> Record high credit card balances
Nope, it's back to normal. [0]
> record low personal savings
Well perhaps. If you take a hyper-zoomed-in-view of this chart [1] then I can see how you'd have this takeaway. But contextually this is in the period right after a 1-2 year period where rates were consistently 3-5x above the average. Consumers drawing down on personal savings right now is a natural release from all the savings during covid, and in fact is a positive economic indicator because it injects a lot of cash into markets and that goes straight to corporate balance sheets. Probably a good time to be hiring, not laying off.
> 40 year high inflation
1. This is often good for companies and businesses, because it means that they get a free pass to essentially lower pay across the board for every single employee. While on the revenue side, since "everyone is raising prices" they get a free pass to adjust pricing UP to account for inflation, and then some! So in the end businesses are probably pretty happy with how inflation has played out this last year, particularly because...
2. The actual pain experienced from inflation is more connected to the area under the curve. If we had sustained 40-yr high inflation for several years, then yes that is truly disruptive to an economy. But an inverted "V" like peak (which is clearly what we have the last year [2]) means a single shock, but after that everything resettles. We're clearly in the resettling period, as current inflation as of December is only 6.5% and dropping quickly. That may feel painfully high for millenials accustomed to decades of near zero inflation, but merely newsworthy for another time and place.
> rising interest rates and no sign of the fed stopping
As I said in another comment, perhaps this is a reason for a small startup with a short runway and highly dependent on investor cash and bank credit to layoff employees, but Microsoft and Google? They're flush with cash and are not dependent on credit markets to survive. These layoffs are clearly about "showing fiscal responsibility" and "trimming fat", and not at all about a mathematical response to economic conditions.
As it is, there are plenty of signs that the fed will be stopping soon. Already rate hikes have dropped from 50p to 25p, and markets are indicating a complete end to rate hikes some time later this year.
> Housing affordability at its lowest point
One would think that raising interest rates would mean the housing market would totally seize up, right? In fact nearly the opposite has happened. Construction, housing starts, and housing completions are an a contradictorily high point right now, particularly in one of the most affordable segments: multi-unit housing! These giant real estate companies are not worried at all about interest rates and are instead plowing ahead adding tons of supply to the market.
Lenders are getting creative about how to get around high interest rates. Sellers often buy-down the buyer's interest rates. Adjustable rate mortgages actually make sense for once and are getting more popular. California is finally solving the NIMBY housing crisis and zoning high-density. Outlook in housing in general is pretty good right now.
[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/consumer-credit
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings
[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi