Mark Zandi

And that may be, you know, part of what's going on.

So I think it's not one thing.

It's a melange of things.

But again, I've not heard and I have not come up with a completely satisfying answer to that question.

Why aren't they hiring?

But equally, you know, a difficult question to answer is why aren't they laying off?

You know, what's going on?

Why aren't we seeing more layoffs?

I mean, why have they responded the way they have?

Historically, they have laid off.

So just another question that's no smoking gun answer to that question.

Yeah, it's consequential, particularly given that inflation has been above that target now for, what, five years?

I mean, we haven't been at 2% for a long time.

And the direction of travel is not encouraging.

And, you know, I'll also throw into the mix, AI is adding to inflation, right?

Because of electricity prices.

And if you look at the cost of it, you know, all the things that go into it.

The data centers, consumer electronics, chips, you know, the demand is extraordinary.

It's jacking up prices and chips go into everything, right?

So they're going into cars and everything we use.