Jason Furman

matters a lot.

So if we are going to have tariffs, have them be predictable, have them be telegraphed in advance, and countries should also understand what they can and can't do relative to those tariffs.

Again, it's the whim part of this that I thought was corrosive economically, but also politically and to our legal and constitutional structure as a country.

Yeah, look, I thought GDP growth was fine once you adjust for the fact that the government shutdown subtracted a bunch from it, but they weren't great and they were way below what the treasury secretary has been calling for.

He's been saying we'll get to 3% growth.

I have no doubt they would have been better without the tariffs.

You saw, for example, consumers cut their spending on durable goods in the fourth quarter.

That's exactly what you would expect them to do when they're faced with higher prices for those goods because of the tariffs.

And so we could have been not at, but closer to the Treasury Secretary's 3% growth target were it not for these tariffs.

And yeah, I hope they keep that in mind as they think about what to do next.

Great to be with you.

Yeah, I don't know exactly where the disconnect is coming from.

If you look, wages are outpacing inflation by about one to one and a half percentage points.

That's been true for a couple of years now.

The unemployment rate has basically stabilized.

Overall economic growth is very good.

I do think people at the very top are doing even better than people in the middle.

But people in the middle are doing better than they were a year ago.

Yeah.

So first of all, I absolutely agree with you.