By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Yeah, and talk to me about kind of getting that genie back in the bottle when it comes to trade and the impact that that is having on both the global economy, but also the United States economy. If we do start to see these trade deals coming in, does that necessitate and lead to a stop in the economic slowdown that we’ve already seen some evidence of, at least in the soft economic data?
00:29 Speaker B
Well, I mean, obviously, it helps mitigate the the damage to the economy, but some of the damage is already taking place because if if shifts from China aren’t sailing today, that means that there’s going to be have to be a lot of ships sailing in the future and there aren’t any more ships to go around. So, you know, I think we’ve already set the stage for, uh, you know, supply chain, uh, frictions that will be plaguing the US economy over the coming months, even if, uh, we were if we negotiate trade deals with these these these foreign countries.
01:34 Speaker A
So what do you think the Fed is more focused on right now? And and we’ve heard some signs of this, but today, do you think they’re more focused on a concerned about a growth slowdown or increased inflation?
01:51 Speaker B
I think that they’re concerned about both. Uh, I think they don’t have a strong view of which one is necessarily going to dominate. Uh, obviously, uh, to the extent that the unemployment rate starts rising a lot, that would then shift their concerns to the growth side of the equation. One thing that people haven’t really focused on enough is that we don’t really need a lot of economic growth to keep the unemployment rate where it is because labor force is growing much more slowly this year than last year because of deportations and the clamp down on immigration. So last year, we had very strong labor force growth. That meant that you could actually have sturdy, uh, payroll employment growth without putting more pressure on the labor market. This year, we’re sort of in a very opposite situation where we actually need, uh, small increases in payroll employment if we’re going to keep the employer, you know, stable. So it’s a very different situation from a labor supply perspective, and that’s also going to make the fed a little bit more cautious about responding to weakness in the economy. Uh, the unemployment rate, I think, is a key variable to focus on.