🟪 Friday Moonstruck Charts

If you missed the blue supermoon on Wednesday, you should know that it's a long wait for the next one.

"Woke up this morning, Got a blue moon in your eyes."   — Theme song, The Sopranos  Friday Moonstruck Charts   If you missed the blue supermoon on Wednesday, you should know that it's a long wait for the next one: We won't have another second full moon of a month (the blue part) that close to Earth (the super part) until 2037.   If you missed this week's economic data, it may be an equally long wait to see its like again: At this late of a point in an economic cycle, how often is GDP up, inflation down, and employment full?    As combinations go, that seems at least as rare as blue moons coinciding with supermoons.   Really, it's not supposed to happen at all.    The Phillips curve of Econ 101 instructs us that employment and inflation should be inversely correlated. Growth and inflation are meant to be yin and yang, too.   And yet, disinflation is here while the economy continues to grow and employers continue to employ.   Can it get any better than that? Maybe!   Hopes are rising that AI may supercharge this cycle with a historic wave of productivity-enhancing investment.   There were signs this week that it's happening: Dell's COO told investors, "AI is already showing it's a long-term tailwind."   And Google's CEO predicted that AI "will touch every sector, every industry, every business function and significantly change the way we live and work…we are already starting to experience the benefits right now."   An even bigger winner may be Anguilla, which happens to own the .ai domain name. The island nation expects to collect $30 million in domain registration fees, which is not bad for a country with a GDP of $300 million.   The biggest winner, however, may be the economy: An AI-driven productivity boom might allow an economy that's already at (or beyond) full employment to keep growing without risking excessive inflation.   If so, this week's super data may turn out to be not such a blue moon after all.   Let's check the charts.   The trend is our friend: With August payrolls at 187k in August (and June and July both revised lower), the job market is back at its pre-pandemic trend, growing a not-too-hot, not-too-cold 150-200k per month.   Unemployment rose, the good way: The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.8%, but only because people are returning to the job market: The labor force grew by 736,000 in August.    These jobs won't do themselves: Fortunately, we're getting help from abroad. The foreign-born labor force (blue line) is growing much faster than native-born. To quote Hamilton on immigrants: They get the job done.   The real MVP? The most impactful trend, however, may be moms working from home. A report from the Hamilton Project finds work-from-home options have helped raise the participation rate of women with young children to an all-time high of 70.4%. The participation rate for men is a comparatively slothful 68.2%.   We're not just flipping more burgers: Skanda Amarnath notes that the jobs being added in the US are increasingly good ones with workers moving into higher-wage jobs in higher-value sectors of the economy — "a double benefit for productivity."   Still running hot: The Atlanta Fed's GDPnowcast has ticked down to 5.6%, but other estimates are ticking up: JP Morgan raised their estimate for Q3 US GDP growth from 2.5% to 3.5%. That's an amazing three full points above where they were at the start of August.   Why won't we slow down? Consumers have so far been unfazed by the Fed's rate hikes, perhaps because if you don't read this newsletter, you might not have noticed.    For example: The average mortgage rate for US borrowers is still only about 3.6%.   Does that mean we're bulletproof?    No. 7.5% mortgages will catch up to us eventually and higher rates on cars, commercial real estate and corporate borrowing are already starting to bite.   But does it mean this blue-moon economy can stay super longer than anyone would have guessed? Maybe!   We'll keep reading the charts to find out.   Have a great weekend, star-gazing readers. – Byron Gilliam Attn: Permie Holders Claim your free GA pass to Permissionelss II via tokenproof today!   The claim window closes Wednesday Sept 6th at 11:59am.   Not a Permie? Register for Permissionless II here.  Top Stories Bitcoin drops 5% on ETF decision delay to close out August — Read Most crypto companies don't meet Singapore's license standards — Read  Tokenized vaults see steady deployments remain after ERC-4626 adoption — Read  MakerDAO co-founder floats using Solana's code to build new chain — Read Grayscale is not afraid of bitcoin ETF rivals — but should it be? — Read Web3 From The Pros Dig into the latest Web3 trends and technologies with these in-depth articles developed with industry leaders. The crypto investor's guide to blockchain gaming   With blockchain gaming poised to disrupt the global gaming industry, opportunity is abundant for investors armed with these expert insights.* Read more   *Sponsored content We're Watching In today's special premiere Empire Debate episode, Santiago, Tommy, and Ryan dissect the biggest debates affecting Crypto. They dive into the L2 wars, whether Base needs a token, or if decentralization even matters for mass adoption. Also discussed are ETF approval chances, Crypto regs on the horizon, and NFTs new movement as fine digital art.    Watch/Listen to Empire on Youtube, Spotify or Apple. Daily Insights So, how'd we do? Provide your feedback on today's edition of Blockworks Daily Newsletter: Follow Blockworks on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Telegram and Instagram. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up for free to join over 180,000 investors who read Blockworks newsletter daily.  Update your email subscription preferences here. Copyright ©2023 Blockworks. All rights reserved.