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Chapter 1: What economic indicators were discussed in the episode?
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The economy is changing at a dizzying rate. Enter the chart-topping and critically acclaimed Managing the Future of Work podcast from Harvard Business School, hosted by me, Bill Kerr, and my Managing the Future of Work project co-chair, Joe Fuller. The show explores workforce development, technology trends, demographic changes, and many other forces transforming the landscape of work.
Follow the HBS Managing the Future of Work podcast wherever you get your podcasts. What happened at the Federal Reserve meeting today, you ask? Well, here's what happened. You get a task force and you get a task force and you get a task force. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Wednesday. Today, this one is the 17th of June.
Good as it always is to have you along, everybody. We begin today with the Federal Reserve's new chairman, Kevin Warsh, and his first press conference. And as he promised, changes are coming. We've got a task force for that. This was a more bureaucratic than usual press conference. The economics of it in a minute, of course, but the main takeaway...
was that Warsh, as he said during his confirmation hearings, is bound and determined to change the way the Fed does business. Telltale sign number one, five, count them, five new task forces on, should you be curious, communications, the Fed's balance sheet, economic data, productivity and jobs, and inflation frameworks. So, that. Also, though, and more immediately.
At this moment in time, it doesn't feel as though providing forward guidance is right. Forward guidance. That thing the Fed's been doing for the past, I don't know, 15 years or so. Letting everybody, which mostly meant markets, letting them know which way the Fed was thinking monetary policy interest rates were going to go well in advance of actually voting on them. This is a big deal.
So I think it's important to hear Chairman Warsh's rationale.
I think the financial markets work less efficiently when they ask a question, how will the Federal Reserve react to that incoming information? The more that markets are paying attention to what's happening in the real economy, deciding what's good data and what's less good data, the more financial markets can price what they believe is the most likely.
And what are the tail risks? Financial market prices are probably the most important source of information to guide central bankers.
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Chapter 2: How does the Federal Reserve's decision impact consumers?
For those wondering what President Trump had to say about the Fed's decision not to cut interest rates today, as he has made clear is his monetary policy choice, I'm going to give it to you. This is a quote. It really is. Whatever. Wall Street today. Traders didn't think too much of the new guy's press conference. We'll have the details when we do the numbers.
Interestingly enough, or at least it was to yours truly, the word consumer was, by my count, said only once in Chairman Warsh's press conference today. It's interesting because, say it with me now, spending by or on behalf of consumers accounts for, give or take, 70% of everything that happens in this economy.
So it was reassuring and interesting to get this morning's report on consumer spending for the month of May. Overall, up nine tenths percent from April, way more than people had been guessing. Some of that was gas. Yes, of course. But not all of it.
So how, oh how, in the face of rising prices and high interest rates and economic and geopolitical uncertainty, how are consumers finding the capacity to keep on keeping on?
Here's Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman. The May retail rebound was more than a pleasant surprise for economist Kathy Busjancic at Nationwide.
It was strong and broad-based. Consumers continued to spend quite freely despite higher gasoline prices.
Now, keep in mind, retail sales are not adjusted for inflation. So they go up when people buy more and also when prices rise. But in May, says Thomas Ryan at Capital Economics.
This wasn't just the case of people being forced to spend more on gasoline. There was also strength everywhere where you look. Motor vehicles were up, furniture sales. We've seen this pattern repeat over decades, says Ryan.
When the American consumer is faced with a hit to their real incomes, they tend to sort of absorb that hit, lower their saving rate and maintain spending levels rather than cut back on discretionary spending.
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Chapter 3: What factors contributed to the recent rise in retail sales?
I don't know. You might have noticed that earlier in the program, I referred to the new guy at the Fed as Chairman Warsh. The convention for the past two incumbents, Yellen and Powell, has been chair. But Warsh's biography on the Fed's website says chairman. So chairman here it shall be.
Our media production team includes Brian Allison, John Fochie, Montana Johnson, Drew Johnstead, Gary O'Keefe, and Charlton Thorpe. Alex Simpson is the manager of media production. And I'm Kyle Risdell. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is APM. Hi, I'm Morgan Sung, host of Close All Tabs from KQED, where every week we reveal how the online world collides with everyday life.
Chapter 4: How are consumers managing spending amidst rising prices?
You don't know what's true or not because you don't know if AI was involved in it.
So my first reaction was, ha ha, this is so funny. And my next reaction was, wait a minute, I'm a journalist. Is this real?
And I think we will see a Twitch streamer president, maybe within our lifetimes.
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