Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The single best idea. We've been doing this a few
Speaker 2: years and it's now getting the weirdness meter. The surveillance
Speaker 2: weirdness meter is off the chart. And I don't mean
Speaker 2: to be inflammatory, and I'm not predicting anything about equities, bonds, currencies,
Speaker 2: or commodities, but the uncertainty out there, I want to
Speaker 2: go through this. I think it's so so important. There
Speaker 2: are three words in economics, risk, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Let
Speaker 2: me start with the ambiguity, which is the least important
Speaker 2: Douglas North, Nobel Prizeman or Washington, University of Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: Ambiguity means a couple different things, and it's sort of
Speaker 2: like in microeconomics, where something can happen and it cuts
Speaker 2: eye their way, and it's ambiguous which way it cuts
Speaker 2: whatever chart you're looking at or thought you're looking at
Speaker 2: frankly algebraic equation. But also ambiguity around institutions, and it's
Speaker 2: just an uncertain feel because of the ambiguous nature of institutions.
Speaker 2: And then there's risk, which is a measurable doubt, a
Speaker 2: measurable probability, a measurable uncertainty, and now everybody's tossing around
Speaker 2: the word uncertainty. I mean, I'm hearing it about every
Speaker 2: seven minutes on the show. We got a tip chart
Speaker 2: we have the show. Every time someone mentions uncertainty, that's
Speaker 2: the unmeasurable. And on this Monday, the unmeasurable, particularly off Teriff,
Speaker 2: wonderment of the Trump administration is absolutely I've never seen
Speaker 2: it like this. You need to get a view of
Speaker 2: the American economy. We do that with Kathleen bus Johonsick
Speaker 2: of Nationwide point.
Speaker 1: That there's certainly dichotomy across the US economy and depending
Speaker 1: where you are, particularly on the income spectrum, you're feeling
Speaker 1: tougher times than others.
Speaker 3: I would say, though even.
Speaker 1: For lower income, lower middle income, they're struggling.
Speaker 3: But it's not a recession. The unemployment rate is still
Speaker 3: quite low. Although you know that said, if we adjust
Speaker 3: for the drop in the participation rate, the unemployment rate
Speaker 3: would have been four point seven as on Friday instead
Speaker 3: of four point one. What we have seen is a
Speaker 3: participation rate drop quite sharply the last two months, and
Speaker 3: because discouraged workers, So the discouraged worker increase in June
Speaker 3: was a record monthly increase going back to I think
Speaker 3: it's nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: That's the clearest explanation I've heard of this. David Rosenberg
Speaker 2: with a brilliant note out of Toronto Friday or Saturday,
Speaker 2: I can't remember when. I really want to emphasize that.
Speaker 2: A lot of people I respect are saying, Okay, it
Speaker 2: was a really pretty good jobs report, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2: And there it is some Kathleen bus johnsick when you
Speaker 2: take the goofy math of unemployment and labor which Mike
Speaker 2: McKee gets and I don't. The answer is the unemployment
Speaker 2: rate would have been four point seven percent given labor
Speaker 2: force participation. Really something to think about is Chairman Powell
Speaker 2: goes to a July FED meeting on the stock market
Speaker 2: and the ability to be in the market. We got
Speaker 2: a briefing from Lori Calvacina, RBC Capital Markets.
Speaker 4: If I think back to my most recent trip to
Speaker 4: Canada seeing investors up there, it was a very different
Speaker 4: trip than what i'd say had back in December and
Speaker 4: what I had had back in February, when I would
Speaker 4: say we would go into meetings and the conversations were
Speaker 4: pretty much all about tariffs when you talked to a
Speaker 4: lot of global investors in Canada who are always sort
Speaker 4: of thinking about countries and comparing them. We heard plenty
Speaker 4: of conversation about tariffs on this last trip, but there
Speaker 4: was also a lot of emphasis on AI and productivity
Speaker 4: in the US, and people were actually starting to talk
Speaker 4: about some non tariff related things. And I know that
Speaker 4: sounds a little bit shocking, but I would say it
Speaker 4: was not as negative a vibe as what I had
Speaker 4: seen earlier in the year orar late last year.
Speaker 2: Larry Kavasina, RBC Capital Marcus and of course that dovetails
Speaker 2: into a fascinating earning season. Paul said it best. I
Speaker 2: think he said. He pass SWEENI said, but it's also
Speaker 2: about the guidance that will be there. Will we see
Speaker 2: guidance given all the uncertainty that's out there. We'll try
Speaker 2: to guide you on economics, finance, investment, and international relations
Speaker 2: through the week across the nation on Apple and Spotify,
Speaker 2: on YouTube podcasts. This is a single best idea