Rogé Karma

Finally, we have some political certainty.

Finally, we can begin hiring again.

And then what does Donald Trump do?

He comes in and on day one, he begins a massive purge of the federal government that no one knows exactly where it's quite going to go.

And then he immediately launches into a series of on-again, off-again tariffs that upend the entire global trade system, that send the bond markets into a frenzy.

He racks up a ton of deficit spending.

We have a potential trade war with China.

These kind of actions go throughout the year.

And there's this index, the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, which is sort of a measure of overall policy uncertainty.

It reaches its highest sustained levels on record during this period.

And it just keeps continuing on.

Until most recently, still you're thinking, okay, maybe companies were finally getting used to tariffs.

Maybe they're finally settling down.

And then you have a war with Iran that sends global oil markets into a frenzy.

And now you have no idea whether there's actually going to be a 1970s style stagflation crisis.

And so basically what you've had is I think over and over again, every single time that employers have thought, okay, maybe now it's time where we can start our normal operations again.

You've had more and more uncertainty injected in.

to the economy.

And I think that is a big piece of the story that we're seeing here.

And I will say, it is possible that AI is part of this constellation of uncertainty.