The economy is humming. Inflation has cooled off. Americans are well-employed, getting raises and spending freely. But, with an election in less than two weeks, people still haven’t gotten over how much higher prices are today than in 2020.

The U.S. is increasingly pulling ahead of the world’s advanced economies, with a surge of investment paying off in higher productivity and wages.

Sentiment among U.S. consumers increased in October to a six-month high as households grew more upbeat about buying conditions, partly because of cheaper financing costs.

Sales of existing homes in the U.S. are on track for the worst year since 1995, for the second year in a row. Persistently high home prices and elevated mortgage rates are keeping potential home buyers on the sidelines.

Investors love a simple narrative, and economists are delighted to oblige. There’s just one slight problem: The obvious stories about the U.S. economy have been repeatedly wrong since the Covid pandemic. Three basic assumptions underpin the simple narratives: Government spending matters, monetary policy matters and there is a natural link between growth, unemployment, and inflation. None of the three proved reliable in the past four years, yet each seems self-evidently true, baked into the very structure of the economy. It is, in a word, confusing.