Why Austan Goolsbee Is Still Concerned About Inflation
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What is the context and purpose of this Odd Lots episode with Austan Goolsbee?
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Oddlots podcast. I'm Jill Weisenthal.
And I'm Tracy Alloway.
So, Tracy, we are recording this on Thursday, August 21st. We are here at Jackson Hall. I need to note at the beginning: we were recording this before the big Powell speech. I don't really think it matters too much because that's on, but I just want to like get that out of the way. A little timing context for an econ company.
We're not gonna talk about that speech for obvious reasons. We don't know what's gonna be said. But what we can talk about is the economy right now. That's not gonna change between, you know, right now and tomorrow morning, hopefully. For whenever this
comes out, probably it's not going to change much. But you know, we've been very lucky lately. We've been talking to a lot of uh regional Fed presidents and it's really cool that we have access to that.
Yes. And it's good to get a range of opinions as well because as we've been discussing, the economy does look very uncertain right now. And you could make a case for everything from a rate cut to holding to possibly even maybe hiking, uh, which you know, Jeff Schmidt kind of alluded to when we interviewed him.
Yeah, no, it was pretty extraordinary that, like, look, you could make a point that stock market's near record highs, credit spreads in near record lows, employment uh low, and inflation's still warm. Why are we talking about rate cuts? Anyway, we gotta keep getting more takes and perspectives on this from the people who actually think about this the best. And uh Do
we get a prize if we interview every Fed president?
Well, we should try. There's got to be there should be a name for that, but we have a guest, perfect guest, someone we've talked to on the podcast before. Very excited to have live here in Jackson Hole, past Odlot's guest, uh Chicago Fed President Austin Gouldsby. So Austin, thank you so much. Thank you so much.
I'm gonna give you a prize. Now, I drove here. I just got here. I just got in an hour and a half ago. I believe that I've driven the farthest of anybody to get here. And one of the things I did on the way was finish. My 50th state. Oh, North Dakota. Oh, yeah. And it turns out there's a c a lot of people, North Dakota's their last date. And there's officially a club called the Best for Last Club. Oh. And I joined the Best for Last Club. So who's gonna be your twelfth reserve bank president? They're gonna get a prize. Congratulations.
I saw your road trip like on Twitter. I saw that you were posting. So there are
We have a great country, don't we? Yeah, we got amazing country. How's the economy look at you these days? Well, depends which direction you're facin'. As you know, I thought for Q one coming into April. It was looking pretty good. We had a stable, full employment. The unemployment rate a little above four? Inflation while having been above the target for four years. looked to me like it was heading it was coming down and down and down and was headed to two percent. And so I thought reasonable approximation. Rates need to start heading down to where we think they're gonna settle, which is a fair bit below where where we were then, where we are today. Then we go through some bumps. I've heard of them. Through a bunch of dirt in the air.
Why does Goolsbee say he’s more worried about inflation than the labor market?
All of this stuff that it's like, is the economy still where it was in January, February, March, or are we on some different path? I still closet the door. Hope slash think. That we're where we were before. And That tariffs, imported goods, are only 11% of GDP.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the context and purpose of this Odd Lots episode with Austan Goolsbee?
0:00–4:03
2
Why does Goolsbee say he’s more worried about inflation than the labor market?
4:03–8:54
3
How does the rise in services‑sector inflation affect Goolsbee’s outlook?
8:54–14:13
4
What evidence does Goolsbee cite to argue that the U.S. labor market remains strong?
14:13–19:42
5
How are recent tariff and supply‑chain issues influencing inflation expectations?
19:42–24:10
6
What are the market’s current expectations for rate cuts and why might they be premature?
24:10–28:47
7
What does Goolsbee predict about future Fed policy and potential rate adjustments?
28:47–33:09
8
How do the hosts wrap up the conversation and what key takeaways should listeners remember?
33:09–35:58
Speakers
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