Torsten Slok

I mean, Chris is very, very steady and stable and has had his whole career as a PSD economist doing research, going after data, being data dependent.

So I do view this mainly as a sign that he actually is worried and his speeches have also given very clear indication of this.

He is actually truly worried about that the labor market might be signaling that things are about to get worse.

So I think it's a little bit unfair to put him into that category because I do think that it's very important that he is telling us that he does believe that rates should have been cut today.

Well, that's the discussion.

I happen to have the view that this is all because of labor supply being much lower.

Immigration used to be 3 million a year.

Now it's about 400,000 from the CBO.

So if labor supply is lower, you should also expect job growth to be lower.

Other people, including Chris, put more weight on labor demand.

So that's the debate at the moment.

Yes, there has been very little hiring, very little firing, suggesting that labor demand is indeed also weak.

So this is the very important debate.

And, of course, only the data over the next several months will tell whether this dissent was actually a good idea or not.

Absolutely.

It is absolutely the case that the labor market data has become slower in terms of job growth.

But what is really critical here to remember is that if you have much fewer immigrants going from 3 million to 400,000 a year, of course, that's also going to create the break-even rate for non-farm payrolls that's a lot lower.

That used to be 200,000 a year.

Now the Fed says it's about 30,000.

So the closer you get to zero, of course, the more this will also begin to have more worries among people, whether can I find a job, can I not find a job?