Stephanie Pomboy: Expect GDP To Run Hot…Until Inflation Spikes Or The Markets Plunge
Summary
Climate Cooling: A 60-year cooling cycle could lift agricultural commodity prices and bond yields, adding a new secular layer to inflation dynamics and debt sustainability models.
Poland: Framed as Europe’s strongest economy, with discussion that its GDP trajectory could surpass Japan’s, positioning Poland as a notable regional growth story.
Rising Rates: Concern that bond vigilantes may push yields higher if growth and commodities accelerate, making interest rates a key trigger for market correction risk.
Fiscal Stimulus: Expectation of an election-year “golden year” sugar rush from policy measures, with inflationary costs likely felt after the vote.
Oil Prices: Oil creeping higher and retail gasoline tightly linked to consumer confidence, creating near-term inflation pressure and potential headwinds for markets.
Stablecoins: Discussion of a potential stablecoin reserve as a stimulus conduit and broader exploration of stablecoins as a tool within the dollar milkshake framework.
Federal Reserve: Debate over Kevin Warsh’s prospective policy stance versus institutional constraints highlights uncertainty around future monetary accommodation.
Market Outlook: Baseline leans away from near-term recession unless a sizable market correction occurs; watch interest rates and gasoline prices as primary indicators.
Transcript
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm Thoughtful Money founder and your host, Adam Tagert. Probably noticed I'm in a different setting than my usual studio. Um, I'm actually here in St. Petersburg, Florida with the wonderful Stephanie Pomboy. Hi, Steph. >> Hi, Adam. It's great to be here in person with you. >> It is wonderful to be here in person with you. So Stephanie and her uh cohort in crime, Grant Williams, were kind enough to invite me to their super happy, terrific day conference here that just concluded in St. Petersburg. Um I don't have a uh full interview planned for today, but I wanted you guys to have some quick video here. So Stephanie was very kind after we just got off the wonderful cocktail cruise uh that she and her cohorts took me on. Um she's going to spend a few minutes with us here. We're just going to talk about some of our top takeaways from the conference. We're going to let you know if you're interested how to get uh the replay of Stephanie's conference and then we'll talk very quickly about uh if you want to buy your ticket to the thoughtful money conference that's coming up next month. We'll tell you how to do that as well. But first Stephanie, let me congratulate you on a wonderful experience that you Grant and uh Dave Iben and the team at Capernic put on here. I've been to a number of uh in-person conferences like this. pretty easy to say. Hands down was the best one I've ever been to. >> Really? >> No, I'm dead serious. >> Uh, well, I enjoyed it, but I can take zero credit for the conference and how smoothly it went. Um, but I would say you did a fantastic job today leading the conversation and uh, you know, really interviewing the speakers uh, and ting questions from the audience as well. So that was for me actually the fun part of the day. Yesterday was a slog. Today was today was so much more fun. >> Well, Stephanie as usual is being a way too kind and b way too humble. Um but today was just pure fun for me. Um what a great faculty you guys assembled here. What? We had Luke Roman. We had um >> you and Grant obviously we had Pippa Malgrim. We had Mike Green. Uh we had uh Andrew McDonald who I had not heard before, right? >> But a great expert on uh Japan. We had Tom Hanik. Both of our I think we both have uh crushes on macro crushes. >> Right. Exactly. >> Yeah. And as I said to you, I think the other day, the more he talks, the more I love him. >> Yeah. Which is totally true. Um so anyways, fantastic event. Folks will will stop gushing about it except to uh I just want to spend a few minutes talking about, you know, some of the key takeaways. Um, I know I asked you this question on stage earlier, but I'll ask you sort of a a variant of the same question. Um, now that it's over, what is sticking out in your mind from the conversation? Any particular ideas or uh concepts that were shared that were, you know, you think of you you have access to a lot of information. So, is there something here that was sort of new or a different piece of the puzzle for you? >> Well, I thought a lot of what Pipa said was interesting to me because it's so outside of what I'm normally looking at. So, um, you know, this morning she talked about Poland as an economy that is really vibrant and probably the strongest economy in Europe. And then Andrew McDermott, who is the Japan guy, uh, I think it was him who pointed out that the GDP growth of Poland is going to overtake. Was that >> that blew my mind? Yeah, I know. He he said that that Poland's GDP, if it hasn't already, looks on track to to surpass Japan's. >> Yeah. which I thought was, you know, that was a revelation to me. I had no idea. Um, but the other uh interesting comment that came up this morning was from Tom Mlelen, who's the technician who joined us to add, you know, what he's seeing from his discipline. >> And he made the comment about the cooling cycle, the climate cooling, >> um, >> and all the things that are correlated with that historically. >> Amazing. I mean, when you think about it, if we're going to have cooler temperatures rather than hotter temperatures, you're talking about difficulty harvesting crops and therefore commodity prices, agricultural prices might go up and that would put upward pressure on bond yields. And what was it, a 60year cycle? >> 60ear cycle. Yeah. And Tom Mlen and I think regular viewers of this channel know um >> is just a total data savant and he collects all of these data series and finds all these amazing correlations between them. And yeah, apparently there is a 60-year cooling cycle and it it's observable in things like bond yields and inflation rates and things like that. >> So that was just another interesting sort of I would call it secular theme that layers on top of these other like the delobalization and the AI revolution and the fiscal dominance. I mean, it it was an interesting time to do the conference because we have all these amazing big tectonic plate shifts going on and and each person's different perspective on where that's going to take us in the future was really fascinating. >> Well, that that's what I really loved about it, which is, you know, I I feel like what I do at Thoughtful Money is bring on experts and I I sort of, you know, trying to bring on people who I feel have a piece to the puzzle, right? Nobody sees the entire jigsaw puzzle now, right? >> But there are a lot of people who have one or multiple parts of it, right? And hopefully over time we can assemble their pieces and get a clearer picture. >> Yeah, >> I think we had a target-rich environment the past couple days here of people who had a lot of the pieces. And it was really interesting sitting next to Luke Roman when Tom Mlullen was talking about that cooling cycle and I saw the light bulb go off in Luke's brain. and he said, "Oh my god, I never thought about that >> and I'm now thinking about our debt burden and how much harder that's going to be to deal with >> if the implications of this cooling cycle unfold the way that Toms think they might." And so Luke was like that was an incredibly part that's a very important part of >> my model that I didn't have in there that I'm now going to add to it. Right. >> Yeah. Tremendous nugget. The other thing that was interesting and you know more uh immediate into focus was uh Tom Hunig's comments about Kevin Worsh from yesterday where he basically said you know it turned out obviously that Tom and Kevin >> really over overlapped at the Fed >> at the FOMC >> at the time um during and then after the financial crisis and they both after QE1 ended really um argued strongly against continuing the balance sheet expansion. Um and so, you know, Tom's insights on Kevin were really interesting as the presumptive next Fed chairman and whether he felt like he was going to do Trump's bidding as it were and be super accommodative or if he was really going to be this kind of hawk that we've known him to be. And it seemed to me that Tom believed in his heart of hearts that Kevin Worsh was truly a hawk who was going to continue that policy or at least try to, you know, he believes maybe there's room to cut rates, but he's not necessarily going to, you know, be super accommodating. >> Right. Right. He's not going to be the sort of >> proxy, the psy. Right. >> So, what was so interesting about that is um you're exactly right. That's that's what Tom said. Um he also said though that um there is so much friction in the Federal Reserve and in just the DC system that it is very hard for one person with the best of intentions to actually affect what they want to do. Um, and that was so the the the the heartening part was him saying, I actually think Kevin Worsh is sort of the right guy for the job, >> right? >> The disheartening part was I'm just not sure how much he's going to be able to get done. And I don't think I'm talking out of school here. Um, but after he talked, there was a break in the room and Mike Green came up and they had a a conversation with a circle of people. Um, so it wasn't on stage, but I think it's still fair to I can share this with their approval. Mike Green, not a fan at all of Kevin Worsh, like an anti-fan. And I was sort of shocked by that. Um, and uh, I I didn't have the ability to really stay and hear the whole conversation. So, I don't want to sort of misrepresent Mike's side of things. I just want to say um it was very interesting to see Tom with his perspective and then Mike who's a very smart guy um hasn't worked in the Fed the way that Tom has but you know Mike sort of >> talks to people in those circles >> to have such a very different opinion of him. So it's going to be really interesting to see what comes out. But but basically I know that the cut and dry of Mike's point was I think this guy is gonna >> cowtow. >> He's going to cowtow. Yeah. Um it it was interesting because the one thing that Tom did say on stage was you know I think he is who he purported to be all throughout. Um however I don't envy him the task. Yes. Basically that may I don't know if that was the exact phrase but basically like you were saying about the friction is yeah he may want to do XYZ but his capacity to do that may prove fairly limited. Um, so we'll see. But I I would say in the question as to Tom's view or Mike's view, you know, Tom actually worked with the man and knows him and it sounds like they actually are still in touch was the impression that I got. >> And I told Mike this when he was talking to to Tom that, >> you know, for years now I've interviewed people about who PAL Successor was going to be and Kevin Worsh's name kept coming up again and again as the type of person that they would have liked to have seen in there. So Mike's really was the first opinion of Kevin Worsh I've heard that was actually quite negative. So anyways, it'd be interesting. >> Well, one can imagine what his opinion would have been of Kevin Hasset then. Yeah. >> Well, I know. Exactly. So, >> um, and too bad. So, unfortunately, Mike Green couldn't stay for today's panel or else I would have sused that out a little bit further between the two. Um, one of the things that uh that Tom uh Hunig talked about though that I think was interesting today is we we talked about, you know, all the unnatural acts that the administration's likely to do between now and the midterm elections as well as everything they've done up until now with the passage of the one big beautiful bill and the deregulation and the tax cuts and all that stuff. A and and I asked the panel, you know, so what do you think is more likely? um we have sort of continued economic malaise you know up until the uh the election or do we actually start seeing some of these tailwinds that the administration is promising or not even just coming but starting now and Tom's answer was very measured I thought which was um I actually think I'm not so sure about the golden age >> but I think we might actually have kind of a golden year where we get kind of a sugar rush from all this stuff and if there's a price to be paid with higher inflation or whatnot probably will emerge after the elections. >> So, um I thought that was actually an interesting way to look at it, which is yeah, we we actually might see some um incremental economic growth. I don't think I don't remember him making a call as to whether that was going to be large enough to help sway the election, >> right? No, I don't think he weighed in on that. >> Right. But but I think a point to say that uh you know as I've been sort of raising on the channel recently is >> you know I would be increasingly open to GDP surprising to the upside this year for all of those reasons. Now there might be a price to be paid in following years for it but time will tell. >> Yeah. No, and I I agree with him on that that, you know, they're going to run it hot and they'll pull every rabbit out of the hat they have to to ensure that the economy is growing and that bottom of the K is feeling the effects, right? >> Um, which have frustrated the administration that they haven't been feeling it yet um and and in time for the midterms. The other thing related to that that I came up and I think uh PIPA actually mentioned it today was this stable coin reserve and the way she was describing it struck me as another potential kitty >> for helicopter money essentially um and saying you know they're going to build this thing so that they have this stash of cash at the ready is was my impression. I'd be interested in whether you heard the same thing um that they can pump out there toward, you know, supporting that bottom of the K if they need to. >> You know what? I I somehow missed that and I' I'd be interested to hear the the mechanics of that. That being said, folks, um I did talk to Pipa uh about coming on the channel soon and she agreed. So, we'll have her on and I'll make sure that's one of the questions I ask her. >> Something called air. What was the thing that she spelled or >> No, Arabore. >> Aravore. Okay. Right. >> And it was related to that and uh how they're trying to pull all this capital in to through this stable coin reserve. And my >> it's sounded to me like she was saying that that was going to be another vehicle for stimulus, >> okay, >> to the economy. But I'd love to I can't wait for you to have her on that. >> We'll do a deep dive on that. Um, also folks, we're going to do a deep dive next week with um, Brent Johnson on stable coins. Again, you probably remember my earlier video with him about a few months ago or so after he initied his big report on sort of saying, "Hey, I >> I sort of didn't understand stable coins. I think I do now." And they're actually a really big potential weapon in the um, the dollar milkshake theory of his. Apparently, he's written a successor report to that. Um, I'll be interviewing him about that this weekend and we'll put that on the channel next week. Um, so, you know, I I put you on the hot seat at the end there and just asked you for kind of your your general thoughts about where you think things were headed this year. Um, and I could summarize that, but since you're here, I probably just shouldn't put words in. >> Oh my gosh. Well, >> yeah, >> you probably summarize it a lot better than I could after two days of talk. You know, it's swirling in my head. But um I think going back to what Tom Hanik said about you know the likelihood that is that the economy if anything will air on the stronger side in the near term just because they're doing everything they can to pump all the stimulus in. Um and the question is um are there immediate repercussions of that in terms of immediate increase in inflation that causes some destabilization in the markets or as Tom seemed to indicate, you know, do they actually make it through October without any of that destabilizing effects and then we feel it afterward? You know, I have no idea. I mean, it probably does take a while for all that to get through the inflation pipeline, but you already have the ingredients of inflationary pressures coming from the form of higher commodity prices, oil especially now, you know, starting to creep back up and then this 150 billion some odd and tax refunds that are going to start hitting, you know, in the next few weeks >> and they're going to get spent pretty quickly. >> Yeah. You know, it's one thing uh to make money in the stock market and see it in your 401k or in your brokerage account, but when you get a check in the mail, your capacity in your hot little hands. >> Yeah. Yeah. Your uh likelihood of actually spending that is significantly higher. So, that could really goose the economy in the near term. And then the question is, you know, do we have a thing where the bond vigilantes say, well, look, growth is picking up, consumer spending is picking up, commodity prices are picking up, and they're about to install a Fed chairman who is to some degree going to be accommodative, whether he, you know, is super aggressive or, you know, whatever, he's definitely going to heir on the side of accommodation to some degree. And do the bond vigilantes then say >> start pushing y, >> right? in which case we won't make it to October. So it'll be a cliffhanger. >> It'll be a cliffhanger. Okay. But I get the sense from your default outlook. You're you're not a recession is not in your default outlook unless the markets have a substantial correction. Is that accurate? >> So there there are two things that I'll be watching and we talked about that a little bit in our conversation today. And one is most important is the level of interest rates obviously and if they start to creep higher then I think the odds that the markets correct become substantially higher and if the market's correct the economy is dead on arrival. >> Yeah. And just to be clear largely because the top half of the K which has been doing the line share of the spending has been doing that because their asset prices have been going up and they feel great. markets correct by 20 plus percent they're going to start reigning in that spending and we're going to suddenly find out how low low is >> but also you'll have the response from corporations who will say oh you know our stock prices are coming down a lot do we really want to start doing all this investment and you know suddenly the capex uh boom starts to fizzle plus then you've got the other moving part which is the um capital gains tax receipts that have been a little bit of support for the deficit. As bad as the deficit has been, at least you've had that as a positive, um you know, that becomes less of a positive and could turn into a negative. So the bond vigilantes will be doing that calculus. So that's another issue I think. But the second indicator I'm going to be watching really closely in addition to the path of interest rates is retail gasoline prices. We talked a lot about that today and maybe I'm too fixated on that number but nerd that I am you know I look at these relationships and you know a couple of years ago postco the relationship between consumer confidence and gasoline prices became so tight that you almost can't distinguish the two lines. So, uh, you know, we had this drop in retail gasoline prices and then you suddenly get this increase in consumer confidence. So, but now gasoline prices have started to edge back up. So, we'll have to see how that plays out. >> All right. Well, folks, I I pressed Stephanie on stage for an actual number like a a a cost per gallon of gas where she thought >> below which we're actually going to be okay above which trouble starts to happen. to find out what that is as well as just to get access to the what >> two full days of of just incredible rich insights. >> Highly recommend you go and actually purchase the replay video to our conference. I know it's maybe not going to be ready for >> like a week I think is yeah a few days maybe a week. >> So where should folks go once it is available? Will you pin it to your ex? I will pin it to my ex and uh yeah, I'll pin it to my ex, but I would guess it would also be on that super terrieric happy day. If you just Google super terrific happy day, the website >> will come up. Oh, great. Should they type in 2026? Just I don't know if the old one from last year. >> I guess I would do 2026, although I think that they wrote over the 2025. I think it's the same one. So, um, you should be able to find it there and as soon as it's available, it'll be uploaded to that website, I would assume. But, >> all right. And and again, folks, too, when it is available, um, I will send it out on my ex account. Um, I'll post it here on on YouTube as well. And of course, we'll talk about it the next time that Steph appears on one of her monthly macro maven appearances. >> And I'll be on your conference before that, right? >> But you will be on my conference before that. So, just a reminder for folks after you purchase the replay for this conference, Thoughtful Money Spring Conference is coming up. It's just a little bit more than a month away, so I guess it is coming up pretty fast now. >> It's going to be Saturday, March 21st. Um, if you can't watch live that day, don't worry. Um, there's going to be a replay of that as well. And we're pretty good at getting Sorry to be competitive here. >> No, we get our replay videos out within a couple hours of the end of the conference. Um, so everybody who registers and buys a ticket, whether they can watch live for the full day, partial day, or or none of the the day itself, you're going to get those replay videos right afterwards. You can watch those to your heart's content. Uh, we'll have about 11 hours of content. It's going to be an action-packed day. Um, fantastic uh, faculty there as well, headlined by Stephanie and Grant Williams. U,, but we'll also have Lacy Hunt. Listen to this list. So, we got YouTube, we got Lacy Hunt, we've got first timers, um Ed Dow, um Michael Oliver, Matt Taibbe, journalist. >> Oh, I can't wait to hear. >> We're going to have um >> let's see, we're going to have Judy Shelton, and she'll be interviewed by Danielle D. Martino Booth. Um we'll have Michael How, the liquidity expert. We'll have Darius Dale. We'll have Luke Roman. We'll have Brent Johnson. >> Oh my god. >> We'll have uh Rick Rule. We'll have Melody Wright. We'll have David Haye. Um, we'll have Andy Sheckchman. I know I'm forgetting one or two other folks, but it's a pretty good lineup as well. >> Incredible. No. >> Yeah. >> So, uh, but you know, it's it's virtual. It's not in person. And they're very different types of events. But anyways, folks, um, to to to go buy your tickets for that, just go to thoughtfulmoney.com/conference. And if you go now, you'll still get the early bird price discount, which is the lowest one we're offering. I want to make sure everybody gets that lowest price if at all possible. And if you're a premium subscriber to our Substack, check your email. You'll have a a code that I've sent you you can use to get an additional $50 off that price. And with that being said, um folks, it's going to be short today, like I said, but Stephanie, thanks so much >> for doing this, but just thanks so much for inviting me to your conference. It was such a joy and a privilege. >> Well, I I don't know why you're thanking me because you brought so much to the equation. You really were tremendous. So, it was it was our pleasure to have you. >> Like I said, very very generous lady. Uh, but Steph, so fun to see you in person. >> I know. It's fun. We should do this more. >> We should do this more often. Um, all right. Well, look everybody, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you Steph as well. And, um, thanks so much for watching.
Stephanie Pomboy: Expect GDP To Run Hot…Until Inflation Spikes Or The Markets Plunge
Summary
Transcript
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm Thoughtful Money founder and your host, Adam Tagert. Probably noticed I'm in a different setting than my usual studio. Um, I'm actually here in St. Petersburg, Florida with the wonderful Stephanie Pomboy. Hi, Steph. >> Hi, Adam. It's great to be here in person with you. >> It is wonderful to be here in person with you. So Stephanie and her uh cohort in crime, Grant Williams, were kind enough to invite me to their super happy, terrific day conference here that just concluded in St. Petersburg. Um I don't have a uh full interview planned for today, but I wanted you guys to have some quick video here. So Stephanie was very kind after we just got off the wonderful cocktail cruise uh that she and her cohorts took me on. Um she's going to spend a few minutes with us here. We're just going to talk about some of our top takeaways from the conference. We're going to let you know if you're interested how to get uh the replay of Stephanie's conference and then we'll talk very quickly about uh if you want to buy your ticket to the thoughtful money conference that's coming up next month. We'll tell you how to do that as well. But first Stephanie, let me congratulate you on a wonderful experience that you Grant and uh Dave Iben and the team at Capernic put on here. I've been to a number of uh in-person conferences like this. pretty easy to say. Hands down was the best one I've ever been to. >> Really? >> No, I'm dead serious. >> Uh, well, I enjoyed it, but I can take zero credit for the conference and how smoothly it went. Um, but I would say you did a fantastic job today leading the conversation and uh, you know, really interviewing the speakers uh, and ting questions from the audience as well. So that was for me actually the fun part of the day. Yesterday was a slog. Today was today was so much more fun. >> Well, Stephanie as usual is being a way too kind and b way too humble. Um but today was just pure fun for me. Um what a great faculty you guys assembled here. What? We had Luke Roman. We had um >> you and Grant obviously we had Pippa Malgrim. We had Mike Green. Uh we had uh Andrew McDonald who I had not heard before, right? >> But a great expert on uh Japan. We had Tom Hanik. Both of our I think we both have uh crushes on macro crushes. >> Right. Exactly. >> Yeah. And as I said to you, I think the other day, the more he talks, the more I love him. >> Yeah. Which is totally true. Um so anyways, fantastic event. Folks will will stop gushing about it except to uh I just want to spend a few minutes talking about, you know, some of the key takeaways. Um, I know I asked you this question on stage earlier, but I'll ask you sort of a a variant of the same question. Um, now that it's over, what is sticking out in your mind from the conversation? Any particular ideas or uh concepts that were shared that were, you know, you think of you you have access to a lot of information. So, is there something here that was sort of new or a different piece of the puzzle for you? >> Well, I thought a lot of what Pipa said was interesting to me because it's so outside of what I'm normally looking at. So, um, you know, this morning she talked about Poland as an economy that is really vibrant and probably the strongest economy in Europe. And then Andrew McDermott, who is the Japan guy, uh, I think it was him who pointed out that the GDP growth of Poland is going to overtake. Was that >> that blew my mind? Yeah, I know. He he said that that Poland's GDP, if it hasn't already, looks on track to to surpass Japan's. >> Yeah. which I thought was, you know, that was a revelation to me. I had no idea. Um, but the other uh interesting comment that came up this morning was from Tom Mlelen, who's the technician who joined us to add, you know, what he's seeing from his discipline. >> And he made the comment about the cooling cycle, the climate cooling, >> um, >> and all the things that are correlated with that historically. >> Amazing. I mean, when you think about it, if we're going to have cooler temperatures rather than hotter temperatures, you're talking about difficulty harvesting crops and therefore commodity prices, agricultural prices might go up and that would put upward pressure on bond yields. And what was it, a 60year cycle? >> 60ear cycle. Yeah. And Tom Mlen and I think regular viewers of this channel know um >> is just a total data savant and he collects all of these data series and finds all these amazing correlations between them. And yeah, apparently there is a 60-year cooling cycle and it it's observable in things like bond yields and inflation rates and things like that. >> So that was just another interesting sort of I would call it secular theme that layers on top of these other like the delobalization and the AI revolution and the fiscal dominance. I mean, it it was an interesting time to do the conference because we have all these amazing big tectonic plate shifts going on and and each person's different perspective on where that's going to take us in the future was really fascinating. >> Well, that that's what I really loved about it, which is, you know, I I feel like what I do at Thoughtful Money is bring on experts and I I sort of, you know, trying to bring on people who I feel have a piece to the puzzle, right? Nobody sees the entire jigsaw puzzle now, right? >> But there are a lot of people who have one or multiple parts of it, right? And hopefully over time we can assemble their pieces and get a clearer picture. >> Yeah, >> I think we had a target-rich environment the past couple days here of people who had a lot of the pieces. And it was really interesting sitting next to Luke Roman when Tom Mlullen was talking about that cooling cycle and I saw the light bulb go off in Luke's brain. and he said, "Oh my god, I never thought about that >> and I'm now thinking about our debt burden and how much harder that's going to be to deal with >> if the implications of this cooling cycle unfold the way that Toms think they might." And so Luke was like that was an incredibly part that's a very important part of >> my model that I didn't have in there that I'm now going to add to it. Right. >> Yeah. Tremendous nugget. The other thing that was interesting and you know more uh immediate into focus was uh Tom Hunig's comments about Kevin Worsh from yesterday where he basically said you know it turned out obviously that Tom and Kevin >> really over overlapped at the Fed >> at the FOMC >> at the time um during and then after the financial crisis and they both after QE1 ended really um argued strongly against continuing the balance sheet expansion. Um and so, you know, Tom's insights on Kevin were really interesting as the presumptive next Fed chairman and whether he felt like he was going to do Trump's bidding as it were and be super accommodative or if he was really going to be this kind of hawk that we've known him to be. And it seemed to me that Tom believed in his heart of hearts that Kevin Worsh was truly a hawk who was going to continue that policy or at least try to, you know, he believes maybe there's room to cut rates, but he's not necessarily going to, you know, be super accommodating. >> Right. Right. He's not going to be the sort of >> proxy, the psy. Right. >> So, what was so interesting about that is um you're exactly right. That's that's what Tom said. Um he also said though that um there is so much friction in the Federal Reserve and in just the DC system that it is very hard for one person with the best of intentions to actually affect what they want to do. Um, and that was so the the the the heartening part was him saying, I actually think Kevin Worsh is sort of the right guy for the job, >> right? >> The disheartening part was I'm just not sure how much he's going to be able to get done. And I don't think I'm talking out of school here. Um, but after he talked, there was a break in the room and Mike Green came up and they had a a conversation with a circle of people. Um, so it wasn't on stage, but I think it's still fair to I can share this with their approval. Mike Green, not a fan at all of Kevin Worsh, like an anti-fan. And I was sort of shocked by that. Um, and uh, I I didn't have the ability to really stay and hear the whole conversation. So, I don't want to sort of misrepresent Mike's side of things. I just want to say um it was very interesting to see Tom with his perspective and then Mike who's a very smart guy um hasn't worked in the Fed the way that Tom has but you know Mike sort of >> talks to people in those circles >> to have such a very different opinion of him. So it's going to be really interesting to see what comes out. But but basically I know that the cut and dry of Mike's point was I think this guy is gonna >> cowtow. >> He's going to cowtow. Yeah. Um it it was interesting because the one thing that Tom did say on stage was you know I think he is who he purported to be all throughout. Um however I don't envy him the task. Yes. Basically that may I don't know if that was the exact phrase but basically like you were saying about the friction is yeah he may want to do XYZ but his capacity to do that may prove fairly limited. Um, so we'll see. But I I would say in the question as to Tom's view or Mike's view, you know, Tom actually worked with the man and knows him and it sounds like they actually are still in touch was the impression that I got. >> And I told Mike this when he was talking to to Tom that, >> you know, for years now I've interviewed people about who PAL Successor was going to be and Kevin Worsh's name kept coming up again and again as the type of person that they would have liked to have seen in there. So Mike's really was the first opinion of Kevin Worsh I've heard that was actually quite negative. So anyways, it'd be interesting. >> Well, one can imagine what his opinion would have been of Kevin Hasset then. Yeah. >> Well, I know. Exactly. So, >> um, and too bad. So, unfortunately, Mike Green couldn't stay for today's panel or else I would have sused that out a little bit further between the two. Um, one of the things that uh that Tom uh Hunig talked about though that I think was interesting today is we we talked about, you know, all the unnatural acts that the administration's likely to do between now and the midterm elections as well as everything they've done up until now with the passage of the one big beautiful bill and the deregulation and the tax cuts and all that stuff. A and and I asked the panel, you know, so what do you think is more likely? um we have sort of continued economic malaise you know up until the uh the election or do we actually start seeing some of these tailwinds that the administration is promising or not even just coming but starting now and Tom's answer was very measured I thought which was um I actually think I'm not so sure about the golden age >> but I think we might actually have kind of a golden year where we get kind of a sugar rush from all this stuff and if there's a price to be paid with higher inflation or whatnot probably will emerge after the elections. >> So, um I thought that was actually an interesting way to look at it, which is yeah, we we actually might see some um incremental economic growth. I don't think I don't remember him making a call as to whether that was going to be large enough to help sway the election, >> right? No, I don't think he weighed in on that. >> Right. But but I think a point to say that uh you know as I've been sort of raising on the channel recently is >> you know I would be increasingly open to GDP surprising to the upside this year for all of those reasons. Now there might be a price to be paid in following years for it but time will tell. >> Yeah. No, and I I agree with him on that that, you know, they're going to run it hot and they'll pull every rabbit out of the hat they have to to ensure that the economy is growing and that bottom of the K is feeling the effects, right? >> Um, which have frustrated the administration that they haven't been feeling it yet um and and in time for the midterms. The other thing related to that that I came up and I think uh PIPA actually mentioned it today was this stable coin reserve and the way she was describing it struck me as another potential kitty >> for helicopter money essentially um and saying you know they're going to build this thing so that they have this stash of cash at the ready is was my impression. I'd be interested in whether you heard the same thing um that they can pump out there toward, you know, supporting that bottom of the K if they need to. >> You know what? I I somehow missed that and I' I'd be interested to hear the the mechanics of that. That being said, folks, um I did talk to Pipa uh about coming on the channel soon and she agreed. So, we'll have her on and I'll make sure that's one of the questions I ask her. >> Something called air. What was the thing that she spelled or >> No, Arabore. >> Aravore. Okay. Right. >> And it was related to that and uh how they're trying to pull all this capital in to through this stable coin reserve. And my >> it's sounded to me like she was saying that that was going to be another vehicle for stimulus, >> okay, >> to the economy. But I'd love to I can't wait for you to have her on that. >> We'll do a deep dive on that. Um, also folks, we're going to do a deep dive next week with um, Brent Johnson on stable coins. Again, you probably remember my earlier video with him about a few months ago or so after he initied his big report on sort of saying, "Hey, I >> I sort of didn't understand stable coins. I think I do now." And they're actually a really big potential weapon in the um, the dollar milkshake theory of his. Apparently, he's written a successor report to that. Um, I'll be interviewing him about that this weekend and we'll put that on the channel next week. Um, so, you know, I I put you on the hot seat at the end there and just asked you for kind of your your general thoughts about where you think things were headed this year. Um, and I could summarize that, but since you're here, I probably just shouldn't put words in. >> Oh my gosh. Well, >> yeah, >> you probably summarize it a lot better than I could after two days of talk. You know, it's swirling in my head. But um I think going back to what Tom Hanik said about you know the likelihood that is that the economy if anything will air on the stronger side in the near term just because they're doing everything they can to pump all the stimulus in. Um and the question is um are there immediate repercussions of that in terms of immediate increase in inflation that causes some destabilization in the markets or as Tom seemed to indicate, you know, do they actually make it through October without any of that destabilizing effects and then we feel it afterward? You know, I have no idea. I mean, it probably does take a while for all that to get through the inflation pipeline, but you already have the ingredients of inflationary pressures coming from the form of higher commodity prices, oil especially now, you know, starting to creep back up and then this 150 billion some odd and tax refunds that are going to start hitting, you know, in the next few weeks >> and they're going to get spent pretty quickly. >> Yeah. You know, it's one thing uh to make money in the stock market and see it in your 401k or in your brokerage account, but when you get a check in the mail, your capacity in your hot little hands. >> Yeah. Yeah. Your uh likelihood of actually spending that is significantly higher. So, that could really goose the economy in the near term. And then the question is, you know, do we have a thing where the bond vigilantes say, well, look, growth is picking up, consumer spending is picking up, commodity prices are picking up, and they're about to install a Fed chairman who is to some degree going to be accommodative, whether he, you know, is super aggressive or, you know, whatever, he's definitely going to heir on the side of accommodation to some degree. And do the bond vigilantes then say >> start pushing y, >> right? in which case we won't make it to October. So it'll be a cliffhanger. >> It'll be a cliffhanger. Okay. But I get the sense from your default outlook. You're you're not a recession is not in your default outlook unless the markets have a substantial correction. Is that accurate? >> So there there are two things that I'll be watching and we talked about that a little bit in our conversation today. And one is most important is the level of interest rates obviously and if they start to creep higher then I think the odds that the markets correct become substantially higher and if the market's correct the economy is dead on arrival. >> Yeah. And just to be clear largely because the top half of the K which has been doing the line share of the spending has been doing that because their asset prices have been going up and they feel great. markets correct by 20 plus percent they're going to start reigning in that spending and we're going to suddenly find out how low low is >> but also you'll have the response from corporations who will say oh you know our stock prices are coming down a lot do we really want to start doing all this investment and you know suddenly the capex uh boom starts to fizzle plus then you've got the other moving part which is the um capital gains tax receipts that have been a little bit of support for the deficit. As bad as the deficit has been, at least you've had that as a positive, um you know, that becomes less of a positive and could turn into a negative. So the bond vigilantes will be doing that calculus. So that's another issue I think. But the second indicator I'm going to be watching really closely in addition to the path of interest rates is retail gasoline prices. We talked a lot about that today and maybe I'm too fixated on that number but nerd that I am you know I look at these relationships and you know a couple of years ago postco the relationship between consumer confidence and gasoline prices became so tight that you almost can't distinguish the two lines. So, uh, you know, we had this drop in retail gasoline prices and then you suddenly get this increase in consumer confidence. So, but now gasoline prices have started to edge back up. So, we'll have to see how that plays out. >> All right. Well, folks, I I pressed Stephanie on stage for an actual number like a a a cost per gallon of gas where she thought >> below which we're actually going to be okay above which trouble starts to happen. to find out what that is as well as just to get access to the what >> two full days of of just incredible rich insights. >> Highly recommend you go and actually purchase the replay video to our conference. I know it's maybe not going to be ready for >> like a week I think is yeah a few days maybe a week. >> So where should folks go once it is available? Will you pin it to your ex? I will pin it to my ex and uh yeah, I'll pin it to my ex, but I would guess it would also be on that super terrieric happy day. If you just Google super terrific happy day, the website >> will come up. Oh, great. Should they type in 2026? Just I don't know if the old one from last year. >> I guess I would do 2026, although I think that they wrote over the 2025. I think it's the same one. So, um, you should be able to find it there and as soon as it's available, it'll be uploaded to that website, I would assume. But, >> all right. And and again, folks, too, when it is available, um, I will send it out on my ex account. Um, I'll post it here on on YouTube as well. And of course, we'll talk about it the next time that Steph appears on one of her monthly macro maven appearances. >> And I'll be on your conference before that, right? >> But you will be on my conference before that. So, just a reminder for folks after you purchase the replay for this conference, Thoughtful Money Spring Conference is coming up. It's just a little bit more than a month away, so I guess it is coming up pretty fast now. >> It's going to be Saturday, March 21st. Um, if you can't watch live that day, don't worry. Um, there's going to be a replay of that as well. And we're pretty good at getting Sorry to be competitive here. >> No, we get our replay videos out within a couple hours of the end of the conference. Um, so everybody who registers and buys a ticket, whether they can watch live for the full day, partial day, or or none of the the day itself, you're going to get those replay videos right afterwards. You can watch those to your heart's content. Uh, we'll have about 11 hours of content. It's going to be an action-packed day. Um, fantastic uh, faculty there as well, headlined by Stephanie and Grant Williams. U,, but we'll also have Lacy Hunt. Listen to this list. So, we got YouTube, we got Lacy Hunt, we've got first timers, um Ed Dow, um Michael Oliver, Matt Taibbe, journalist. >> Oh, I can't wait to hear. >> We're going to have um >> let's see, we're going to have Judy Shelton, and she'll be interviewed by Danielle D. Martino Booth. Um we'll have Michael How, the liquidity expert. We'll have Darius Dale. We'll have Luke Roman. We'll have Brent Johnson. >> Oh my god. >> We'll have uh Rick Rule. We'll have Melody Wright. We'll have David Haye. Um, we'll have Andy Sheckchman. I know I'm forgetting one or two other folks, but it's a pretty good lineup as well. >> Incredible. No. >> Yeah. >> So, uh, but you know, it's it's virtual. It's not in person. And they're very different types of events. But anyways, folks, um, to to to go buy your tickets for that, just go to thoughtfulmoney.com/conference. And if you go now, you'll still get the early bird price discount, which is the lowest one we're offering. I want to make sure everybody gets that lowest price if at all possible. And if you're a premium subscriber to our Substack, check your email. You'll have a a code that I've sent you you can use to get an additional $50 off that price. And with that being said, um folks, it's going to be short today, like I said, but Stephanie, thanks so much >> for doing this, but just thanks so much for inviting me to your conference. It was such a joy and a privilege. >> Well, I I don't know why you're thanking me because you brought so much to the equation. You really were tremendous. So, it was it was our pleasure to have you. >> Like I said, very very generous lady. Uh, but Steph, so fun to see you in person. >> I know. It's fun. We should do this more. >> We should do this more often. Um, all right. Well, look everybody, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you Steph as well. And, um, thanks so much for watching.