Give it a rest

In a determined attempt to mess up people's holiday season, the Toronto Star has posted this article about the economic outlook for 2024. Since the Star has kept its paywall in place despite the recent shakedown of Google, I will assume you can't actually read it, so I will try to summarize for you.

The headline reads "Where is Canada's economy headed in 2024?  Brace yourself".  It's pretty clear where this is heading!  Perhaps readers should be reminded that the Star, along with many other media outfits, has been trumpeting an imminent recession since about May 2022, when the Bank of Canada started getting serious about policy tightening.  Sooner or later they will no doubt be right, but that doesn't make it a good piece of forecasting, any more than the people carrying "The end is nigh" posters can be regarded as good prophets.

Below the headline we read that "Even if the economy doesn't plunge into a deep, prolonged recession, the year ahead is still going to be painful for many households, economists say".  The first part of that is evidently worded so as to make it sound as if a "deep. prolonged recession" is pretty much baked in.  In fact that's precisely nobody's base case for the coming year, and it's certainly not the expectation of any of the economists quoted in the body of the article. 

The doom and gloom in the Star contrasts sharply with the media coverage of yesterday's Boxing Day sales, with TV news bulletins showing malls heaving with heavily-laden patrons. What's more, one of the fastest-rising sub-components in the most recent CPI report was the cost of package holidays; that wouldn't be happening if people weren't willing to splash out on non-essentials.  

If the Star and other media outlets still employed reporters who focused on business-related stories, maybe said reporters would realize that these things can't all be true at the same time. Those days, alas, are gone. There may indeed be a mild recession in the next little while; if it happens, the doom-laden tone of the media headlines will surely be something to behold.