Nouriel Roubini

One is that the GDP numbers are wrong and the GDP numbers are going to be revised towards the weaker labor numbers.

The other one is that, no, the GDP growth is strong and you're going to have some adjustment upward of the revised data.

I think the third explanation is the more correct one.

You can have strong GDP growth and having weak labor growth because we're having a productivity revolution.

If you're looking, for example, at the revenue, real revenue per worker of S&P 500 firms since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the average has increased for S&P 500 firms by 15% in the last three years.

So it's almost 5% per year.

And if you look at it by sector, of course, a lot of it is closer to 20% in tech and communication services, but it's very large also across the board.

So both at the micro data level, S&P 500 firms and the macro number, we're seeing a productivity revolution already in the numbers.

Well, there are geopolitical risks in the world, and I'm aware of them.

The question is whether they're going to have a significant economic and market effect.

Look at the biggest one.

You had a 12-day war between Israel and Iran last June.

Oil prices went up a little bit.

Stock markets wobbled.

And then, given that Iran did not attack the old facility of the Gulfies or block the Strait of Hormuz, it went away.

And that was a big, big deal.

Venezuela...

You know, we can discuss it at length, but the macro and market implication are close to zero.

It's just less than a million barrels a day.

Russia-Ukraine is a mess, but it's not going to have an impact on global market economy the way it did in 2022.