on easy money and debt. When you take away the milk, the baby gets hungry. That’s what’s happening today. With interest rates rising, the bubbles are starting to pop.

And it’s probably going to be much worse than most people realize. There are more malinvestments, more debt, and more bubbles in the global economy today than there were in 2008. There is every reason to believe the bust will be much worse today than it was then.

In other words, you can strike “short” and “shallow” from your recession vocabulary.

Even the World Bank is hinting at this.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/07/2023 - 15:20

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DNAmFitAge: Biological age indicator incorporating physical fitness

“We expect DNAmFitAge will be a useful biomarker for quantifying fitness benefits at an epigenetic level and can be used to evaluate exercise-based interventions.”…

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June 7, 2023

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“We expect DNAmFitAge will be a useful biomarker for quantifying fitness benefits at an epigenetic level and can be used to evaluate exercise-based interventions.”

Credit: 2023 McGreevy et al.

“We expect DNAmFitAge will be a useful biomarker for quantifying fitness benefits at an epigenetic level and can be used to evaluate exercise-based interventions.”

BUFFALO, NY- June 7, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as “Aging (Albany NY)” and “Aging-US” by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 10, entitled, “DNAmFitAge: biological age indicator incorporating physical fitness.”

Physical fitness is a well-known correlate of health and the aging process and DNA methylation (DNAm) data can capture aging via epigenetic clocks. However, current epigenetic clocks did not yet use measures of mobility, strength, lung, or endurance fitness in their construction. 

In this new study, researchers Kristen M. McGreevy, Zsolt Radak, Ferenc Torma, Matyas Jokai, Ake T. Lu, Daniel W. Belsky, Alexandra Binder, Riccardo E. Marioni, Luigi Ferrucci, Ewelina Pośpiech, Wojciech Branicki, Andrzej Ossowski, Aneta Sitek, Magdalena Spólnicka, Laura M. Raffield, Alex P. Reiner, Simon Cox, Michael Kobor, David L. Corcoran, and Steve Horvath from the University of California Los Angeles, University of Physical Education, Altos Labs, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, University of Hawaii, University of Edinburgh, National Institute on Aging, Jagiellonian University, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, University of Łódź, Central Forensic Laboratory of the Police in Warsaw, Poland, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Washington, and University of British Columbia develop blood-based DNAm biomarkers for fitness parameters including gait speed (walking speed), maximum handgrip strength, forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), and maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) which have modest correlation with fitness parameters in five large-scale validation datasets (average r between 0.16–0.48). 

“These parameters were chosen because handgrip strength and VO2max provide insight into the two main categories of fitness: strength and endurance [23], and gait speed and FEV1 provide insight into fitness-related organ function: mobility and lung function [8, 24].”

The researchers then used these DNAm fitness parameter biomarkers with DNAmGrimAge, a DNAm mortality risk estimate, to construct DNAmFitAge, a new biological age indicator that incorporates physical fitness. DNAmFitAge was associated with low-intermediate physical activity levels across validation datasets (p = 6.4E-13), and younger/fitter DNAmFitAge corresponds to stronger DNAm fitness parameters in both males and females. 

DNAmFitAge was lower (p = 0.046) and DNAmVO2max is higher (p = 0.023) in male body builders compared to controls. Physically fit people had a younger DNAmFitAge and experienced better age-related outcomes: lower mortality risk (p = 7.2E-51), coronary heart disease risk (p = 2.6E-8), and increased disease-free status (p = 1.1E-7). These new DNAm biomarkers provide researchers a new method to incorporate physical fitness into epigenetic clocks.

“Our newly constructed DNAm biomarkers and DNAmFitAge provide researchers and physicians a new method to incorporate physical fitness into epigenetic clocks and emphasizes the effect lifestyle has on the aging methylome.”
 

Read the full study: DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204538 

Corresponding Authors: Kristen M. McGreevy, Zsolt Radak, Steve Horvath

Corresponding Emails: kristenmae@ucla.edu, radak.zsolt@tf.hu, shorvath@mednet.ucla.edu 

Keywords: epigenetics, aging, physical fitness, biological age, DNA methylation

Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article: https://aging.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Faging.204538

 

About Aging-US:

Launched in 2009, Aging publishes papers of general interest and biological significance in all fields of aging research and age-related diseases, including cancer—and now, with a special focus on COVID-19 vulnerability as an age-dependent syndrome. Topics in Aging go beyond traditional gerontology, including, but not limited to, cellular and molecular biology, human age-related diseases, pathology in model organisms, signal transduction pathways (e.g., p53, sirtuins, and PI-3K/AKT/mTOR, among others), and approaches to modulating these signaling pathways.

Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us:

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For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.

 

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Journal

Aging-US

DOI

10.18632/aging.204538

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

DNAmFitAge: biological age indicator incorporating physical fitness

Article Publication Date

31-May-2023

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Martha Stewart Has a Spicy Take on Americans Who Want to Work From Home

This half-baked take might need to stay in the oven a little longer.

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6 hours ago

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June 7, 2023

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Lifestyle icon Martha Stewart has been on a roll when it comes to representing vivacious women over 60. Whether she's teaming up to charm audiences alongside her BFF Snoop Dogg, poking fun at Elon Musk, or starring as Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue cover model, Martha stays busy. 

Her most recent publicity moment, however, doesn't have the same wholesome feeling Stewart brings to the table. In an interview with Footwear News, the DIY-queen had some choice words about Americans who want to continue working from home after covid-19 lockdown shut down offices.

“You can’t possibly get everything done working three days a week in the office and two days remotely," the cozy-home guru said. "Look at the success of France with their stupid … you know, off for August, blah blah blah. That’s not a very thriving country. Should America go down the drain because people don’t want to go back to work?”

Well, that's certainly a viewpoint. A lot to unpack there. Many online were confused--after all, didn't Stewart basically make her career by "working from home?"

Sitting down with The Today Show, Stewart elaborated on her controversial stance. It seems she's confusing "work from home" with a three-day workweek. 

"I'm having this argument with so many people these days. It's just that my kind of work is very creative and is very collaborative. And I cannot really stomach another zoom. [...But] I hate going to an office, it's empty. During COVID I took every precaution. We [...] set up an office at [...] my home[...] Now we're our offices and our three day work week, I just don't agree with it," Stewart tells viewers. 

"It's frightening because if you read the economic news and look at what's happening everywhere in the world, a three-day workweek doesn't get the work done, doesn't get the productivity up. It doesn't help with the economy and I think that's very important."

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