Once again, we are being told to anticipate a stronger second-half of the year. Once again, we are being told that wage growth is just around the corner. Once again, the green shoots are poking out. “We anticipate that the economy will gain further momentum throughout the summer,” said Harm Bandholz, an economist at UniCredit expressing a widely held view. Once again, we anticipate being disappointed. Ever since Ben Bernanke said he saw green shoots in the economy, back in 2009, we’ve been waiting for those shoots to grow into stalks. They haven’t. Every year, predictions are made that the U.S. economy is going to ... (full story)