Mike McKee

Brings down the tariff rate some, but they say they're going to use other means to get the tariff rates back up to about where they were.

So now you'll have this dip, perhaps, in inflation, and then it could go back out again.

So you said you want to see inflation going down.

Does that get pushed out?

Does it become later in this year when you can even think about it?

Well, what are CEOs telling you they want to see before they would be willing to hire again?

Well, we've seen productivity rise a little bit in the last couple of months.

When you look at what the companies are telling you, are they saying maybe we don't need to hire as many people because we're getting this job done, we're keeping up with orders?

Well, productivity is going to be a big issue for the Fed coming up with a new chairman coming in, Kevin Warsh, who's pretty much wed to the idea that AI is going to create a lot of additional productivity, which will bring inflation down.

Now, having talked to you, I know that you're not as sure about that.

Now, in March, you have to come up with a new summary of economic projections, a set of forecasts for where you think the economy will go.

You're probably going to be waiting a while until you have to actually put those on paper.

But let me ask this.

How much confidence are you going to have, given everything that's going on right now in the numbers you put down?

Another Kevin Warsh idea is that the Fed should go back to a scarce reserves way of managing monetary policy.

Would you support that?

Coming up is Jay Powell's, in theory, he'll leave the chairmanship.

He could stay on the board.

A lot of people looked at the last decision and noted that in January you always choose the chairman for the rest of the year for the open market committee, and that's what you did this time instead of, as has been done in the past, saying chairman until successor's in place.

If Kevin Warsh is not confirmed by then, would you support Jay Powell remaining as chairman of the Open Market Committee?