Last month I wrote about an ongoing debate over what had been dubbed the “vibecession.” The basic idea is that as inflation came down to more manageable levels people’s feelings about the economy (as measured in polls and consumer confidence indicators) didn’t seem to be improving much. It was as if consumer sentiment had become detached from what the numbers were telling us.
In response there were basically two camps. One camp argued that the economy wasn’t as good as the numbers made it appear. In other words, people were still being rational they were just responding to factors that were not being captured by employment, inflation and other economic indications.
The other camp argued that no, the public sentiment had indeed become detached from reality in some way. Even though the economy was doing pretty well, people somehow didn’t trust it. They were responding to…
