Chapter 1: What is the impact of skilled labor scarcity on the construction industry?
What do you think? Can we sort through what happened in this economy in six, maybe six and a half minutes? We're going to try. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Friday today. This one is the 16th of January. Good as always to have you along, everybody. Well, here we are, another Friday in the American economy.
Tell you what, though, it has been an interesting week. Lots to talk about it, not a whole lot of time. Amara Mokwe is at Bloomberg. Greg Ip is at The Wall Street Journal. Hey, you two.
Hey, Kai.
Chapter 2: How do immigration policies affect the availability of skilled workers?
Hello, Kai.
Mary, you get to start. You've had going on a week to to think about it, as we all have. Where are you? What do you make of Chair Powell's video from last Sunday? The Justice Department going after the chair, all of that good stuff.
Yeah, I mean, this was really a remarkable week for Fed coverage. It started with that extraordinary video and statement from Chair Powell, really pushing back forcefully on this Department of Justice investigation that has been opened up into the Fed. And it was just truly remarkable. I think...
When Powell is asked about this question of Fed independence and all the pressure and attacks that he and the institution have faced from President Trump and his allies, he always kind of gives the same response. We just stick to our job. We're trying to do what's in the best interest of the American people. So to see him really push back forcefully and say like, This is a pretext.
Chapter 3: What are the economic implications of President Trump's climate agreement withdrawal?
Like this investigation is about the fact that the president wants us to do his bidding on monetary policy. It was just it was really remarkable. And then to also see some of the bipartisan pushback to see Republicans come out and say, you know, that this is inappropriate and really kind of criticize this investigation.
Really, we're starting to see a lot of things that we have not seen since President Trump returned to office when it comes to this question of Fed independence.
I'll tell you, I was on an airport parking shuttle bus, and I think I startled the whole bus when I watched that video and exclaimed quite loudly. Greg, you wrote this week that it's not actually about Powell. It's about the next guy in the job. Talk a little bit more about what you mean.
Oh, sure. So this investigation of Chair Powell needs to be seen in the context of repeated efforts by Trump and his allies since basically he took office to get the Fed to lower interest rates by more. And nothing else has worked yet. Job owning the Fed hasn't worked. Accusing trying to fire another governor over alleged misrepresentations. on her mortgages hasn't worked.
So this is simply his latest attempt.
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Chapter 4: How are Americans adapting their coffee consumption habits at home?
Now, as Amara was saying, you've seen bipartisan defense of the Fed. And in fact, some of the people responsible for the decision seem to be trying to disassociate themselves from it. But I would get caught up in that because what I think is going on here is a message from Trump and his folks to this Fed chair and the next Fed chair.
which is if you get crosswise with this president, if you set interest rates in a way that displeases him, you can expect the same treatment. And that has got to affect the judgment and the behavior of the next Fed chairman.
So, Amir, let's talk about the next guy. The president at a White House event this morning made sort of an off-the-cuff remark about Kevin Hassett, the head of the Council of Economic Advisors, and who, until this morning, had been widely expected. And I said as much on this program, and clearly I was wrong. Hassett was the inside guy for Powell's job.
And Trump basically said, Kevin, we're going to keep you here at the White House for a while. What do you make of that?
Well, I think that you never know with President Trump. The decision is never going to be final until it comes out of his mouth. And I think we can probably expect more of this who's up, who's down until he makes the ultimate decision.
I do think that it does kind of reflect where we are with this question of this investigation and Fed independence, because I think that the problem that Kevin Hassett was always going to have was what Greg was talking about.
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Chapter 5: What are the challenges faced by the construction industry in meeting labor demands?
Is this a person who is going to be fully committed to Fed independence, or is he going to be more open to taking the president's policy preferences on board? Will he enjoy the confidence of investors and his fellow policymakers? And I think because Hassett has been so in line with President Trump on so many issues, And even on this investigation, didn't really come out and condemn it, right?
The questions about his credibility were ramped up this week after we learned about this investigation into the Fed now.
So, Greg, I will admit that what I'm about to ask you about is not my original thought. I first got it from Tracy Holloway over at Bloomberg. And the genesis of it is this. I really expected, and I think a lot of people did, too, that the markets were going to go haywire on Monday because of the news of the Justice Department going after the chairman of the Federal Reserve. and nothing happened.
And Tregsy's point is, you know, maybe there's just too much chaos, too much volatility, too much just backing and forthing. And bond market in particular is just sitting on its hands because there's just too much volatility and they don't know what to do. So they're a little bit paralyzed. I was surprised that there was no market reaction. What do you think?
Chapter 6: What role does apprenticeship training play in workforce development?
I actually look at it a You know, the implications of a politicized Federal Reserve, there's actually two cross-cutting implications to it. One is that if you have lower interest rates because the Fed chair is trying to police a president, that actually has some immediate tangible benefits. Stock market investors love lower interest rates.
there are a set of other negative costs that are more in the future and somewhat less tangible, the possibility of higher inflation, more market volatility, less investor confidence. So the markets are always in some sense trading off these immediate tangible positives against these future sort of theoretical negatives.
And that's one reason why you should never really expect the markets to respond violently in one direction or another. There's another factor too, of course, which is exactly as we were just discussing. There was a very strong pushback, you know, and financial spectrum against this investigation. So a lot of investors might be concluding that nothing untoward is actually going to happen.
I'm not personally convinced of that, but that might be part of what we're seeing.
Yeah, this is a classic wait and see here. Mary, you've got 30 seconds on this one. It's worth a mention here that the chair, while only one vote, is kind of first among equals, right, in the public messaging as to what the Fed does.
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Chapter 7: How does the political climate influence Federal Reserve independence?
Yeah.
And I think that big there she is. Sorry, I thought we lost. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think you saw some Fed policymakers come out and say that as they were kind of discussing the situation that, you know, the Fed chair is only one vote on interest rate decisions. And ultimately, if he's trying if some future chair is trying to push the committee in a direction that they don't think that they should go, then other policymakers can can can push back.
But I think the concern is that we've seen ever escalating attempts by the Trump administration to to put pressure on the Fed. And so the question is, where does this stop? Does it stop? And does and does it not stop until President Trump ultimately has his own people on the board who are more open to to kind of bending the institution in the ways that he wants to?
Mayor Mokwede, Bloomberg and Greg Hipp of The Wall Street Journal. Thanks, you two, on this Friday. Thanks, Kai.
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Chapter 8: What are the future trends in infrastructure spending and skilled labor needs?
Thanks for having me.
Wall Street ending this week down for the day. Mix the past five days. Details, numbers when we get there. There was a report out from BlackRock this morning, the giant money management firm, that took a pretty big swing. It said we're going to see as much as $85 trillion in global infrastructure spending over the next 15 years.
The greatest period of construction in human history is the quote from that report. It'll be AI data centers, along with new bridges and modern water systems and updated roads. To build all of that, though, we're going to have to have skilled workers, of which we do not have enough. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes has that one.
The electrical contractor Kelso Burnett is based in Chicago. Last year, about a fifth of its revenue came from building new data centers. And William Martin Jr., the manager at the company, expects that to go up.
There's tons of them. There's probably six of them within driving distance of Chicago that are either happening or getting ready to start up.
Martin says the unions he works with are stretching to get electricians, offering more pay to get them to come from other parts of the country, also trying to get older ones to put off retirement. And Sandra Lawson, author of that new BlackRock report, says we're going to need more. Not just electricians, but also HVAC technicians, plumbers, people who are skilled builders.
The challenge, I think, over the next few years is that the supply can't wrap up as quickly as demand is ramping up because many of these jobs require apprenticeship training, and that takes time.
Here in the U.S., another factor is the immigration crackdown. Brian Turmail, a spokesman for the Associated General Contractors of America, a trade group, says some construction sites are being raided by ICE. That's one problem. Another is the elimination of temporary protected status for some immigrants.
And that means that person who was legally authorized to work and the company had every right and was lawfully allowed to hire them last week, they have to let them go this week. We are actually making it harder for firms to build, not easier when we shrink the size of the workforce.
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