🧭 The Weekly Scoop

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Here’s what you need to know this week:

This week was full of relatively good news about the economy. Incomes are growing faster than the cost of living, layoffs are low, inflation is under control, and people are spending enough to keep the economy humming.

The market tumbled from all-time highs, though, because we have an election next week—in case you didn’t notice from the flood of political fundraising text messages. (Vote!)

There’s one thing investors hate more than anything: uncertainty. For that reason, markets are usually pretty volatile heading into an election, and then they tend to do pretty well after the election once the path forward is a little clearer.

This October has been strangely calm despite some pretty massive uncertainty. The biggest thing financial people are thinking about now is the growing debt. High interest rates are compounding the national debt like we haven’t seen in a long time. It’s like when you don’t pay your credit card fast enough, that bill keeps growing. Neither party seems to have a particularly clear strategy for resolving the issue. It will likely require higher taxes in some form, lower spending, or some combination of the two.

If this election results in a divided government, with different parties controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency, prepare for some high-tension government shutdown battles and debt ceiling armageddon sagas in the coming year. As for a single-party winner, who knows where that goes? Policies from both presidential candidates are projected to increase the overspending.

That’s just one reason why next week will be volatile.

@augustuschristensen

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