Kristen Schwab

So before we get into specific data numbers that we got today, I kind of want to ask a bigger question.

And that's, does the data matter?

Because we're talking about January PCE, January jolts, fourth quarter GDP.

These numbers are all coming from a pre-war economy.

They are.

And that economy feels like it might be pretty far away.

I don't think the data is useless.

It's always good to know what baseline you're working with.

It's good to know what set of information is the freshest snapshot that policymakers are going to have.

And I should say, it's good to know when the data gets revised.

We got a little bit of a more clear sense about what happened at the end of 2025.

But then you're looking forward and you're trying to figure out what to do with that data.

And I think once again, we've got economists and policymakers

businesses and households saying, okay, but now things feel totally different.

And how am I supposed to make any sense of it?

Well, let's look back into some of that data and start with PCE.

Core inflation broke 3%.

And, you know, for a while, energy prices have helped keep inflation moderate.

Now we're kind of, you know, looking at a barrel of crude in the 90 plus dollar range.

What do you think that means for inflation?