Harriet Torry
speaker
611 appearances
11 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2017
last heard Dec 2024
Harriet Torry’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And I think people are starting to take notice and just get a little bit worried.
Well, I think for consumers, I mean, on the one hand, the Fed raising rates, the reason that they're doing this is to try and get inflation under control.
And that, of course, is positive for consumers, given the fact that inflation has been extremely high.
But on the other hand, you know, if you're a consumer and you have any type of debt, then Fed rate increases potentially make things more painful.
You know, if you're thinking about moving house,
A, house prices are up, you know, sort of 30% since before the pandemic.
And then B, the cost of getting a mortgage is a lot more expensive than it was a year and a half ago.
So even a year ago, so it's just a difficult time for people who are thinking of taking on debt like that.
You know, in some ways, it's good for savers, like Federal Reserve rate increases mean that they get a little bit more on their savings account.
But
I think overall, you know, seeing debt servicing costs go up, it does, you know, just give people pause when they're thinking about making that big purchase, like buying a new house, buying a new car, maybe getting some new appliances that they might have to buy on a payment plan or on credit.
It just makes everything a bit more expensive.
That's the big question.
And one of the economists that we spoke to in our story did say that the pressure that the economy is under from all these different forces, you know, like higher rates, the Fed, consumer spending, it's tough for the labor market to continue as strongly as it has been when employers are under pressure.
I think that the next thing that will come on under scrutiny is corporate profits.
Companies have generally done very well in the pandemic because they've been able to raise prices pretty steadily.
There's been extremely strong demand for a lot of things like goods and services and so on.
We've definitely seen some of that demand cool for goods and we're seeing some evidence that people are starting to pull back a little bit.
But yeah, I think the one thing that speaks in favor of the labor market even now is that there is a shortage of workers, labor force participation, and companies are very keen to hold on to workers.
It's very expensive for companies to rehire workers, and it's hard for them to find workers in this environment.
Showing 201–220 of 611 · page 11 of 31
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