Election anxiety is fueling the ‘vibecession’

?? Welcome to Trendlines. The secret word is "chairman of the bored."

I am Boston Globe financial columnist Larry Edelman, and today I look at how the impact of pervasive election anxiety is starting to show up in the economy.?

Plus: A new twist on black holes.

Trendlines is my twice-weekly newsletter for Boston Globe Media. Click the subscribe button to keep on top of business and the economy in the region and beyond.

High anxiety

?? What’s happening

People are freaking out about the election, and the impact isn’t just emotional — it’s starting to show up in the economy in small but telling ways.?

• Consumers are holding off on big-ticket purchases like houses, cars, and even weddings. Employers have slowed hiring. Investors have gotten jumpy.

But things could really head south depending on how events on Nov. 5 and thereafter play out.

“This economy could be quickly upended by the presidential election and its aftermath,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote in a note to clients this week.

?? Details

The Conference Board’s widely followed consumer confidence index fell last month by the most in more than four years. A drop in consumer confidence often signals that people are more cautious about spending, which can slow economic growth.

• Existing single-family home sales fell to an almost 14-year low in September, the National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday.

• Automakers reported that vehicle sales fell 13 percent in September from a year earlier.

• Wedding planners told The New York Times that while they see a slowdown in every election cycle, this year’s falloff has been dramatic.

?? Looking forward: Sources of a possible shock to the economy include widening war in the Middle East, a confrontation between NATO and Russia over Ukraine, and an escalating trade fight with China.

But Zandi said the election and its outcome are “arguably the most serious threat to the economy’s exceptional performance.”

• Contested results — a distinct possibility given the consistently tight polls all year — and weeks or months of wrangling could lead to social unrest that saps consumer, business, and investor confidence.

• A win by Vice President Kamala Harris but the loss of the Senate to Republicans would likely mean she wouldn’t be able to push through much of her economic agenda.

• A win by former president Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress might bring policies such as steep tariffs on imports, which economists say would increase prices, and tax cuts without offsetting spending reductions, which would expand the national debt and potentially push up interest rates.

?? Final thought

The economy is solid. So is the country.

Election Day is less than two weeks away. In the meantime, enjoy Halloween, listen to Taylor Swift, or do whatever makes you happy.

We can deal with everything else on Nov. 6.

?? Trending

Hospitality: The debate over eliminating the tipped minimum wage has lifted the lid on class divides within the restaurant industry.

Jobs: As Hasbro mulls a move to Boston, the Rhode Island toymaker lays off dozens of employees.

Politics: The son of US Representative Richard Neal, the Ways and Means leader from Mass., has collected regular payments from his father’s campaign and received business from lobbyists on tax issues.

??? The Closer

I still don't understand how my TV works, so this one is way beyond me.

Physicists at MIT and Caltech have discovered the first “black hole triple,” a formation more than 8,000 light years from Earth that experts say expands the current understanding of how black holes — objects whose gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape them — are created, the Globe's Nick Stoico reports.

Black holes typically appear in a binary system, comprising of a black hole and a secondary object, such as a star or another black hole, but the research team says this latest discovery shows two stars orbiting the black hole, MIT said in a statement Wednesday.

The discovery raises questions about how the black hole was formed, as black holes typically follow the violent explosion of a dying star, releasing enough energy to knock away any loosely bound objects in the outskirts of its orbit, MIT said. The presence of this outer star indicates the black hole was born through a “gentler, direct collapse,” where the dying star caves in on itself and does not release as much energy.

Fun fact: 50 years ago famed physicist Stephen Hawking challenged the theory that black holes destroyed everything they sucked up.

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