Interviewer (Bloomberg Host) (2:57)

Well, we got a 4.4% unemployment rate last month and next Friday we're expecting to get the same thing. So that's two months at least of evidence that the labor market is so somewhat stabilized, which is what the Fed was saying in its statement this last time. And yet Jay Powell said, given the numbers that you've got to work with, it looks like PC inflation on the core is going to go to 3% or more. The optics don't look good for cutting rates when inflation is going up and the labor market is stabilized.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (3:27)

So I disagree with a couple of things you said. First of all, the unemployment rate, even though it's the single most important indicator, is far from the total of information that we know about the labor market. There's plenty of evidence in the, there's plenty of evidence in the labor market data that indicates that we can accommodate additional demand for labor. There have been signs like it taking longer for some folks to find jobs, pockets of weakness among, you know, younger folks and folks and folks that college degrees, that all indicates that there, you know, increased part time work for economic reasons. All this indicates that there's additional slack in the labor market beyond what's indicated in the unemployment rate alone. If you look at the employment to population ratio for younger folks, it's been trending downwards for a long period of time and it has shown, and it has shown less stabilization in the overall unemployment rate is, and this is the type of thing that is concerning for me. So I disagree with the assessment that there's labor market, that there's enough labor market stabilization that we can drop our concerns about the labor market. I still have some concerns. Now I'm not as concerned as some, as, as some others, but those concerns still do exist for me. And on inflation, I think, you know, I've been making this argument that almost all of the inflation overage over our target is due to quirks of how we measure inflation. It's due to two things. It's due to the portfolio management services which pick up just the stock market prices. So I pushes stock prices higher. That mechanically feeds through into portfolio management services which contributed 36 basis points to core year on year. A normal year is six basis points. Right. So there's over a quarter of a point of core inflation excess. That's basically just the stock market moving higher. And all of the professional investors in the audience know there's been decades of fee deflation in that industry, not inflation. So there's a, there's an error in how this thing is measured and interpreted. The other thing is housing. The way the housing inflation is measured, it's picking up the housing market rents of 2022 and 2023, not 2026 or 2027. We shouldn't be making policy based on what happened in 2022. We should be making policy based on what's happening in the next 12 months.

Bloomberg Analyst/Commentator (5:22)

Months.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (5:22)

So once you correct for these two errors that the backward looking nature of shelter and the messed up portfolio management fees, you look at market based core ex housing instead of looking at regular core inflation's running 2.2%. That's within noise of our target. We don't have an inflation excess of any inflation that's relevant for supply, demand imbalances of the type of monetary policy we respond to. We should not be making monetary policy. We should not be asking people to give up their jobs because of quirks of how inflation is measured. That just to me is not a good idea for policy. It's a bit, it's a grotesque interpretation of stable prices.

Bloomberg Co-Host or Interviewer (5:57)

I am, I am curious as to you just about how we start to measure things going forward. And I just want to go back to the labor market for a second because there's been a lot of discussion about the stability or maybe the potential instability there. I spoke this morning with the CEO of American Express and he actually talked a lot about small businesses, the kind of middle market businesses, if you will, that at least in his view weren't as healthy as some of the larger businesses. And I'm curious if there's been any meaningful discussion at the Fed about that kind of Middle market of our economy.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (6:24)

You know, excuse me, there is, there is conversations about that. You know, people talk a lot about K shaped, you know, sort of K shaped economies and things like that. And I think usually they're talking about households when they talk about that. But there certainly is an element of that on the firm side as well. You know, from my perspective, some of that stuff is helpful for understanding where the economy is going. But I don't believe in targeting a specific sector of the economy. I believe that, you know, the, the statutes that Congress gave us instruct us to target the, the overall macro economy as a whole. And I'm focused on aggregate employment and focused on aggregate inflation. And so I do see, you know, there is, there definitely are pockets of weakness here and there, but I'm focused on the overall levels.

Bloomberg Co-Host or Interviewer (7:04)

But there was some discussion a few years back with Jay Powell when he did start to look at certain segments. The idea that when you look at the economy in aggregates, aggregate, sometimes it obscures, you know, certain things, whether it's to the upside or the downside. Is there not any value in maybe trying to, I guess, bisect or dissect things into different sections?

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (7:22)

Oh, no, there absolutely is because it can help you, it can help you predict where the overall is going to go. Right. And I did that a moment ago with, with the labor market when you, as I was saying, if you look at, if you look at younger folks, if you look at folks, college degrees, if you look at folks that are marginally attached to the labor market, I think that very often they're leading indicators of where the overall labor market is going to go and they portray additional slack beyond what just the unemploy rate itself would give you. And I think, you know, to the extent you're seeing weakness in some smaller business, some small business segments like, like the, the Amex CEO that you mentioned before, that is the type of thing that I would be interested in knowing more about in terms of what, what it portends for the overall economy.

Bloomberg Analyst/Commentator (7:58)

Stephen Myron, I want to talk about Kevin Marsh. Of course, that's the big news of this morning. President Trump posting on Truth Social that he will nominate Kevin Moore as the next Fed or as the next chair of the Federal Reserve. This has been the horse race that has been captivating Wall Street. I want to bring you this note from Neil Dutto over at Renaissance Macro. He writes that if you get a few cuts now to appease the President, you may well get tougher hikes later. Moreover, because warsh has been a Policy hawk his entire life. His newfound dovish ness looks very suspect. Now, that's maybe a little bit more blunt than I would have phrased it, but there's a lot of people, people on Wall street on the sell side, who share that view. And I'm curious how confident you are that, you know, as a Fed chair, Warsh will be the dub that it seems that President Trump wants.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (8:45)

Look, I think Neil is fantastic. I'm a huge, I'm a huge Neil fan. But I think that Chairman Designate Walsh has a long and illustrious career and history as a very insightful thinker on monetary policy. I think he's a fantastic pick for the, from the President. I think he's got enormous credibility. I think he's got enormous gravitas. I think he's got enormous, enormous respect from financial markets, from economists, from everyone. I think he's going to do just a knockout job. What specific policies he supports or he's going to support going forward. You know, I can't answer that. I'm not him. You got to ask him those questions.

Bloomberg Analyst/Commentator (9:20)

Well, I would love to. So fingers crossed there. But as a Fed governor, I mean, as you know. Well, the job of the Fed chair is not just their opinions on where policy should go, but it's building consensus, you know, in the room itself. And so with the current makeup of the fomc, I mean, you think about some of the views on interest rates on the balance sheet, do you think that Bush will be able to basically build that consensus with that makeup?

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (9:44)

I do. I do. And the reason is that he's been there before. He knows how the place operates. He knows a lot of the, a lot of the key figures involved, and he's got the respect and the credibility that you need to do that. And I think that people want, people want him to succeed. I think people want the Fed to sort of have a good role in the economy, a good role in the country. And I think that they'll want him to succeed. And I think that he will be able to marshal the arguments and the evidence that he needs to persuade people of his, of his policy views.

Interviewer (Bloomberg Host) (10:12)

I'll talk about your experience. You came to the Fed from the White House, and I'm sure, you know, people said he was just put there to do what Donald Trump told him to do. Did Donald Trump tell you to do anything in particular? And do you think he told Kevin Warsh that? And even if he didn't, how do you. How did you. And how would Kevin fight the perception that he's The President's man inside the Fed.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (10:36)

Look, the President has never, ever asked me to do anything on monetary policy. He has never asked me to do any specific action on monetary policy. He's told me his views on monetary policy, but he tells the whole world his views on monetary policy. You know them as well as I do, right? That's not a secret. He's never asked me to do anything. And I wasn't in the room with any of, you know, Chairman Designate Marsh, his conversations with the President or anybody else involved in this election process. So I don't know what those conversations were like, but if they were anything like the conversations I had with the President about monetary policy, then he wouldn't have asked him to take any specific actions.

Interviewer (Bloomberg Host) (11:10)

Well, how do you. How do you get the public to.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (11:13)

Realize that you do that? By taking policy actions that are consistent with the data. And I think that, you know, I've laid out a case where the inflation measures that are consistent with supply, demand imbalances in the economy, the inflation measures that are relevant for monetary policy are indicating that there's no material overheating, that there's no material inflation issues in this country right now. So by taking policy steps that are consistent with the economic data that are justified by the state of the economy, I think you're delivering the right policy. At the end of the day, the financial markets, the economy, respond to whether the policy is the appropriate policy or not. Right. They don't respond to why the. Why the policy is there. Right. The interest rate doesn't really care why. You know, the long end of the yield curve ultimately doesn't really care why the, why the short rate is where the short rate is. It cares whether the short rate is appropriately set and what the consequences of the short rate are for the economy. The motives of the people who went into sort of setting the short rate. Yeah, those aren't really important. Is it the right policy for the economy or not is what matters. And I think that that's what I've. That's what I've labored to. Labor to work for is to sort of. Is to do a lot of. A lot of analysis of the inflation scenario, a lot of analysis of the labor market, a lot of analysis of the economy, and put that all out there. And I put all of my analysis out there all the time. I try and be as transparent as I possibly can with my calculations. Everybody knows exactly why I hold the views I hold.

Bloomberg Co-Host or Interviewer (12:36)

I see. I am curious once you move on back to your original role over at The National Economic Council. How is fiscal policy, meaning fiscal policy dictated from the White House and obviously through Congress itself. Is that going to be in sync, do you think? With what at least what, you know now with regards to the Fed's thinking and Kevin Warsh is thinking, is that going to be in sync?

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (12:57)

Well, first let me say that I honestly have no idea what I'm going to be doing, you know, after, after Chairman doesn't it wash is confirmed. I have no idea.

Bloomberg Co-Host or Interviewer (13:07)

You're not going back to the White House?

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (13:09)

I have no idea. I have no idea. You know, it's.

Bloomberg Co-Host or Interviewer (13:12)

Want to go back?

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (13:13)

Well, you know, I think I'm going to be doing a lot of thinking over, over coming weeks about, about, you know, about what will happen and where things will look like. But I don't know, you know, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see how things shake out. But you know, with respect to fiscal policy, you know, as a member of the Fed board, it's just, it's not really appropriate for me to comment on it one way or another. And you'd have to talk to folks, you know, in the White House and in treasury and I'm sure they've got plenty of views on appropriate fiscal policy that they'd be very happy to give you.

Bloomberg Co-Host or Interviewer (13:39)

Do you want to come work here? You make a great co host. Well, they, I mean no offense to Mike, he's great too.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (13:43)

But you know, I mean there are some pretty great snacks there. So you know, it's, it's not unappealing.

Bloomberg Analyst/Commentator (13:48)

Yeah, we have a lot of good snacks on the desk right now actually. But we should talk about the balance sheet because one of the differentiating factors of Kevin Wash is also his views on the balance sheet. We know that he's skeptical about expanding it to the extent that the central bank has very skeptical about QE as well. And the point has been made to me today on Bloomberg Television, you know, if the Fed is going to step away from a stance where it's using the balance sheet to influence the shape of the curve that you could see long end rates go higher, that obviously wouldn't be good news for mortgage rates, which I know that President Trump is very focused on. And I wonder, you know, whether those views hold any water with, with you.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (14:28)

About, about whether to do something with the balance sheet.

Bloomberg Analyst/Commentator (14:30)

Yeah. Whether or not, you know, stepping away from expanding the balance sheet will translate into higher long end rates.

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (14:36)

So, you know, my, my perspective is that it is a good idea to shrink the balance sheet. I'VE said this numerous times, but I also think that in order to shrink the balance sheet, we need to do some regulatory reform because there are regulatory requirements that create demand for reserves in the banks. We, we require the banks to hold reserves because of the various requirements under the Basel System. Right. So once we do some regulatory reform, then I think we can get back to shrinking the balance sheet. It is something that I would like, I would like to do. Whether that has an effect on long rates I think depends on a lot of stuff. It depends on how you're shrinking the balance sheet, whether you're doing roll off or whether you're, or whether you're selling securities. I think doing roll off is passive and is less likely to have a substantial effect on long rates. But I think at the end of the day, you know, what really matters is the overall stance of policy as, as combined short rates and balance sheet policy. And if you're at the zero lower bound, then the short rate can't do anything and then it's the balance sheet policy that's really setting the tone for, for the bond market. Right. But if you're not the zero lower bound, then in theory you can be moving the short it around to offset whatever you're doing on the balance sheet. And so what you're doing, when you set policies, you're targeting a particular level of financial conditions that let you hit your monetary policy targets, stable prices and maximum employment. And if for some reason financial conditions were to deviate from what allowed you to hit stable prices in maximum employment, you can change the short rate to offset that and thereby get back to stable prices and maximum employment. So if you want to shrink the balance sheet because you have a principle that, that you want the Fed to have a minimal footprint in the economy, for example, right. Then if that were to cause an increase in long rates, you can offset that tightening of financial conditions by reducing the short rate. So as long as you're not the zero lower bounds, you have multiple tools to, to, to affect this, this situation.

Interviewer (Bloomberg Host) (16:32)

One last question. We know now who the next chair of the Fed is likely to be, but we don't know what's going to happen to the current chair of the Fed. Would it be uncomfortable for the committee? Would it be difficult to have Jay Powell stay and be in the room when Kevin Warsh is trying to lead people, perhaps in a different direction?

Fed Governor (likely a current or outgoing Fed official) (16:53)

Look, you know, I think that, I think that Chairman Powell, you know, deserves a thank you from all Americans. I think his work during the, during the pandemic recession you know, was part of a critical effort that really helped save the country from a second Great Depression. And everyone, everyone owes him a thank you for that. However, I really can't tell you what he's going to decide to do, you know, and you got to get it, you know, you got to get it from the source, you know, I don't, I don't know.

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