Speaker 1: He's editor in chief of breit Bart News and a
Speaker 1: New York Times best selling author, and on this podcast
Speaker 1: he brings deep research, prescient analysis at world class guests.
Speaker 1: He's Alex Marlow and this is the Alex Marlow Show.
Speaker 2: All right, Newsy show for you today. With two guests.
Speaker 3: We got Carla Sands, the former ambassador to Denmark, very
Speaker 3: smart lady. We talked mostly about the Iran War. It's
Speaker 3: got a ton of background foreign policy, national security, and
Speaker 3: we tried to find what victory will actually look like
Speaker 3: for President Trump. And we also get into some things
Speaker 3: like Visa's visa abuses of where she's putting a lot
Speaker 3: of her effort and resources into investigating that, which is important.
Speaker 3: Then we speak to John Carney, my partner in crime
Speaker 3: in the Bright Bar Business Digest, and I think the
Speaker 3: most knowledgeable person on macca, maga economics, maganomics, if you will,
Speaker 3: in the world, perhaps second to Scott Bessant, but I
Speaker 3: think they're right there, neck and neck. And I asked
Speaker 3: him about the potential for a Trump two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty dollars bill. I asked him about inflation numbers. I
Speaker 3: ask him about how the economy is actually doing, and
Speaker 3: one of my favorite things the Trump accounts how you
Speaker 3: can get involved, particularly if you've got young kids or grandkids.
Speaker 2: So all that is cool and covered on the broadcast.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it first with Carla sans.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Really pleased if Carla sands with me, the former ambassador
Speaker 3: to Denmark for the United States ambassador and last time
Speaker 3: you were here, we were talking about Greenland. That's kind
Speaker 3: of fallen off of the radar. Are you disappointing this?
Speaker 3: I'm a little disappointed in this. I still want us
Speaker 3: to take Greenland and have that become the next date,
Speaker 3: but it's a well what happened?
Speaker 2: How come the conversation? I dropped.
Speaker 4: Well, we've got this Iron War going on and a
Speaker 4: few things cooking down around Cuba. In our southern hemisphere,
Speaker 4: I would say it's on the back burner, but I
Speaker 4: would say within maybe the third quarter of this year,
Speaker 4: you'll probably see more developments regarding Greenland and the Arctic.
Speaker 2: I hope so.
Speaker 3: And a lot of that is dependent on getting through
Speaker 3: the Iran war, which I think largely is pretty noble.
Speaker 3: But as are all foreign intervention engines around the world,
Speaker 3: there's always so many issues that it's hard to foresee
Speaker 3: when you enter a war, even for righteous regions.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk about.
Speaker 3: Where we think we're at here and what do you
Speaker 3: define How would you define a victory? What do we
Speaker 3: need to achieve to be able to be able to
Speaker 3: come home and say definitively, declaratively we won this thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great question, Alex, because that's what's on
Speaker 4: the mind of every American. How do we get out
Speaker 4: and what are we achieving? And thank god President Trump
Speaker 4: doesn't believe in forever work, so we're not going to
Speaker 4: be there for twenty years. Iran has a fuse lit
Speaker 4: because they at some point are not going to be
Speaker 4: able to pump any more energy. Once carg Island and
Speaker 4: all of the storage areas are full, they're going to
Speaker 4: put the oil into the ships, into the the carrier ships,
Speaker 4: and then once those are full, they're going to have
Speaker 4: to cap off those wells.
Speaker 5: How long is it going to take? Not that long.
Speaker 4: So when President Trump says today in his cabinet meeting,
Speaker 4: I don't care about the midterms, he's telling the Malas
Speaker 4: and the IRGC members in Iran, we're not going to
Speaker 4: end this war because of the midterm so you can
Speaker 4: stop watching the clock thinking that I'm going to blink.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to blink. That was a direct communication
Speaker 4: to the regime was strong. He also said, We're not
Speaker 4: going to leave with a bad deal. We're not doing
Speaker 4: a bad deal like Obama did with the JCPOA where
Speaker 4: they can slowly get that bomb. He's saying no nuclear
Speaker 4: bomb for the Iranians, and that's a good thing. We
Speaker 4: don't want them to have nuclear arms. They've threatened us
Speaker 4: and said death to America and death to Israel. We
Speaker 4: don't want to be on their radar when they have
Speaker 4: a much longer range, medium range missile than they had claimed.
Speaker 4: They had lied about about fifty percent of its capability.
Speaker 5: So how long what's the.
Speaker 4: Timeline till they have a long range nuclear weapon or
Speaker 4: a long range missile that can attack the homeland.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Probably not that long because China and Russia are helping them.
Speaker 5: So what do we want to do.
Speaker 4: We want to shut down all the trains and trucks
Speaker 4: that are bringing supplies in from China and others who
Speaker 4: are helping to resupply Iran. We want to cut off
Speaker 4: the money so that they're starved of cash, and then
Speaker 4: we don't want to let their energy get out because
Speaker 4: that starves them of first of all, they're going to overflow,
Speaker 4: and then their wells will have to be capped. I
Speaker 4: think they blink when that happens. If they don't and
Speaker 4: they just let their economy complete completely collapse to like
Speaker 4: stone Age, well then it's going to take more attacks
Speaker 4: to make this happen. Let's not forget. In World War Two,
Speaker 4: Japan also a very strong opponent. They in spite of
Speaker 4: the devastation, they would not surrender until we dropped two
Speaker 4: nuclear bombs.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm glad you brought up China because it
Speaker 3: does feel like a lot of what President Trump is
Speaker 3: doing foreign policy wives are designed to indirectly put pressure
Speaker 3: on China. I don't think they would respond very well
Speaker 3: to too much direct pressure, so I think this is
Speaker 3: pretty wise on the President's part. But China is a
Speaker 3: huge beneficiary for all that commerce going through the Strait,
Speaker 3: so I know they would like to see it open,
Speaker 3: which could ultimately perhaps drive China closer to the United States,
Speaker 3: which is interesting. And also China maybe the position where
Speaker 3: they might decide to buy more of our oil versus
Speaker 3: Iranian oil. Do you feel like there's some upside here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4: They are talking about it, so there's a potential that
Speaker 4: they'll buy our energy. They already buy our coal. But
Speaker 4: one of the beautyful things about President Trump's foreign policy
Speaker 4: is what he did in Venezuela actually took away about
Speaker 4: four percent of China's energy and redirected it to the
Speaker 4: United States where we're now refining it like we did
Speaker 4: ten years ago. So that's a win for the US.
Speaker 4: But then that Iranian energy supplied on another seventeen percent
Speaker 4: of China's energy, so that takes that off the table
Speaker 4: because it's not getting through it. But China also buys
Speaker 4: even more energy from the Saudis, and that's not getting
Speaker 4: through Cargo Island. Now there are not cargo the Hormu
Speaker 4: straight but Saudis have other ways of getting the energy out.
Speaker 4: But the less energy that China is getting, the more
Speaker 4: pressure it puts on them. Although they have really great reserves,
Speaker 4: much more than our reserves, it puts a lot of
Speaker 4: pressure on China to do the right thing and stop
Speaker 4: being the malign presence as a country that they are
Speaker 4: against the United States with the propaganda, the theft, the
Speaker 4: ip theft, the restriction on rare earth minerals, all the
Speaker 4: things they're doing to try to destroy our economy but
Speaker 4: also our society. I mean they're behind if you're looking
Speaker 4: at these the riots and the sort of the pressure
Speaker 4: from the left on stopping data centers for instance. The
Speaker 4: money's coming from China, so you know, you know, it's
Speaker 4: kind of throwing through flowing through people like Nevill Singham,
Speaker 4: but a lot of that money is funded by China
Speaker 4: to stop our progress as a society so that they
Speaker 4: can take over and they can win in things like
Speaker 4: the data wars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm important to always mentioned Nevill saying where you can.
Speaker 3: We've did a lot of research on him at Brightbart.
Speaker 3: I already did a segment on him earlier in the
Speaker 3: week on the show, So definitely a good call out there.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So the couple of the deal points potentially with Iron
Speaker 3: that I'm curious your take on. First of all, the
Speaker 3: issue of cash. It's the we really mocked Obama for
Speaker 3: giving Iran cash, and it feels like they're asking for
Speaker 3: a lot of cash. I think they can get cash again.
Speaker 3: For me, I've kind of conceptualized it as I don't
Speaker 3: think it's the cash that matters. It's that we don't
Speaker 3: really know where the cash is going to go. So
Speaker 3: we could assume it's going to terror, and if the
Speaker 3: cash does good to terror, then that's really the problem.
Speaker 3: But I don't I theoretically don't mind if they use
Speaker 3: the cash for something like rebuilding their society, that probably
Speaker 3: doesn't hurt. But there's a real way to know, right,
Speaker 3: So what's your position on them getting cash.
Speaker 4: Well, you're absolutely right with your first promise, and that
Speaker 4: is that they have doubled down and said, even in
Speaker 4: the last week, we are going to get a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 4: We are going to continue all of our activities. They
Speaker 4: are an existential threat to the United States if they
Speaker 4: have the power to attack us, and that means no
Speaker 4: nuclear weapon. But also so all of the proxies that
Speaker 4: that they're funding, the who these hamas hesballah, And let's
Speaker 4: not forget I think they put out a fifty million
Speaker 4: dollar bounty on President Trump's head, so they've literally ordered
Speaker 4: a high level hit. I've never heard of a fifty
Speaker 4: million dollar bounty to assassinate someone that's truly evil. And
Speaker 4: so these people, if we can call them people because
Speaker 4: they behave in subhuman ways. These really evil people are
Speaker 4: intent on their express and you know, their express determination
Speaker 4: to be an existential threat to everything that we hold dear.
Speaker 4: They want this caliphate. They are they are.
Speaker 5: A kind of religious cult looking for the thirteenth Bodi.
Speaker 4: They want revolution, and they want they welcome the terrible
Speaker 4: explosions and the end of everything as we know it,
Speaker 4: because they believe that there's their kind of heaven waiting
Speaker 4: for them. These are really crazy people, That's what President
Speaker 4: Trump says. I like that they are crazy people.
Speaker 3: So then how do you kind of deal with crazy people?
Speaker 3: They're also very hard to negotiate. They spoke to the
Speaker 3: President about this personally. They move very slowly. They have
Speaker 3: huge layers of bureaucracy so that it's hard to get through.
Speaker 3: He says he doesn't even know who he's talking to
Speaker 3: some of the time. He said that publicly too, That's
Speaker 3: what he said to me before, and he's only echoed
Speaker 3: that in the pass. Then how do you go about
Speaker 3: this is what's interesting because day to day we're tracking markets,
Speaker 3: we're tracking oil prices, and people are trying to read
Speaker 3: tea leaves here. How do you read tea leaves when
Speaker 3: you're negotiating with crazy people who are notoriously difficult.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, Alex and that's the great question. So, first of all,
Speaker 4: Americans are really good to deal with, Like we like
Speaker 4: to do deals. We do a lot of deals. I
Speaker 4: would say Europeans are good to do deals with. We
Speaker 4: all share common common things. The Iranians are probably the
Speaker 4: hardest people to do deals with in the world. Right,
Speaker 4: they have an ancient society, they're very tough negotiators, and
Speaker 4: that goes for even American Iranians. I mean, these are
Speaker 4: people that are hard to do a deal with. They're
Speaker 4: very tough. But you get into this IRGC where it's
Speaker 4: like a mafia hard because these are the gangsters that
Speaker 4: run the country. It's about thirty one different decentralized nodes
Speaker 4: with different leaders, and so it's really hard to take
Speaker 4: this on when you don't have one central person that's
Speaker 4: going to be the pivot, there's no president.
Speaker 5: It's diffuse and I'm not sure how much power really
Speaker 5: this mala has.
Speaker 4: I think the IRGC is basically in control at this point,
Speaker 4: and I do believe that President Trump is going to
Speaker 4: have to go in and do a little more to
Speaker 4: just wake them up. They think that they're winning, or
Speaker 4: at least that's what their line is. Do you remember
Speaker 4: bag Dad Bob during the Iraq War, the guy would
Speaker 4: come out, he would say just crazy lies all day,
Speaker 4: every day, and I mean you could laugh, but that
Speaker 4: was there. That's kind of what the Iranian press is
Speaker 4: doing now, is they're just making things up and saying
Speaker 4: crazy things. But because there's maybe an idea of the
Speaker 4: truth or something that people can hook on. I think
Speaker 4: probably there's a certain segment of the Iranian population and
Speaker 4: maybe people living in the Gulf States that might believe it,
Speaker 4: maybe twenty percent. But the Iranian people are so oppressed.
Speaker 4: They don't have the basic things that those of us
Speaker 4: used to living in societies that function have, Like they
Speaker 4: didn't do the investments in the infrastructure. They don't have
Speaker 4: functioning water for a lot of the country, things like
Speaker 4: that things because the Mala regime did not invest that
Speaker 4: money you were mentioning, what would they do with the money.
Speaker 4: They're not going to put it in infrastructure. They're going
Speaker 4: to invest in terror and in building more you know,
Speaker 4: three hundred foot deep bunkers, or they're going to make
Speaker 4: more bombs. That's who they are. So believe people when
Speaker 4: they've shown you over and over again.
Speaker 5: So what do we want.
Speaker 4: We want infrastructure built, We want the people of Iran
Speaker 4: to be peaceful. There's a group called NCRI that's where
Speaker 4: looking on that the National Council Resistance of Iran, and
Speaker 4: they want to be a non nuclear, democratically elected republic,
Speaker 4: a democracy with equal rights and freedom of religion and
Speaker 4: things like that.
Speaker 5: So let's see if they can get it done.
Speaker 4: There's other groups in Iran that want, you know, similar things,
Speaker 4: So let's see if the people can rise up. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: China has exported a lot of its surveillance technology to
Speaker 4: Iran because of the agreement between the Malas and China,
Speaker 4: and so it's getting harder and harder for the people
Speaker 4: to actually advocate and fight for their independence.
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Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So this is an important point because we're trying to
Speaker 3: think about what our best case like, what's the worst
Speaker 3: case scenario victory where the best case scenario victories. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think all of us would love to see a
Speaker 3: regime change, though I think all of us are not
Speaker 3: holding our breath that that could potentially happen. But we
Speaker 3: all hate them all as we hate the IRGC is there.
Speaker 3: It just feels like that would just take way too
Speaker 3: much time and be too complicated to see that through
Speaker 3: to the end. But I think all of us sort
Speaker 3: of holding out hope that maybe one day something could
Speaker 3: emerge that's not this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, I'm hoping there. President Trump says they're
Speaker 4: in negotiations now. It's I think the Iranians are calling
Speaker 4: it the Islamabad Framework. I'm not sure what we're calling it.
Speaker 4: But I saw Steve Wikoff was in that in the
Speaker 4: room when he just the president just had his recent
Speaker 4: cabinet meeting, and so you know, if if there can
Speaker 4: be a negotiated deal, that's fantastic. Otherwise I just think
Speaker 4: we starve them out until they literally society collapses because
Speaker 4: they have no money to pay their military. The RGC
Speaker 4: has the leadership, has no money to pay they're you know,
Speaker 4: members of the IRGC, and so things just collapse, which
Speaker 4: is what's happening in Cuba right now. So if President
Speaker 4: Trump keeps his eye on this and he's willing to
Speaker 4: wait them out, we win. We absolutely win. We're not
Speaker 4: in a hurry for a deal. Time is on our side.
Speaker 4: Time is not on Ron.
Speaker 3: So well, one other complicating thing here when it comes
Speaker 3: to the Middle East is is Reel attacking Lebanon. I
Speaker 3: understand why Israel is doing it because Lebanon is Heswell
Speaker 3: is there and they're an ancient foe of Israel's and
Speaker 3: Hesbela is proped u Yra and Aron is attracted to
Speaker 3: their stuff. They're just hitting docks for Israel. But also
Speaker 3: that means that they're gonna invariably, because of the nature
Speaker 3: of the way Hesla operates, there's gonna be innocence who
Speaker 3: get injured and killed.
Speaker 2: During the process.
Speaker 3: I feel like this is not great timing for world
Speaker 3: peace that Israel continues to pummel Heswela. Right now, you've
Speaker 3: a thought on this, because they're they're still fighting them.
Speaker 4: Well, I do, actually, so, Egypt used to be a
Speaker 4: Christian country. Syria was a Christian country. Lebanon was a
Speaker 4: Christian country. People used to call it the Paris of
Speaker 4: the Middle East. But the Muslims came in, Hesbela came in,
Speaker 4: and they basically they purged. They purged, they killed people,
Speaker 4: and they killed the Christians and drove them out largely.
Speaker 4: It's not any longer a majority Christian country. Could it
Speaker 4: be again, I don't know. I think Israel wants to
Speaker 4: see if that's possible. Lebanon should be peaceful. It shouldn't
Speaker 4: be at war and trying to attack Israel at every turn.
Speaker 4: It should not be a hostile neighbor. And so let's
Speaker 4: see what happens, Okay.
Speaker 3: And then so last one for today. You've been doing
Speaker 3: some work on visas. This is something we keep a
Speaker 3: close eye on at Breitbark. Could you share some of
Speaker 3: your findings you've had recently with us because this is
Speaker 3: a near and dear issue for us.
Speaker 4: Sure, maybe I should publish at Breitbart sometime, Alex, that'd
Speaker 4: be great.
Speaker 5: I love Wreitbart.
Speaker 4: But the fact is that these visas that the US
Speaker 4: government has issued to foreigners over the years has resulted
Speaker 4: in is it forty five million or seventy five million
Speaker 4: visa holders? It's American visa holders. It's either forty five
Speaker 4: million or seventy five million. I can't remember the number,
Speaker 4: but either one is like crazy hoigh millions.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of millions.
Speaker 4: And the American young college graduates, but even non college
Speaker 4: graduates and mid career professionals are losing jobs or opportunity
Speaker 4: because we have people from foreign countries coming in. About
Speaker 4: eighty percent of them are Indian. They're coming in and
Speaker 4: sometimes they don't even have real credentials. They fake them,
Speaker 4: and once the one of these visa holders gets a
Speaker 4: hold of like the HR position or leadership position, they
Speaker 4: bring in people from their own town. Like if it's Hydrobod,
Speaker 4: everybody's from Hydrobod is now being hired by that company,
Speaker 4: or it maybe from their own cast, and they bring
Speaker 4: people in from their own cast. But they it seems
Speaker 4: like they're favoring illegally people from their own country and
Speaker 4: often their own religion or their own cast.
Speaker 5: And for America doesn't want cast systems.
Speaker 4: We want to be equality, you know, under the eyes
Speaker 4: of God, we're all created equal. We don't have cast systems,
Speaker 4: we don't know high and low. We can move around
Speaker 4: in society, and so it's a really bad the corruption
Speaker 4: that they're bringing and also the sort of bad societal
Speaker 4: things that we don't want. We want to have our
Speaker 4: American culture that says we're all equal, we meet on
Speaker 4: the street. So this is an issue that I think
Speaker 4: the government has to pay more attention to. I see
Speaker 4: now Congress is beginning. I just talked to Representative Brandon
Speaker 4: Gill and Speaker Johnson about this. These are really big
Speaker 4: deal issues that Congress is going to have to get
Speaker 4: on top of to end because we need to hire
Speaker 4: American and in an age of AI when there's going
Speaker 4: to be different Chaine just happening in employment, jobs will
Speaker 4: be there, but they may be a little different. We
Speaker 4: want to make sure that those American jobs and even
Speaker 4: American universities that they're hiring American. They're not bringing in
Speaker 4: people from third world countries because they can spend a
Speaker 4: little less, or moving the jobs to a foreign country
Speaker 4: because it can cost them a little less if it's
Speaker 4: an American company. This is our two and fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 4: I think they should show some patriotism, and they should
Speaker 4: hire American and celebrate our own great American working people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really really important points. I was interesting, I've been
Speaker 3: I just watched do documentary Hills Deals got coming out
Speaker 3: called Revolutionary America, and they were talking about how diversity
Speaker 3: was not the strength of the founders. The whole goal
Speaker 3: was to try to get a bunch of a lot
Speaker 3: of diversity, all growing in the same direction, and we
Speaker 3: really lose.
Speaker 2: Sight of that.
Speaker 3: That That's kind of what got us on the right
Speaker 3: track as a country, was trying to say, Okay, everyone's
Speaker 3: got different values, and everyone's got different principles and backgrounds,
Speaker 3: we all got to go in this direction. That's the
Speaker 3: real trick. It's not just announcing, oh, look, with diversity
Speaker 3: is beautiful. It can be, sure, but not always. We're
Speaker 3: trying to keep a society together. Sometimes we do need
Speaker 3: to have a collective consciousness.
Speaker 4: Yes, and that's the shared common background that we have
Speaker 4: as Americans.
Speaker 5: It's really really important.
Speaker 4: I mean, when we see some of these foreigners that
Speaker 4: have been elected to Congress and the crazy ideas and
Speaker 4: the anti American sentiment coming out of their mouths, it
Speaker 4: really is kind of shocking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 3: Okay, anyway, the good stuff Carlos has. Where can people
Speaker 3: find some of your stuff? I know you're writing Daily Caller,
Speaker 3: you're writing in Washington Times. You're going to write for me?
Speaker 3: Now we work that's coming up. Hey, I'm easy to find.
Speaker 3: You know where to buy me? So good key with
Speaker 3: the great stuff. I'm enjoying these conversations, and let's do.
Speaker 2: Another one soon.
Speaker 5: Thanks.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite people all media, John Carney, is here.
Speaker 3: He's my economic and finance editor at Brightbart News. We
Speaker 3: collaborate frequently on all sorts of different things. The Bright
Speaker 3: Bar Business Digest is a must read newsletter. He does
Speaker 3: the heavy lifting and I'm his sidekick on that one.
Speaker 3: And then we also appear quite a bit together on
Speaker 3: bright par Confidential, which is our show for premium members
Speaker 3: that we do over break part. So if your big
Speaker 3: Bright Bar fan supporter, that's a way to get more involved,
Speaker 3: get to know some of your favorite writers and editors
Speaker 3: a little bit better.
Speaker 2: John.
Speaker 3: I collaborate over there quite a bit, but on the
Speaker 3: podcast today, John, because there's just too much economic news
Speaker 3: and I just want to start running stuff by you
Speaker 3: and start getting your take on stuff. The first and
Speaker 3: most fun item is breaking this morning. As we're recording this,
Speaker 3: probably a day afters comes out, Trump has allegedly pitched
Speaker 3: a two hundred and fifty dollars bill. I want to
Speaker 3: get your sense on the wisdom of a two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty dollars bill does what signal does send about
Speaker 3: inflation putting the president on it. I love that idea
Speaker 3: because it trolls all the bad guys. Also the two
Speaker 3: hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the country that kind of
Speaker 3: makes it relevant. Maybe there's all fake news, maybe just
Speaker 3: one of these headfakes, like we're going to buy Greenland,
Speaker 3: even though I want to buy Greenland.
Speaker 2: What is your initial opinion on this stuff?
Speaker 6: So part of me is exactly where you are. I
Speaker 6: really love the idea. A few years ago they were
Speaker 6: trying to get rid of the one hundred dollars bill.
Speaker 6: They thought, like, we.
Speaker 2: You know, we shouldn't have it. One of the reasons though,
Speaker 2: for that, is.
Speaker 6: That the larger denomination bills actually make it much easier
Speaker 6: to do crime. You know, like whenever you see a
Speaker 6: you know, like a drug deal in a movie, right,
Speaker 6: if it's one hundred dollars bills in briefcases. So if
Speaker 6: I were the president, I'd worry a little bit about
Speaker 6: like two hundred and fifty dollars bills in a suitcase
Speaker 6: being used to buy you know, you know, drugs or
Speaker 6: guns or whatever. You don't really want your face to
Speaker 6: be the face of criminal activity. On the other hand, look,
Speaker 6: we have had a lot of inflation. We don't have
Speaker 6: we haven't had a higher than one hundred dollars bill
Speaker 6: in quite some time in general circulation, So why not,
Speaker 6: you know, it seems kind of cool. I mean, it
Speaker 6: would be fun to have. You know, they probably won't
Speaker 6: to be honest, they're not going to print that many
Speaker 6: two hundred and fifty dollars bills, right.
Speaker 2: No, I don't know. I use them.
Speaker 3: I've got a couple of things that I use cash for.
Speaker 3: I like having it around. I'm is it you know,
Speaker 3: miss missus doctor Marlow does not like any cash, like
Speaker 3: and then when she asked for cash for me, she
Speaker 3: always once like sixty dollars like some sort of.
Speaker 2: Like really minimal about of cash. But it's for me.
Speaker 3: I like having it, and I do feel like I
Speaker 3: end up sometimes when I go and I get the
Speaker 3: denominations I want.
Speaker 2: The stats are pretty high, so I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of a cool idea.
Speaker 3: Also, Trump being the guy that the rappers, all the
Speaker 3: rappers talked about for so long and then he's our
Speaker 3: richest president and for him to be on the biggest currency,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just sort of fabulous to me. But
Speaker 3: does that is that necessary? Is it's a waste of time?
Speaker 3: Is it a distraction? What's you're talking?
Speaker 2: She said? I'm not really one hundred percent convinced it's real. So,
Speaker 2: you know, these stories, maybe they pushed for it, maybe
Speaker 2: the Washington Post, you know, talk to some people who
Speaker 2: were you know, that's where the story came from, I
Speaker 2: think originally. So I'm not sure how real it is.
Speaker 6: It could be like, it could be real in that
Speaker 6: like they proposed it, but it might just be in
Speaker 6: no patrol. I would carry around a two hundred and
Speaker 6: fifty dollars Trump bill in my you know, like in
Speaker 6: my wallet. I'd like to have, you know, didn't look,
Speaker 6: I don't want to like encourage criminals out there. I
Speaker 6: always have a little bit of extra cash, I mean,
Speaker 6: just in case, right, So a two hundred and fifty
Speaker 6: dollars bill would make it really easy to have, you know,
Speaker 6: a two hundred and fifty bucks on you at any
Speaker 6: given points. So not, you know, not a terrible idea.
Speaker 6: I do love that. It, you know, will freak people out.
Speaker 6: It's going to you know, all the people who hate
Speaker 6: Donald Trump are going to think this is the end
Speaker 6: of the world. Oh no, he's going to put his
Speaker 6: face on the currency. Come on, like it's it's more
Speaker 6: of a fun thing than anything else. And as you said,
Speaker 6: I bet you you know, it would be fun to have,
Speaker 6: you know, like you said, like rappers, you know, raining
Speaker 6: making it rain money falling to Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's cool too. And it's just like,
Speaker 2: how about how about you.
Speaker 3: Know, like you're giving out a Christmas gift and then
Speaker 3: you pull out four crisp Donald Trump to fifty dollars
Speaker 3: bills forty who's not gonn feel like a million bucks?
Speaker 2: It's only a thousand, but you'll feel like a million
Speaker 2: if you have that. And you know what, imagine giving
Speaker 2: that to like somebody for like the graduation.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exact hard and they got a Trump fill inside.
Speaker 2: I think it's you know, I like it. I like
Speaker 2: the idea.
Speaker 3: I do think sadly though, it does represent that is
Speaker 3: just money is not what it was. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: the I think I got. I think I cracked one
Speaker 3: hundred bucks at the pizza joint last week. John, I
Speaker 3: mean I got, I got, you know, six mouths to
Speaker 3: feed minimum on a given night. So I'm not a
Speaker 3: typical family. But it's the they're small mouths. And I mean,
Speaker 3: it just feels like normal stuff is just so insanely expensive.
Speaker 3: As I've been known to know that the uh, the
Speaker 3: the credit card fraud alert goes off on my gap
Speaker 3: on two of my cars, like I can't fill the
Speaker 3: car before the credit card limit kicks in in California.
Speaker 2: And not great.
Speaker 6: Two hundred and fifty dollars is the new one hundred dollars. Sure,
Speaker 6: that's that's not That's not great. And I but I think, really,
Speaker 6: like I said, there's not going to be a ton
Speaker 6: of use for the two hundred and fifty dollars bills,
Speaker 6: Like I said, mostly you would. I think it would
Speaker 6: be you know, people use it for gifts, they'd use
Speaker 6: it to carry around some extra cash. So there's probably
Speaker 6: not going to be a ton of these things ever pricked,
Speaker 6: which you know also might make them collectors' items. Because,
Speaker 6: by the way, if the Democrat ever gets in office,
Speaker 6: do you think they're going to keep the two hundred
Speaker 6: and fifty dollars bills with Donald Trump's face in the circulation?
Speaker 6: They will end that as soon as they can, which, uh,
Speaker 6: you know, might make them collectors items. Right, we might
Speaker 6: have two hundred and fifty dollars bulls in a frame
Speaker 6: that are worth five hundred dollars because they've been discontinued
Speaker 6: by the Kamala Harris or you know, Gavin Newsome administration.
Speaker 3: At some point, I've been saying, I think it's gonna
Speaker 3: be hear us. I've been I've got to you know,
Speaker 3: my track record on this is second to none. I
Speaker 3: feel like she's by far at the front runner, sign
Speaker 3: him close. So it's the it'd be so magnanimous, though
Speaker 3: if she she let it go one, it's.
Speaker 2: So perfect, it's so perfect.
Speaker 3: And look, it's the I don't even know if it
Speaker 3: sends the right message with the fact that disinflation is
Speaker 3: it's too high and it's lower than it wasn't her Biden,
Speaker 3: but it's too high and we're gonna get to that momentarily.
Speaker 3: But before we get to inflation, which is on my list, John,
Speaker 3: this is as a recording. Is a big day because
Speaker 3: Trump accounts are open. There's a Trump account app. I'm
Speaker 3: not played with it, but I anticipate trying to do
Speaker 3: so today right away.
Speaker 2: I want to know what's going on over there.
Speaker 3: This does feel like potentially a big moment for people
Speaker 3: who are trying to come up with any way to
Speaker 3: scrimp and save for their future, for their children.
Speaker 2: What is this? What do we you know about? Yeah?
Speaker 6: So the great thing about the Trump account it is
Speaker 6: another way to save for your children's future.
Speaker 2: There is right now.
Speaker 6: So if you had a kid born in between January
Speaker 6: first of twenty twenty five and or over the next
Speaker 6: couple years, you actually get a thousand bucks to start
Speaker 6: the accounting. My kids are too old for that, so
Speaker 6: I'm not going to get the thousand bucks, although you could,
Speaker 6: you know, talk to our CEO. Because employers are allowed
Speaker 6: to contribute, parents are allowed to contribute, grandparents are allowed
Speaker 6: to contribute.
Speaker 2: And this money has to be putt in relatively safe investments,
Speaker 2: basically an S and P five hundred fund. So it's not,
Speaker 2: you know, like you can't do crazy investments. It's not
Speaker 2: money that's really going to be at risk. But it
Speaker 2: gives away I think, to put more people in the
Speaker 2: market give.
Speaker 6: When you try to educate kids about how like the
Speaker 6: stock market works and they don't have any skin in
Speaker 6: the game, it's hard for them to really learn this
Speaker 6: could potentially mean.
Speaker 2: And I talked to.
Speaker 6: A high school teacher, a friend of mine, who said,
Speaker 6: even exists would be great if all the kids in
Speaker 6: his class had Trump accounts so that they could actually
Speaker 6: be tracking how their accounts are doing, how the stock
Speaker 6: market is doing will actually affect them.
Speaker 2: That'd be really good.
Speaker 3: I got to say that this is something that I
Speaker 3: don't do a lot of interesting investments, John, but it's
Speaker 3: in my I would really love it. And if I
Speaker 3: had more money when I was in college, I worked
Speaker 3: in college at one or two jobs at a time,
Speaker 3: but I never had enough where I was like, really
Speaker 3: able to make a difference. If I had enough of
Speaker 3: an estay where I could really I could have seen
Speaker 3: building habits where I'm way on top of that stuff
Speaker 3: at an early age. And I'm treating it as though
Speaker 3: it's a game that you can win in the stakes
Speaker 3: so you can make more money at it, and it
Speaker 3: just feels like something that could be really it could
Speaker 3: be a good teaching tool, is the main thing.
Speaker 2: That's one of the ways Treasury Secretary Scott beston what's that.
Speaker 6: He's really big on the idea that we can increase
Speaker 6: Americans financial literacy, and he thinks this will actually be
Speaker 6: a great tool to help young Americans understand the value
Speaker 6: of savings over time. One of the things I really
Speaker 6: like about these accounts is we've had similar things. There
Speaker 6: are these five twenty nine accounts where you can save,
Speaker 6: but it has to be spent on education. This is
Speaker 6: not limited in this way, so it can be spent
Speaker 6: after your child is no longer eighteen years old, particularly
Speaker 6: once they get a couple of years beyond that. They
Speaker 6: really shouldn't be spending it immediately, but it can be
Speaker 6: used to do things like put down a down payment
Speaker 6: for a house started this, or just accumulating savings for retirement.
Speaker 2: I think that's really great. It's not restricted. It's not
Speaker 2: a subsidy for colleges, which is more or less what
Speaker 2: the five twenty nine things were.
Speaker 6: The other things there were like you could do a
Speaker 6: rawira for your kids, so you could do a traditional
Speaker 6: ira for your kids but it had to be money
Speaker 6: that the keys themselves earned, which might was like you know,
Speaker 6: basically like a child actor subsidy. It was not something
Speaker 6: aimed for everyone. This is an account that everybody can use,
Speaker 6: and particularly if you are a new parent. It's free money.
Speaker 6: I mean, the government is literally cutting you a check
Speaker 6: and giving those too. There are also charitable organizations that
Speaker 6: are giving people money, and a lot of employers have
Speaker 6: said they will match their employee contributions to these accounts.
Speaker 6: That's really good. And you know, the key to any.
Speaker 2: Savings, and you were alluding to this earlier is time, Right,
Speaker 2: the earlier you start to time in a bank in
Speaker 2: an account, particularly one that's invested in something like that SIP,
Speaker 2: which is going to go up a lot more than money.
Speaker 2: You know, you put money in a bank account, you
Speaker 2: don't get a lot of interest, but if you could
Speaker 2: grow on average seventy eight percent a year, which is
Speaker 2: what the simptas, that really adds up.
Speaker 6: So after forty years you will have gained a lot
Speaker 6: of money accumulated. I think it's it's a great opportunity
Speaker 6: for Americans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait. I'm gonna get my kids involved immediately.
Speaker 3: Maybe even as early as today. It's just good stuff
Speaker 3: from the president. And it's good that we can have
Speaker 3: a minute to talk about something positive that's putting on
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 6: Like like they made it maximally easy. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: everything's on it app. But it's kind of it's very
Speaker 6: annoying that so many other things that the government tries
Speaker 6: to do, you have to go through like a million hoops,
Speaker 6: get a form mailed to you and you know, fill
Speaker 6: it out and then mail back or forth. This isn't
Speaker 6: like that you can actually start it on your phone.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly right. And I just like that and
Speaker 3: the simplicity. So and I want to keep an eye
Speaker 3: on the app because recall, you know, president won't always
Speaker 3: have a great track record of starting new apps.
Speaker 6: Or yeah, it's like this, you know, is this they're
Speaker 6: going to crash They these things happen if too many
Speaker 6: people try to sign up all at once.
Speaker 3: It happened for Obamacare and many other places as well.
Speaker 3: But like the fact that Obamacare the biggest bet that
Speaker 3: Barack Obama made his whole administration, and the heat botched
Speaker 3: the website. Just stutting stuff. Okay, John, here's the main question.
Speaker 3: This is the biggest question. I want to take on
Speaker 3: those two specifics, but this is the most the biggest thing,
Speaker 3: What is the state of the US economy? Every time
Speaker 3: you're on it's because I want to give the audience
Speaker 3: a assessment from your vantage point, because whenever I look down
Speaker 3: at the news on a given day, I'm seeing certain
Speaker 3: gauges that look positive, certain gauges that look negative.
Speaker 2: Let me go through some of the stuff.
Speaker 3: That you've been reporting on for us at bright barp
Speaker 3: and in the bright Bar Business Digest. So it's the
Speaker 3: consumer sentiment historic low. Americans are increasingly gloomy, including Trump supporters,
Speaker 3: about the economy.
Speaker 2: But businesses are seeing strong sales growth. We just saw
Speaker 2: today Cohle's is anticipating bigger sales growth. But there are
Speaker 2: some exceptions to this.
Speaker 3: Some car companies are seeing they're cutting their forecasts.
Speaker 2: Businesses are betting.
Speaker 3: According to your bright Our Business Digest article from a
Speaker 3: couple of days ago, they're betting on a boom taking place.
Speaker 3: And the FEDS preferred inflation gauge is up, but not
Speaker 3: up as much as the experts predicted.
Speaker 2: All of this makes a very.
Speaker 3: Confusing environment for people who are even I think pretty
Speaker 3: observant about this stuff. So I know that's a lot
Speaker 3: to bite off, but let's just get into it where
Speaker 3: we at.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so the most so, yes, you're right, let's start
Speaker 6: with where you end in inflation. Uh, inflation is up,
Speaker 6: and it is up year over year. It's way too high.
Speaker 6: It's three point eight percent. A huge part of that
Speaker 6: it's gasoline.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 6: Core inflation it's like three point three percent. Still too high,
Speaker 6: and we did want it to rise, right, everybody wants
Speaker 6: inflation to go down. The Fed end for two percent,
Speaker 6: we're well above that. Uh, and again gasoline politific. But
Speaker 6: even if you take out gasoline, inflation still rows, and
Speaker 6: it is and it's going up at two fasted picks.
Speaker 6: The thing that really amazed me those is if you
Speaker 6: look at the consumer spending numbers that were released alongside
Speaker 6: those inflation numbers, the personal consumption expenditures, those are up
Speaker 6: a lot, in other words, and not just even outside
Speaker 6: of gasoline. So people actually haven't yet what the high
Speaker 6: price of gasoline mean that they're not buying other things.
Speaker 6: That was my big fear with the economy, right that
Speaker 6: you once you get gas heading up to four dollars
Speaker 6: and fifty cents. People have less money to spend on
Speaker 6: other things. Less why it just spend on groceries, on shoes,
Speaker 6: on clothing, on haircuts, right on services.
Speaker 2: You know, we're not seeing that.
Speaker 6: Actually, consumers are being resilient to the high gas prices.
Speaker 6: That's not great, you know, meaning people are going to
Speaker 6: feel stretched. They're real spending, meaning it's after inflation is
Speaker 6: actually falling, meaning they're getting less stuff for their money.
Speaker 6: But that's going to happen when you have gas prices
Speaker 6: go up twenty They're close to thirty percent year over
Speaker 6: year according to the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index, So people
Speaker 6: are still spending. They're not being scared out of this.
Speaker 6: I think a big part of that is that unemployment
Speaker 6: is very low. Jobless claims are very low, which means
Speaker 6: people are not losing their jobs.
Speaker 2: So that is encouraging.
Speaker 6: As long as that measure holds up, people are going
Speaker 6: to be able to keep spending. And I think a
Speaker 6: lot of people do think that, unlike when if gas
Speaker 6: prices rise, because you know, we've had like a policy
Speaker 6: change that's going to permanently raise gas prices. People I
Speaker 6: think are looking at this gas price increase and saying
Speaker 6: it's temporary, so they're not saying, oh, I can't buy
Speaker 6: other things.
Speaker 2: Because gas is so high. They don't like gas being high,
Speaker 2: but they think they can still keep spending because they
Speaker 2: think eventually gas prices will come back down.
Speaker 6: And I think they're right. I'm not sure they'll come
Speaker 6: back down very quickly. I think we may be stuck
Speaker 6: with high gas prices for several months.
Speaker 2: There's good news, you know.
Speaker 6: I think the latest news is that there is a
Speaker 6: you know, maybe something of an agreement to reopen the
Speaker 6: Straight of Her Moves. But I don't think that's going
Speaker 6: to make gas prices go down at three dollars and
Speaker 6: fifty cents anytime in the next two months. I think
Speaker 6: we're stuck through a lot of the summer with high
Speaker 6: gas prices.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so too, because I think it takes
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 3: And then also remember the the it's a lagging index,
Speaker 3: and also the summer formula that they use is more expensive.
Speaker 3: So it's just one of those things that we're going
Speaker 3: to have to deal with. They'll come down eventually, but
Speaker 3: not yet. So I'm just trying to square this circle
Speaker 3: where you're saying businesses are betting on a boom. I
Speaker 3: want you explain that at the same time we're seeing
Speaker 3: consumer sentiment falls the floor, at the same time we're
Speaker 3: seeing Coals raise their projections for earnings.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so look, Coal's numbers will just to be honest,
Speaker 6: aren't really that great. They're better than people expected. But
Speaker 6: Coals has had I just use that as.
Speaker 3: An example of sort of just like an average store,
Speaker 3: average people buy average stuff at right, Coles has.
Speaker 2: Some management problems. They even admitted this.
Speaker 6: I just want to like put this out there so
Speaker 6: people don't think I'm counting Coals, Coals and Vincent like
Speaker 6: they have a problem. People walk into their store and
Speaker 6: they can't find the stuff they want to buy.
Speaker 2: Their merchandise isn't exactly right, but they're stuck.
Speaker 6: Is up twenty percent because they're actually doing better than
Speaker 6: a lot of people expected.
Speaker 2: We saw that would best buy. Also they're doing they're
Speaker 2: they're doing better than expected.
Speaker 6: The numbers that informed my piece about the businesses expected
Speaker 6: boom comes from the survey of businesses that the atlant
Speaker 6: of Fen does, and they expect that we're going to
Speaker 6: see a huge risons sales over the next year, and
Speaker 6: not because prices are going up. Yes, that also contributes
Speaker 6: to it. But because I think people will be buying more,
Speaker 6: businesses are confidence. So yes, you have consumer sentiment really,
Speaker 6: really down. The University of Michigan's measure is at the
Speaker 6: all time low. That to me blows my mind. But
Speaker 6: I heard a good explanation for it. I mean, think
Speaker 6: about that, it's lower than it was during the pandemic,
Speaker 6: right when we block everything down. It's lower than it
Speaker 6: was during the financial crisis in two thousand and eight
Speaker 6: and two thousand and nine. How could it be that
Speaker 6: at four point three percent unemployment, the economy growing, you know,
Speaker 6: a AI investment boom happening, businesses, stock markets at an
Speaker 6: all time Just to put it the easiest way, stock
Speaker 6: market is at an all time high and consumer sentiment
Speaker 6: is at all time low.
Speaker 2: What's going on there? My favorite theory right now is
Speaker 2: that there's been a sort of cumulative impact on consumer sentiment.
Speaker 2: It just off. It seems like it's one thing after another,
Speaker 2: right like.
Speaker 6: You know, you get the financial crisis, then you get
Speaker 6: the slow growth and the sort of depressing Obama years.
Speaker 6: Things went pretty well under Donald Trump, but then we
Speaker 6: got hit with the pandemic, and then we got hit
Speaker 6: with Biden inflation, and so I think even when times
Speaker 6: are good now, people don't feel good about the economy
Speaker 6: because they feel like they get ambushed every time. It's
Speaker 6: like when the you know, you're watching like a horror
Speaker 6: movie and the nice music comes on, You're supposed to relax,
Speaker 6: but you don't relax, you know, the like you know
Speaker 6: they're going to open the door and the killers right
Speaker 6: behind it.
Speaker 2: Right, that's what's happening. I think that's how people feel
Speaker 2: about the economy.
Speaker 6: The cumulative effect of all of the series of bad
Speaker 6: things that have happened to us, it has just basically
Speaker 6: depressed consumer sentiment. But look, consumers might not feel good
Speaker 6: about the economy, but and years ago that would have
Speaker 6: been indicated that they were going to spend a lot.
Speaker 2: But that's not happening.
Speaker 6: We actually aren't seeing a tight correlation between how consumers
Speaker 6: say they feel about the economy and how they act.
Speaker 2: About the economy. I mean.
Speaker 6: One of the other thing that's going on, obviously, is
Speaker 6: Democrats are out of their mind when it comes to
Speaker 6: think about the economy. I just looked at an economists
Speaker 6: you gou pull and fifty five percent of Democrats think
Speaker 6: that we're in a recession right now, you know, the
Speaker 6: first procession we've ever had where nobody ever lost their job.
Speaker 6: Another twenty four percent of Democrats say we're likely to
Speaker 6: be in a recession sometime over the next twelve months.
Speaker 6: So then you're looking at eighty eighty something percent of Democrats.
Speaker 6: We are not such an are headed one. So that's
Speaker 6: automatically going to weigh down any measure of consumer sentiment. Now,
Speaker 6: we have seen a little shakiness on the part of Republicans.
Speaker 6: Trump voters, people who say they're maga, people would say
Speaker 6: they're conservatives. Their consumer sentiment has come down, but they're
Speaker 6: nowhere near as depressed. That's these awful Democrat numbers were getting.
Speaker 6: I think Democrats just hate Donald Trump and they will
Speaker 6: never feel good about the economy as long as Donald
Speaker 6: Trump still around.
Speaker 3: All right, if you're watching what's happening in i Ran
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Speaker 3: and they like feeling bad. It makes them feel live
Speaker 3: to feel bad about things. And it feels like there's
Speaker 3: unless you're some sort of a capitalist that prefers Trump
Speaker 3: to Democrats secretly, which I do think that's a subset
Speaker 3: of people. But again, John, I guess the main question
Speaker 3: I've got here is, other than the war, is there
Speaker 3: anything else inflation area that's going on that you feel
Speaker 3: like is not good and the Trump adminstration should rein
Speaker 3: in No.
Speaker 2: I actually think that's the fantastic I'm happy to hear it.
Speaker 2: I think the economy is doing really well even despite
Speaker 2: the war. Right.
Speaker 6: The thing that impressed me the most about the latest
Speaker 6: consider spending numbers that we got today was that it
Speaker 6: didn't disrupt people as much as I thought that it would.
Speaker 6: I you know, I think we've talked about this. My
Speaker 6: biggest fear was that people would have to pull back
Speaker 6: on spending because they're spending so much on gasoline. We're
Speaker 6: not seeing that. So the economy is doing well. Employment
Speaker 6: is doing well, business investment is booming, The hiring has
Speaker 6: been really good for several months, and layoffs are almost
Speaker 6: non existent.
Speaker 2: So the economy is doing very well.
Speaker 6: The gas price oil prices are the obstacle to it
Speaker 6: doing even better. But what I would say is even
Speaker 6: with those gas prices, we're still doing well. So it's
Speaker 6: not like we could be doing well if not for
Speaker 6: gas prices. It's we are doing well, and we could
Speaker 6: be doing even better if we didn't.
Speaker 2: Have gas prices as highs.
Speaker 3: There, John Carney, what else do you feel like the
Speaker 3: audience we should impress upon them during our remaining time
Speaker 3: that we've got today on this very podcast.
Speaker 6: So I think we're going to get next week some
Speaker 6: employment numbers, and those will be important, But.
Speaker 2: Is it jobs? Is it jobs week? Already? We're already here,
Speaker 2: not tomorrow, not Friday, but next weekend.
Speaker 7: Next week we're back to jobs Friday, and we've had
Speaker 7: several good months where jobs numbers really blew away expectations.
Speaker 2: I think we're going to see a pretty strong jobs
Speaker 2: number again.
Speaker 6: But the one thing I want to like tell everybody
Speaker 6: about this because you'll often hear people say, well, the
Speaker 6: job's numbers, we're not adding that many jobs in the economy,
Speaker 6: and this is the mental reset a lot of people
Speaker 6: haven't yet made. We don't need to add many jobs
Speaker 6: in the American economy. We are actually very near full employment.
Speaker 6: We needed to add a lot of jobs when the
Speaker 6: population was growing fast. We needed to add a lot
Speaker 6: of jobs during the Biden administration because they were letting
Speaker 6: in millions of people a year over the border.
Speaker 2: We put an end to that.
Speaker 6: So the at growth of the labor force is now
Speaker 6: very low. A month where we get ten thousand jobs
Speaker 6: is a good month. That's something that like the economic
Speaker 6: pundits haven't gotten their head around, and I don't think
Speaker 6: the American public has either. We're used to seeing one
Speaker 6: hundred two hundred thousand jobs as a good month. We're
Speaker 6: not yet used to seeing ten thousand jobs is a
Speaker 6: good month. I think we're going to have to readjust
Speaker 6: our expectations of that. And it's not a downgrading of
Speaker 6: our expectations.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: I'm not saying, like, get used to bad jobs reports.
Speaker 6: I'm saying, rethink what a good jobs report is. When
Speaker 6: you have very low unemployment and low labor force growth,
Speaker 6: you just are not going to be adding that many employees. Instead,
Speaker 6: businesses are going to grow by increasing productivity and investing
Speaker 6: in equipment, machinery, doing capital expenditures. That's how they're going
Speaker 6: to grow workers. And by the way, that's a path
Speaker 6: to higher wages for workers, non inflationary. Higher wages need
Speaker 6: more productivity. So this is a good development for the
Speaker 6: US economy. But people's minds aren't yet there. So when
Speaker 6: we watch the jobs evers coming next month, look, I
Speaker 6: know I'm not going to try to dicked exactly where
Speaker 6: they're going to come out, but I will say the
Speaker 6: number might not look good by historical standards, but it
Speaker 6: may be amazing.
Speaker 2: By what we need right now for the US economy.
Speaker 3: John Carney, Economic and Finance editor for Bry Partners. Always
Speaker 3: appreciate the insight that you give me, and really I
Speaker 3: get coached up in these things. I always have my
Speaker 3: number two pencil I type, but I do theory to
Speaker 3: have my modern version of that out, so I learn
Speaker 3: a bit when we talk to John. Thank you, my friend,
Speaker 3: and thanks to all of you in the audience. Thanks
Speaker 3: Misty for putting it together, and all of you for
Speaker 3: a two on ten thousand friends and family members about
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: See you next time.