By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss said the short to medium term does not look good for the agricultural areas of the Midwest.
"It doesn't look good with the, particularly in terms of exports, exports of agricultural products and livestock, that's not good, and it's just, but long term, beyond the short to intermediate term, you've got to be positive," Goss said. "I expect farmland prices to move higher again once we get over this blip that we're currently seeing, and what we're seeing in terms, back to the interest rates, we're looking at home, the mortgage rates, 30-year mortgage rates, double what they were a couple of years ago, and thus those who are in current homes with these low interest rates, they're staying in their homes."
Goss does expect interest rate relief relatively soon, though.
"They're taking a wait-and-see approach," Goss said. "This is what I expect, I expect a rate cut in either July or in September. There's too much weakness out there right now. In other words, the job numbers that we've been getting, the establishment numbers are wrong, I'll just say that. They're not correct and also there's a lot of part-time jobs, a lot of multiple job holders, so it's over, we're overstating the strength in the job market."
It's also possible that government spending could continue to prop up the economy, as it has for the last couple of years.
"I don't hear any politicians out there talking about cutting," Goss said. "They're all talking about increasing it at the best, and maybe perhaps significant increases, and a lot will depend on the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has been, they have bought the bonds that are issued to support the debt, and we'll have to wait and see what the Fed does there, but the Federal Reserve has gone slower. They've been in what's called quantitative tightening, and they've lessened or pulled back on that quantitative tightening. So even the Federal Reserve is starting to see, and a lot of their talk now, I think, is reflecting what they see, which is a weaker economy."
Goss said that in the long run, we can't have the government being the major component of growth in our economy.