Esther George

Particularly when you are looking at what I would characterize as easy financial conditions and many of the other traditional signs that would go along with this labor market.

data would lead you to think something different.

So it is a challenging time and those cross currents of information and data are making it a tough job for the FOMC.

Well, I do not, Lisa.

And I think you see that in the discussion at the committee level, which is to say, where are we putting our weight?

In September, the committee came out very clearly and said, we're putting our weight on the labor market.

When we see this softening, we're inclined to bring our policy rate back to something that we are guessing is more normal than where it currently sits.

And that narrative is held through to two meetings

At this meeting, of course, we got the question mark, I think, of whether that narrative would continue.

So the information coming in and the fact that you don't have official data to back up some of those views is going to make this, I think, difficult for individual members to really reconcile their views and come to terms with that.

Well, the idea that the Fed needs to keep rates low to assist the federal government's debt position is certainly not one of its mandates, notwithstanding the pressure that you see coming from various corners to try to accommodate that.

It is gonna become, I think, an increasingly difficult issue that will intersect with monetary policy because we know that these higher debt levels, without some plan in place to bring those deficit spendings down,

are gonna put pressure on the Fed.

It will put higher interest rates in front of them.

Inflation issues will begin to become more dominant, I think.

And so that intersection is a very difficult one for a monetary policy group that is assigned to judge labor markets and price stability in their mandate.

Well, it doesn't seem likely.

And Jonathan, what you hope is whenever you're in a period of uncertainty and trying to weigh the risk, that you don't get an unexpected shock to the economy.

And again, I don't see anything out there that says we resolve this uncertainty.

But I think that's why it makes it a difficult time for this committee to reconcile views is because that uncertainty looks like it is going to persist for some time.