Fed's Barkin Warns AI Boom Fuels Inflation Before Raising Output

美联储巴尔金警告：AI繁荣在提振产出前恐先推升通胀 里士满联储主席Tom Barkin表示，政策制定者不能基于投机性的AI生产力收益预期而降息，因为当前的数据中心建设正在引发通胀性的供应瓶颈和资源竞争。 里士满联储主席Tom Barkin评估了实体经济令人惊讶的韧性，指出即使通胀依然处于高位，强劲的消费者支出和巨大的AI资本支出热潮仍在维持增长动能。他详细阐述了史无前例的数据中心建设如何挤占传统建筑资源并引发地方社区的抵制，同时强调AI的短期影响更多体现在对电力和熟练劳动力的价格压力上，而非广泛的生产力提升。Barkin还反思了美联储的沟通挑战——批评公众将“点阵图”误读为具有约束力的承诺——并探讨了近期的通胀时期应被视作单一政策失误，还是由冲击引发的两次独立事件。最终，他敦促货币政策制定者正视结构性经济阻力，切勿过早将未经证实的技术生产力假设纳入利率政策考量之中。 美联储主席Kevin Warsh的鹰派讲话反映出实体经济根本上的韧性，但他对前瞻指引在理念上的怀疑态度，意味着市场不应将其过度解读为预先确定的加息路径。 (0:00) 与2008年之后的防御性消费行为不同，疫情后的家庭仍有强烈的消费意愿，尽管物价较高，仍借助资产财富或战术性现金流调整来维持消费。 (5:00) 庞大的AI数据中心热潮通过垄断变压器、开关柜等专业设备以及熟练技术劳动力，正在挤占传统建筑行业的资源。 (6:41) 当前的生产力提升反映的是2022年自动化投资的滞后回报，而非生成式AI的成效，尽管AI已通过“AI优先”的人员配置策略抑制了企业的招聘意愿。 (8:51) 经济已从2010年代的去通胀顺风期转变为易受冲击的格局，这要求央行官员不断抵御通胀逆风。 (10:31)

Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin argues that the United States economy remains exceptionally resilient against persistent price pressures, propelled by determined consumer spending and an unprecedented artificial intelligence infrastructure boom that is straining supply chains and complicating monetary policy. Household Durability and Compensatory Spending Tactics (5:00) Contrasting the current economic expansion with the defensive consumer psychology that followed the 2008 financial crisis, Barkin attributes durable spending to accumulated balance-sheet liquidity, elevated home and equity values, and a stable, low-hire, low-fire labor market. Rather than curtailing activity in response to cumulative price increases, households have adopted targeted workarounds to sustain consumption. Lower- and middle-income consumers are shifting toward private-label goods and discount retailers, drawing down personal savings, and using Buy Now, Pay Later arrangements, while affluent households continue spending out of asset wealth. Operational intelligence from lenders and utility providers highlights specific cash-preservation tactics. Barkin notes that some borrowers are intentionally permitting auto loans to slip 60 days delinquent—avoiding the 120-day repossession threshold—to free up immediate liquidity, while others deprioritize natural gas bills during the summer months when heating is unnecessary. These behaviors indicate that consumers remain confident enough in their job security to effectively borrow from future income to maintain current living standards. AI Infrastructure Squeeze and Near-Term Productivity Realities (6:41) Business capital expenditures have surged to nearly double historical norms, driven by massive investments in data centers and power infrastructure that saw roughly $700 billion in announcements in a single week in early February. Barkin observes that this boom is crowding out traditional construction by monopolizing specialized electrical trades, switchgear, and transformers. Multifamily and commercial office starts have stalled not purely because of higher borrowing rates, but because soaring labor and material costs prevent projects from penciling out. Barkin clarifies that recent aggregate productivity gains stem largely from delayed returns on automation and workflow restructuring implemented during 2022's labor shortages, rather than immediate generative AI deployment. While gen AI adoption is driving efficiency in niches like computer programming and customer service, its broader near-term effect has been a chilling influence on hiring appetites, with executives deferring external vacancies in favor of AI-first evaluations. Simultaneously, local communities are pushing back against data center sitings due to strains on municipal water supplies and power grids paired with minimal ongoing civic employment. Dissecting Inflation: Consecutive Failures Versus Repeated Shocks (20:00) Addressing Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's critique that inflation has exceeded the 2% target for roughly 65 consecutive months, Barkin presents an alternative analytical framework that divides the period into a 47-month phase followed by an 18-month phase. Under this lens, initial aggressive rate hikes successfully lowered inflation to between 2.3% and 2.4% by March 2025, putting the economy on course for an orderly landing before a secondary cluster of supply-side disruptions—including the AI investment rush, tariff adjustments, and geopolitical oil spikes—re-ignited cost pressures. This shock-prone environment contrasts with the disinflationary tailwinds of the 2010s, which were anchored by shale energy expansion and global supply chain integration. In response to recent tariffs, Barkin notes a stark commercial divide: business-to-business suppliers and luxury-facing retailers have successfully passed duties down the chain, whereas big-box discount retailers have aggressively blocked vendor price hikes to insulate price-sensitive shoppers. With lingering multifamily supply constraints also poised to reignite shelter inflation, Barkin argues monetary policy must proactively lean against persistent structural headwinds. Rethinking Forward Guidance and the Dot Plot (17:14) Barkin aligns with Kevin Warsh's skepticism toward rigid forward guidance, conceding that past explicit commitments trapped the Federal Open Market Committee during the rapid inflation onset of 2021 and 2022. While acknowledging Ben Bernanke's thesis that central bank transparency anchors expectations and lets markets execute monetary transmission, Barkin cautions that over-signaling limits policymakers' operational flexibility when incoming conditions shift. Regarding the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), Barkin distinguishes between its internal value and public misinterpretation. While deliberating the SEP internally sharpens economic forecasts, Barkin warns that the public dot plot routinely overwhelms nuanced policy narratives. Citing an encounter in Greensboro, North Carolina, where a business leader mistook independent forecast dots for a firm commitment to two rate cuts, Barkin concludes that the Federal Reserve must rethink how it visualizes policy expectations to avoid having scatterplots misread as institutional promises. Barkin warns that policymakers cannot ease interest rates based on speculative assumptions that future AI productivity will raise the neutral rate of interest (R-star), cautioning that until physical supply bottlenecks and persistent price shocks subside, monetary policy must maintain a restrictive posture.

里士满联储主席托马斯·巴尔金（Tom Barkin）指出，在坚韧的消费需求与激增的人工智能投资驱动下，美国实际经济仍展现出超预期的内生动能，但多重供给侧冲击与资源挤出效应使通胀回落面临持续阻力；美联储不应受制于预设的前瞻指引，而须在充满结构性不确定性的环境中审慎评估中性利率并维持政策灵活性。 消费韧性机制与家庭财务透支 (5:00) 巴尔金分析称，尽管价格水平经历累计上涨，美国个人消费支出依然强劲。与2008年次贷危机后家庭陷入长达数年的资产负债表防御性收缩不同，本次疫情后家庭部门保有充足的流动性缓冲、房产与金融资产升值，并在“低招聘、低解雇”的稳定劳动力市场支持下形成了持续消费的意愿。高净值家庭主要依靠资产财富效应支撑支出，而中低收入群体则通过转向自有品牌、光顾折扣店、精简保险及与父母同住节省房租等策略维持消费水平。 信贷与公共事业运营数据反映出居民维持现金流的具体财务手段。部分借款人选择故意让车贷逾期保持在60天而非120天，以在避免车辆被强制扣押的前提下释放即期现金；另有家庭在夏季暂停支付燃气账单，将现金挪作他用，直至冬季供暖迫近时再补缴欠费。巴尔金指出，个人储蓄率的下行表明消费者实际上是在基于就业安全感而“向未来借贷”，这种韧性支撑了总需求，但也延迟了通胀降温的进程。 AI基建投资热潮与实体经济资源挤出 (6:41) 巴尔金表示，人工智能领域引发了历史性的资本支出狂潮，仅在2月初单周内宣布的相关投资规模就达到约7000亿美元。然而，这种扩张并未带来建筑业的全面繁荣，反而导致了显著的行业分化：传统商业办公楼投资陷入停滞，多户住宅开工率走低，而数据中心、变电站和制造业回流设施的建设则出现爆炸式增长。 针对开发商将住宅项目停摆归咎于高利率的观点，巴尔金反驳称2004至2005年类似利率环境下建筑业曾非常繁荣；当前开发受阻的核心在于劳动力成本激增、材料短缺及更高的股本门槛。AI数据中心建设大量占用了电工等专业技工，并垄断了变压器、开关柜等核心电气设备，形成了直接的要素挤出效应。此外，数据中心在地方层面上引发了关于巨额水电消耗与电网压力的政治反弹，且因其运营期创造的本地长期就业岗位极少，无法建立类似于传统工厂的社区纽带，使地方政府在追求税基扩张与应对居民抗议之间陷入两难。 通胀成因之争与成本传导结构分化 (20:00) 针对美联储主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）关于“通胀已连续约65个月超出目标”的批评，巴尔金提出了“47个月加18个月”的对照分析框架。该框架认为，美联储在初期反应迟缓后通过果断加息，在前期47个月内成功将通胀压低至2.3%至2.4%区间，经济一度展现出清晰的软着陆迹象；但随后18个月遭遇了AI资本开支暴增、新关税和中东局势推高油价等外部供给冲击的集中再通胀。巴尔金预计，通胀超标究竟应归咎于政策持续过松，还是应划分为被外部冲击打断的两个独立阶段，将成为美联储内部的核心争论。 在贸易与价格传导方面，关税压力呈现明显的结构分化。企业间（B2B）供应链以及面向高收入客群的消费企业普遍成功转嫁了成本，但面向中低收入群体的消费品企业遭遇了激烈的价格抵制。大型折扣零售商发挥了抑制通胀的阻击作用，坚决回绝供应商的涨价诉求。与此同时，在最高法院对部分关税执行作出裁决后，联邦政府向进口企业发放的巨额退税款显著改善了企业利润并遏制了裁员，但相关资金主要流入了店面改造和营销预算，未对终端消费物价形成大范围下调。 前瞻指引争议与点阵图的沟通困境 (17:14) 随着美联储设立工作组反思沟通机制，巴尔金对前瞻指引工具提出了两分法的评估。一方面，伯南克时期的制度透明化有助于确立央行公信力，并使市场定价提前承担部分货币调节功能；但另一方面，巴尔金认同沃什的批评，即过度刚性的前瞻指引会剥夺决策层应对突发情境的灵活性，美联储在2021至2022年通胀初期行动迟缓正是受制于此。 对于经济预测摘要（SEP）中的“点阵图”，巴尔金高度认可其在联储内部的分析价值，认为迫使决策者将经济预测与政策路径进行对照有助于发现逻辑矛盾；但他对点阵图的外部公众传播表达了严重担忧。巴尔金举例称，地方商会参与者经常将散点图误读为美联储作出的具约束力的“降息承诺”。当视觉图表反复掩盖复杂的经济叙事并造成公众误解时，央行有必要重新评估是否继续公开展示点阵图。 巴尔金的论点表明，在去全球化、地缘政治与AI投资冲击并存的宏观环境下，货币政策正从过去享有通缩顺风的十年转向“逆风航行”的震荡周期。短期内AI的宏观效应体现为争夺资源的通胀性压力而非生产率的飞跃，美联储无法依据远期生产率假设计算中性利率；如何在缺乏刚性前瞻指引的情况下，兼顾基层产业挤出风险与中下层居民日益消耗的财务缓冲，仍是当前货币政策面临的未决挑战。

## Background 本期节目于 2026 年 8 月 31 日由彭博（Bloomberg）旗下的知名财经播客《Odd Lots》发布于各大播客平台。根据节目简介，主持人在杰克逊霍尔（Jackson Hole）现场专访了里士满联储主席汤姆·巴金（Tom Barkin），共同复盘美联储主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）的重磅讲话，并探讨了联储沟通政策、点阵图价值、商会调研中关于 AI 对地方社区的冲击、关税退税资金流向以及数据中心政治化等核心议题。 ## TL;DR 里士满联储主席汤姆·巴金深入剖析了美联储在通胀新常态下的决策逻辑，指出当下的逆风环境需央行坚定紧缩，并反思了强硬前瞻指引及点阵图对政策施展与市场预期的误导弊端。他揭示了美国消费支出在通胀重压下仍显惊人韧性的微观机制——疫后大众普遍秉持“铁了心要消费”的心态，通过精算式账单拖欠、消费降级及居住代偿等创造性手段顽强平滑支出。在产业端，史诗级的 AI 数据中心投资潮不仅对传统住宅建筑业的技术工种与电气设备形成了严重挤出，更因完工后缺乏长期本地雇员而在基层引发了关于资源争夺的激烈政治反弹。此外，关税成本在 B2B 端的顺畅转嫁与大型平价零售商层面的强力阻击形成鲜明对比，巴金强调美联储绝不能单凭尚未落地的 AI 生产率假设草率调高中性利率框架。 ## Atmosphere & style 对谈在杰克逊霍尔大提顿雪山的开阔户外展开，氛围兼具高端宏观研讨的严谨思辨与老友重聚的轻松风趣。巴金以极其接地气的田野调研风格见长，巧妙地将深奥的央行博弈与车棚制造厂、拖欠夏季燃气费等微观草根案例缝合在一起，甚至借用托尔斯泰的典故调侃联储内部的激烈辩论。整场对话既有对学术模型与政策教条的冷静审视，又洋溢着探究真实实体经济复杂性的浓厚热情，听感鲜活、透彻且充满智慧洞见。 ## Bulletin - `01:25` 里士满联储主席汤姆·巴金指出，美联储主席凯文·沃什本质上反对前瞻性指引，外界不应试图从其演讲中过度推断9月议息会议的降息或加息路径。 - `04:55` 美国消费展现出极强韧性，普通家庭通过消费降级、成年子女搬回父母家省房租以及精算式拖欠账单等手段维持开支，个人储蓄率持续走低。 - `07:15` AI算力基建引发对建筑业工人与电气设备的史诗级争夺，显著挤出了传统商业写字楼与多户型住宅的开发。 - `25:12` 数据中心由于建成后提供的永久性就业岗位极少，正面临美国地方社区对电网、水资源消耗及税收收益的强烈政治反弹。 ## Key takeaways - `01:25` 沃什在杰克逊霍尔的演讲被市场解读为鹰派加息信号，但巴金强调不应过度解读前瞻性指引，通胀虽未达标但劳动力市场依然保持低裁员与健康状态。 - `04:55` 后疫情时代的消费心理与2008年大衰退后的资产负债表衰退形成鲜明对比，大众展现出强烈的消费意志并通过各种腾挪手段向未来借钱。 - `07:15` AI驱动的资本开支翻倍激增，开关柜、变压器和熟练电工严重短缺，推升了施工成本并间接迫使民用住宅项目因财务不划算而搁置。 - `10:00` 当前宏观生产率繁荣主要源于2022年劳动力短缺倒逼的自动化投入，而非AI的全面赋能；但AI已在招聘端促使企业推迟招募新增人员。 - `10:00` 房地产市场若持续面临新开工抑制，随着年轻一代家庭刚性住房需求释放，未来极可能再度引发供需失衡与房价通胀反弹。 - `13:14` 十年前抑制通胀的水力压裂、全球化供应链、人口红利及电商价格战已反转为推升通胀的逆风，美联储必须紧收政策以逆风航行。 - `16:29` 前瞻性指引容易在宏观环境剧变时让美联储陷入决策束缚，而点阵图的视觉冲击力往往扭曲联储意图，常被市场与公众误解为确定性承诺。 - `20:00` 关于通胀超标存在沃什的“连续65个月失控论”与巴金阐述的“47个月受控+18个月外生冲击论”两种截然不同的评估叙事。 - `23:45` 关税成本转嫁呈现严重分化：B2B企业几乎全部顺畅向下游提价，但面向中低端消费者的B2C端以及大型商超渠道则遭遇强力阻击。 - `21:55` 关税退税潮直接增厚了企业利润并降低了裁员风险，但返还资金多用于营销和门店改造而非直接降价，缺乏去通胀效果。 - `25:12` 数据中心缺乏传统制造业带来的本地雇员纽带，正引发社区关于水电资源争夺的政治阻力，这种阻力可能反向抑制科技巨头的过度投资。 - `27:32` 在缺乏确凿宏观生产率跃升数据之前，美联储不应急于基于AI大幅提升生产率的抽象假设来草率调整中性利率测算。 - `30:00` 地方联储主席的职责是将基层草根调研升华为关于消费、生产率和通胀传导机制的宏观洞见，以此向华盛顿决策层提供辩论依据。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `01:25` 杰克逊霍尔现场：解读沃什的讲话与美联储前瞻指引 在怀俄明州大提顿山脉脚下的杰克逊霍尔（Jackson Hole）洛吉酒店（The Lodge），播客主持人 Joe Weisenthal 与 Tracy Alloway 迎来了老朋友——里士满联邦储备银行行长汤姆·巴金（Tom Barkin）。这已经是巴金连续第三年在杰克逊霍尔接受节目的面对面专访。两位主持人打趣道，今年主办方终于把大家放出了狭小的酒店房间，得以在宏伟的雪山背景下进行户外录制，制作水准直线上升。 现场最核心的话题莫过于美联储主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）刚刚发表的重磅演讲。市场普遍将沃什的发言定性为鹰派：不仅指出当前通胀正朝着错误的方向发展，还明确强调货币政策尚未达到足够的限制性水平。按照华尔街的推论，这几乎等同于发出了加息信号。对此，巴金给予了高度赞赏，称赞沃什是一位极其出色的演讲者，发言非常真诚且清晰地勾勒出了对当前经济形势的看法。巴金表示自己完全认同沃什对宏观经济的判断。 关于“政策下一步该如何走”，巴金给出了更为微妙的观察。他认为美国经济底色依然扎实，GDP 和消费支出数据充分证明了这一点：尽管今年汽油价格反弹，消费支出却在加速；尽管面临重重不确定性，人工智能（AI）领域的资本开支直接带动企业投资较历史基准翻倍。劳动力市场虽然稳固、失业率处于低位，但巴金更倾向于将其描述为“不发热”（not frothy）以及企业依然维持着“低裁员”（low-fire）的克制状态。对于通胀，巴金纠正道，不能武断地说它必然在朝错误方向狂奔，但“它确实还没落在一个令人满意的位置（not in the right place）”。 面对市场最关心的 9 月议息会议信号，巴金直言公众不必过度解读： - “听完演讲后，所有人跑来问我的第一件事都是：这是否预示着 9 月美联储会有动作？” - 巴金对此回应道：“沃什打心底就不喜欢前瞻性指引（forward guidance）。因此，你绝不应该试图从一个从不提供前瞻指引的人的演讲中，去硬抠出任何前瞻性指引。” --- ### `04:55` 充满韧性的美国消费者：从“大衰退”到后疫情时代的消费心理 针对经济在通胀与高油价压制下为何仍展现出惊人韧性，巴金提出了自己的一套工作假设，并将当下消费者的心理机制与 2008 年大衰退（Great Recession）进行了深刻对比。在大衰退之后，美国家庭遭遇失业、止赎房产、被没收汽车以及养老储蓄归零的重创，导致美国陷入了长达五到七年的“长期停滞”（secular stagnation），所有人都在捂紧钱包重建资产负债表。 相比之下，疫情后的局面截然相反。尽管疫情初期的两个月引发了剧烈恐慌，但随后大规模财政刺激出台，居民积攒了大量未能消费的资金，再加上房产价值和股市资产的暴涨，彻底重塑了大众的心态——变成了一种“铁了心就是要花钱（bound and determined to spend）”的消费意志。富裕阶层凭借水涨船高的资产净值大肆消费；而更为关键的是，即便在低收入群体中，巴金在基层调研时也发现了一种极其具有“创造力”的生存与消费策略：人们正在千方百计地挪用资金、透支未来，以维持眼下的生活水准。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 后疫情时代消费者的资金腾挪与支出支撑机制 subgraph Mindset["消费心理引擎"] A["资产升值与超额储蓄记忆"] --> B["坚定消费意愿<br/>('Bound and determined to spend')"] end subgraph Strategies["底层与工薪阶层的代偿手段"] B --> C["降级消费与压缩保障"] B --> D["居住与账单腾挪"] C --> C1["选购自有品牌、涌向沃尔玛与一美元店"] C --> C2["放弃购买个人/财产保险"] D --> D1["成年子女搬回父母家住以省去房租"] D --> D2["拖欠夏季天然气账单（冬季才缴清）"] D --> D3["车贷拖欠控制在60天而非120天（避免被拖车）"] end subgraph MacroEffect["宏观经济映射"] C1 & C2 & D1 & D2 & D3 --> E["储蓄率下行与未来现金流透支"] E --> F["整体消费支出维持坚挺动力"] end ``` 巴金列举了调研中观察到的一系列微观细节，展现了美国民众维持消费的各种非典型手段： - **消费降级与削减保障**：沃尔玛（Walmart）和一美元连锁店（Dollar Stores）的业绩大涨，自有品牌（Private Label）市占率快速拉升；越来越多的人为了腾出日常开销，选择裸奔不购买各类保险。 - **居住成本转移**：《华尔街日报》报道越来越多年轻人搬回父母家。通常大家只将其视为啃老现象，但在巴金看来，这意味着数以万计的人免去了房租支出，并把这笔原本必须支付的硬开销全额投向了其他消费品。 - **账单精算式拖欠**：汽车贷款机构反映，出现 60 天逾期的人数明显增加，但鲜有人逾期超过 120 天，因为消费者懂得在保住汽车不被收回的悬崖边缘精准打款；天然气供应商反映，夏季大批用户索性不再缴纳燃气账单，因为夏天停气不会影响取暖，人们把资金挪到当下，等待入冬后再行清偿。 - **基本盘支撑**：个人储蓄率持续走低，人们通过各种方式“向未来借钱”。巴金强调，只要劳动力市场保持健康、人们手里有一份工作，这种找钱来花的热情就会持续运转。 --- ### `07:15` AI繁荣对建筑业的挤出效应与技术工种的极度短缺 话题随后转入实体产业的具体约束。Joe 提到他们曾在 2024 年陪同巴金前往北卡罗来纳州的芒特艾里（Mount Airy）考察，当时乡村地区的住房短缺、托儿资源匮乏以及技术工种（skilled trades）的奇缺就已十分严峻。如今随着人工智能与算力中心爆发，掌握专业技能的熟练电工更是被疯抢。尽管芝加哥联储主席奥斯坦·古尔斯比（Austan Goolsbee）曾指出企业主无论何时都会抱怨招工难，但巴金通过第一线数据确认：当前的紧缺具有极强的特殊性。 巴金指出，这轮由人工智能驱动的资本投资周期堪称史诗级： - 仅在今年 2 月初的一周内，市场上宣布的算力与能源基建投资总额就高达 7000 亿美元。 - 电力配套中的核心设备，如开关柜（switchgear）、变压器（transformers），以及熟练电气工人，处于极度紧俏和绝对短缺的状态。 然而，建筑业整体并未全面过热，而是出现了巨大的结构性转移。商业写字楼建设几乎彻底停滞，多户型住宅（multifamily）新开工量出现断崖式下跌，独栋住宅建设表现平平，唯有工业建筑正重新抬头。建筑业的资本与劳动力正大规模从传统地产板块抽离，涌向数据中心。 关于这是否构成了对传统行业的“挤出效应”（crowding out），巴金阐述了业内关于“鸡生蛋还是蛋生鸡”的激烈争辩。多户型住宅开发商常常抱怨高利率导致项目在财务上算不过账（cannot pencil it out）；但巴金反驳称，2004 至 2005 年的利率环境与当下完全一致，当时开发商却在疯狂拿地建楼。面对质询，开发商不得不坦承：真正的症结在于建筑材料成本、劳动力成本全面暴涨，且金融机构要求项目注入更高比例的自有股本。从因果链条来看，正是大规模算力中心建设争夺了有限的施工资源，拉高了全产业链的施工成本，使得传统民用与商业项目变得无利可图而被迫搁置。 最后，巴金谈及 AI 在其辖区（里士满联邦储备银行覆盖范围，包括弗吉尼亚州等全球数据中心聚集地）所激起的社会波澜。他指出，目前 AI 带来最直接、最显著的冲击反而不是微观经济指标，而是**政治维度的剧烈摩擦**： - 在他参加的每一场商会交流会（Chamber of Commerce）以及市民市政厅会议（town hall）上，本地居民与地方政客质问最激烈的焦点无一例外都是关于数据中心的大规模铺设、当地就业的实际收益究竟几何，以及庞大算力集群对本地水资源和电网能源的严酷争夺。 ### `10:00` AI 对生产力与招聘的影响及房地产市场的潜在紧缩 里士满联储主席汤姆·巴尔金（Tom Barkin）分析了当前的人工智能热潮。他认为，除了少数存在特定结构可以用智能体（agent）直接替代人力的领域——比如呼叫中心、编程、繁重的文档撰写与合规审核——AI 本身目前尚未带来全局性的“巨幅生产力飞跃”。当前人们所看到的显著生产力繁荣，实际上根源于 2022 年：当时各行各业严重短缺劳动力，倒逼企业大举投资于自动化、新的人员编制模式以及优化的运营流程，而企业如今正在享受当年的投资红利。从心态来看，企业老板和高管对 AI 抱有极高热情，而普通员工的兴致则稍逊一筹；大部分企业目前仍仅将 AI 视作一项“锦上添花”、用来把现有工作做得更快更好的辅助工具。 然而，在招聘端，AI 的影响已经真切显现。各行业管理者普遍面临未来前景不明的困境，心里不免打起算盘：“我不知道未来会怎样，或许不需要招这么多人？这个岗位能不能先让人用 AI 顶上，试着不招新人把活干完，实在不行以后再招？”这种“AI 替代招聘增量”的策略正在大规模蔓延。 谈到美联储的双重使命时，主持人指出房地产市场目前并不狂热，租金与房价数据看起来都在朝遏制通胀的方向走，但追问未来建筑业疲软是否会反弹为新的供应紧缩。巴尔金断言这“极有可能发生”： > “整整一代人都极度渴望买房，眼下只是觉得价格不合心意。可一旦他们迎来第二个孩子、急需更大的房子，刚性需求就会爆发。如果届时无论是租赁住房还是独栋住宅的库存都不足，房价必定卷土重来。” 针对通胀数据的解读，巴尔金提醒美联储应该走出前两年的思维陷阱——即不要过度拆解、剔除特定分项来强行得出自己想要的结论。早先当市场租金下降速度快于 CPI 租金分项时，他常收到房地产开发商的抗议邮件，指责美联储搞错了数字；但如今随着手机等各类消费品涨价，再也没人发来这种要求“扣除某项”的邮件。他强调，看通胀必须看全貌与整体篮子：系统中流动着一定总量的货币，对应着人们想要购买的商品总量，单一商品涨跌并不代表全局，不能“严刑拷打数据直到它招供出你想要的答案”。 ### `13:14` 通胀新常态与逆风航行：告别十年前的通缩红利 针对美联储主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）在杰克逊霍尔演讲中谈及通胀广度以及频发的一次性外部冲击（如中东局势升级对汽油价格的扰动），巴尔金深入探讨了宏观环境是否已变得整体更具通胀倾向。面对接连不断、按下葫芦浮起瓢的各种冲击，核心问题在于：究竟是今天的多冲击环境才是“常态”，还是十年前的平稳期是“常态”？ 巴尔金倾向于认为，当下的环境可能远比十年前更接近长期常态。回顾十年前，全球享受了一整套压制通胀的结构性红利：水力压裂技术繁荣压低了能源价格，良好的人口红利提供了充沛劳动力以遏制工资成本，电子商务的兴起让线上商品价格持续走低，再加上全球化带来的供应链广泛接入。如今十年过去，这些抑制通胀的顺风因素正反转为推高通胀的逆风因素。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 宏观通胀驱动力对比 accDescr: 对比十年前推动通胀下行的红利与当下推高通胀的逆风因素 subgraph Past["十年前的通缩红利（顺风航行）"] A["页岩油压裂技术繁荣<br/>（能源价格低廉）"] B["有利的人口红利<br/>（劳动力充沛、压低工资）"] C["电子商务蓬勃发展<br/>（线上商品价格战）"] D["全球化加速深化<br/>（低成本供应链接入）"] end subgraph Present["当下的通胀压力（逆风航行）"] E["频发的地缘与能源外部冲击"] F["劳动力结构性变化与逆全球化"] G["常态化通胀压力抬头"] end subgraph FedPolicy["美联储的应对策略"] H["收紧帆脚索（Tighten your sheet）<br/>果断收紧政策以抗衡逆风阻力"] end Past -.-> Present Present --> FedPolicy ``` 巴尔金借用帆船航海作了形象的比喻： - 当顺风而行时，操帆方式自然轻省；但当船只迎着逆风航行时，如果仍想驶达目标港口，“就必须把帆脚索拉得更紧（tighten your sheet）”。 - 面临一波接一波通胀冲击的经济体正是如此，最终显现出的实际通胀水平取决于央行如何作为；身处逆风之中，美联储必须坚定地逆风用力。 ### `16:29` 美联储沟通机制重思：前瞻指引陷阱与点阵图的误导性 针对沃什对前瞻性指引（Forward Guidance）的批评，以及美联储可能设立工作组重新审视整体沟通机制、甚至有人提出取消点阵图（Dot Plot）和例行新闻发布会的极端假设，巴尔金引用了“衡量一流智力的标准，是看其能否在头脑中同时容纳两种相反的想法并依然保持行动能力”的观点，阐述了自己在沟通问题上的辩证立场： 一方面，美联储若能相对透明地展现思考过程，不仅有助于在公众中树立公信力与信任感，还能使金融市场提前协助央行传导政策，这正是前美联储主席本·伯南克（Ben Bernanke）的经典理论；但另一方面，他完全认同沃什的警示：如果央行给出了过于强硬或详尽的前瞻性指引，往往会把自己锁死在既定路线上，一旦经济形势骤变，就会因为早前的承诺而被迫做出次优甚至错误的决策。巴尔金直言，这正是美联储在 2021 至 2022 年间面临的深刻教训——当时强有力的前瞻指引让政策调整变得极其难以脱困。 对于经济预测摘要（SEP）和点阵图的具体去留，巴尔金区分了内部研讨价值与外部沟通效果： - **内部研讨工具**：巴尔金极为推崇 SEP 的内部编制过程。与研究团队激烈辩论政策倾向与宏观经济偏向，往往能及时校准自身可能出现的认知偏差，极大地磨砺决策思维；即便未来不再对外公开发布，他在里士满联储内部也依然会坚持做下去。 - **外部沟通弊端**：点阵图最大的缺陷在于“单张图表的视觉冲击力彻底淹没了背后的复杂叙事”。 - **典型误导场景**：当他前往北卡罗来纳州格林斯伯勒（Greensboro）出席商会活动时，常有企业家根据点阵图对他直言：“我看到美联储‘承诺’今年还要再降息两次。”巴尔金指出，这绝不是联储的本意，点阵图只是各自独立的预测合集而非政策承诺；当一张图表开始扭曲政策叙事并造成广泛误解时，美联储就必须彻底反思并重构这种信息呈现机制。 ### `20:00` 65个月 vs “47+18个月”：通胀归因的两套叙事 针对美联储主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）在杰克逊霍尔年会上直言不讳的发言——指出通胀已经连续约65个月高于目标水平，并将责任全盘归咎于美联储，主持人询问亲历了这段历史的里士满联储主席汤姆·巴尔金（Tom Barkin）作何感想。巴尔金首先重申自己“百分之百坚决主张把通胀降下来”，并认为美联储确实应该以人为镜，反思政策制定是否得当。但他指出，评估当下的处境存在两种截然不同的视角：一种是沃什所持的“整体看65个月”，另一种则是更加细分的“47个月加18个月”的阶段论。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 通胀叙事的分歧对比 accDescr: 对比65个月单一责任论与47加18个月两阶段冲击论的逻辑脉络 subgraph ViewA["观点一：65个月单一归因论（沃什视角）"] A1["通胀连续65个月超标"] --> A2["美联储行动迟缓/利率限制性不足"] A2 --> A3["责任完全在美联储，必须进一步紧缩"] end subgraph ViewB["观点二：47 + 18个月两阶段论（巴尔金阐述的可辩护视角）"] B1["第一阶段（47个月）：疫后加息应对通胀"] --> B2["至2025年3月通胀回落至2.3%~2.4%<br/>经济软着陆在望"] B2 --> B3["第二阶段（18个月）：遭遇外部复合冲击<br/>（AI投资浪潮、关税加征、油价飙升）"] B3 --> B4["通胀再度反弹，需重新施策平抑"] end ``` 巴尔金详细拆解了第二种视角的合理性：在最初的47个月里，虽然美联储起初动作可能稍慢，但随着强力加息，通胀已显著回落；到2025年3月时，通胀率降至2.3%至2.4%之间，劳动力市场有所降温，经济“这架飞机看起来即将稳稳着陆”。然而，随后经济遭遇了一系列不可控的外生冲击——AI基础设施建设的高峰、新关税政策以及国际油价上涨，直接将通胀重新推高。巴尔金承认，批评者完全可以反驳称“别找借口，事实就是超标了65个月，这意味着现在的政策利率限制性还不够”。他预计联储内部围绕这两种逻辑的争鸣才刚刚开始。 --- ### `21:55` 关税与退税风波：企业如何消化成本与使用返还资金 讨论转向巴尔金辖区内制造业对关税的看法。巴尔金透露，与AI投资和石油冲击相比，如今关于贸易关税的讨论声音已经小了很多，但行业内部冷暖自知。对于钢铁和铝制造商而言，关税筑起了一道“价格保护伞”，为本土行业提供了喘息空间；然而处境最苦涩的，是那些在北卡罗来纳和南卡罗来纳州设立组装业务的外资制造企业。这些厂商声称自己响应号召将生产转移到了美国，但实际运作模式是在欧洲生产高规格零部件，运抵美国组装，因而依然被课以高额关税。 与此同时，关税议题趋于平静的另一个深层原因是法律判决引发的退税潮。此前随着税率数字攀升，实际征收规模未及预期，加之最高法院做出裁决，大批企业获得了关税退款。巴尔金打趣道：“在过去三四个月里，大家都在忙着领退款，而不是交关税；当你手头正享受着这种好处时，自然不会到处嚷嚷了。” 谈及退税资金的宏观经济效应，巴尔金分析指出： - **提振企业盈利**：退款直接增厚了企业的利润表，使企业更倾向于保住岗位或加大招聘，降低了裁员概率。 - **资金流向**：企业财报普遍提及要“重新投资于客户”，但巴尔金观察到，这种投入极少体现为直接降价，更多被用于营销推广、店铺翻新升级以及补充门店人力。 - **刺激属性**：尽管对盈利和资本开支是正向刺激，但它向终端商品降价维度的传导非常局部且精准，未演变为系统性的去通胀效应。 --- ### `23:45` 成本转嫁分化：B2B顺畅传导与“大盒子”零售商的阻击 关税成本的终端传导机制展现出极大的结构性分化。巴尔金接触的所有企业对企业（B2B）客户无一例外地表示，他们正坚决将关税成本向下游转嫁：“尽管客户很不乐意，但我们别无选择，而且基本上都成功传导了出去。” 相比之下，面向消费者（B2C）的转嫁路径则坎坷得多： | 企业客户类型 | 转嫁难度 | 典型应对表现与市场机制 | |:--- |:--- |:--- | | **B2B 制造业 / 供应链** | 极低（转嫁顺畅） | 虽遭下游抱怨，但全行业统一面临成本垫高，普遍顺利完成提价。 | | **高净值客户 B2C** | 较低 | 消费者对价格变动承受力高，高端品牌仍能维持定价溢价。 | | **中低收入客群 B2C** | 极高（转嫁受阻） | 消费者预算见顶，对任何涨价都产生强烈的反弹和抵触。 | | **供货大型零售商（Big Box）** | 极高（寸步难行） | 沃尔玛等大型商超强力压制供货价，迫使供应商自行承担成本或提升生产率抵消。 | 巴尔金高度评价了大型综合零售商（Big Box retailers）在压制物价方面的生态作用，称这些商超及其自营平价品牌（Private Label Brands）正是遏制通胀扩散的“主力军”。零售巨头们抱着“必须为进店顾客守住价格底线”的决心，让试图涨价的供应商吃尽了苦头。正因如此，面对居高不下的成本，消费品制造商不得不依赖三四年前启动的自动化和流程重塑，靠全要素生产率的提升与薪资增速的放缓来对冲利润挤压。 --- ### `25:12` 数据中心遭遇社区抵制：缺乏“员工基础”的政治反弹 话题随后切入席卷全美的AI数据中心热潮及其引发的基层政治博弈。巴尔金描绘了一幅鲜明生动的美国乡镇社会图景：传统制造业工厂如果落户某座城镇，工人们的孩子会加入当地的少棒队、橄榄球队或冰球队，企业与小镇居民通过社交网络深度嵌合；但自动化程度极高的数据中心在施工期结束后，根本留不下几个固定员工。 > “数据中心在完工后根本留不下多少雇员，普通居民在里面根本没有亲朋好友。这就导致它们完全缺乏当地的政治基本盘。” 巴尔金调侃道，如果科技巨头真懂地方公关，干脆出资把当地小学直接命名为“微软小学”或“谷歌小学”，告诉大家“瞧，这所学校就是谷歌给你们盖的”。现实中，地方官员和经济开发署大谈数据中心对充实房产税税基的巨大贡献，而愤怒的居民则在听证会上抱怨水资源消耗、刺眼的建筑外观以及对AI技术本身的疑虑。 对于这种基层抵制是否会演变为美联储必须重视的宏观经济问题，巴尔金给出了辩证的观察： - **基建挤出效应**：数据中心的大规模铺设直接推高了全美的非住宅建筑成本、推升了对铜等工业原材料的需求，并让电网负荷不堪重负。 - **建设规模的双刃剑**：全美毫无疑问在大幅扩张AI、算力中心和能源基础设施，但没有人能算清真实的需求上限。 - **政策博弈的意外结果**：地方居民的政治阻力或许反而能起到“逆周期调节”的奇效，防止科技巨头陷入盲目过度投资（Overbuild）；但若阻力过大，也可能造成建设不足（Underbuild），成为未来算力瓶颈。 --- ### `27:32` AI生产率迷雾与中性利率预期 在节目的轻松间歇，主持人与巴尔金聊起了过去走访北卡罗来纳州芒特艾里（Mount Airy）的往事，提及那里的合成纤维工厂和车库制造产业（Carport companies），巴尔金也热情邀请节目组未来一同探访西弗吉尼亚州。主持人打趣是否曾用ChatGPT推算过未来的数据中心规模，巴尔金笑称自己曾让ChatGPT试着写一篇演讲稿，“但我认为它写得实在不怎么样，它根本模仿不出我的语气”。 言归正传，针对市场热议的“AI终将引爆全要素生产率狂飙，从而改变美联储对中性利率（$r^*$）测算”的论调，巴尔金明确表达了谨慎态度： - **当下的现实与长远的预期**：在当下，AI投资给实体经济带来的最直接感受是施工端和能源端引发的价格上涨压力，而所谓的大规模生产率红利在宏观统计数据中尚无确凿证据。 - **跨期预测的巨大不确定性**：试图预测AI在一至三年后对生产率、资金借贷成本或劳动力挤出效应的具体影响极其困难，其潜在结果的分布区间极宽。 - **决策底线**：巴尔金强调，正如沃什前一天在发言中所指出的，学术界能构建出18种完全不同维度的经济模型，有的推导出极度通胀，有的推导出经济严重受抑。因此，在没有看到更具确定性的现实证据之前，美联储绝不能单凭对生产率繁荣的抽象假设来草率调整长期的货币政策框架。 ### `30:00` 沃什与鲍威尔的主持风格对比及基层调研的“提炼艺术” 在谈到美联储内部决策氛围时，主持人询问新任主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）主持的两次议息会议与前任杰罗姆·鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）时代相比是否存在实质性差异。里士满联储主席汤姆·巴尔金（Tom Barkin）指出，美联储的会议长期以来遵循着高度结构化的议程，目前设立的各工作组正在对包括会议形式在内的一切流程进行重新审视。就目前而言，会议的基本面貌与以往保持连贯，沃什展现出了出色的领导力。巴尔金特别提到，沃什非常喜欢将政策讨论形容为一场“家庭内部争论”（family fight），极力鼓励大家在会议桌上展开直接而深入的辩论。当被追问这种辩论是否比鲍威尔时代更加开放时，巴尔金打趣地引用了托尔斯泰在《安娜·卡列尼娜》中的典故，笑着说道：“世上有许多不同类型的家庭。” 作为地方联储主席，巴尔金素以深入基层、搜集第一手微观案例（如走访车棚制造企业等）而闻名。面对主持人关于“沃什是否比鲍威尔对特定草根见闻更感兴趣”的提问，巴尔金阐述了他独特的信息处理哲学：地方联储主席绝不能只向美联储主席兜售零碎的故事。他直言：“每个人都喜欢听好故事，但单个轶事根本无法推动货币政策制定。”相比于华盛顿高层因媒体无处不在的追逐而被迫生活在“深居简出”（cloister）的环境中，巴尔金拥有大量走访社区的自由，而他的核心职责是将零散的见闻升华为高维度的综合洞察（synthesis）——例如当前消费支出的结构、B2C与B2B企业的温差、生产率扩张的底层驱动力及其持续时间，以及底层通胀的演变路径。巴尔金表示，无论是鲍威尔还是沃什，都非常看重并感谢这种将真实世界动态与宏观关键议题紧密缝合的综合分析。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 地方联储基层调研与货币政策决策转化路径 accDescr: 展示汤姆·巴尔金如何将基层微观调研提炼为影响美联储顶层货币政策的宏观洞察流程 subgraph Ground ["基层调研：地方联储优势"] A["深入一线微观调研<br/>（制造工坊、车棚企业、商会）"] B["收集草根轶事与微观数据<br/>（走访自由度远高于联储主席）"] A --> B end subgraph Synthesis ["信息升华：巴尔金的核心提炼"] C["超越单一故事<br/>拒绝孤立轶事驱动决策"] D["提炼宏观议题综合洞见<br/>• B2B vs B2C 消费支出分化<br/>• 生产率扩张来源与韧性<br/>• 底层通胀传导机制"] B --> C C --> D end subgraph Policy ["顶层碰撞：美联储货币决策"] E["向联储高层输入洞察<br/>（打破华盛顿深居简出的信息茧房）"] F["激发'家庭内部争论'<br/>（沃什主席主导的高强度政策辩论）"] D --> E E --> F end ``` - **决策辩论定位**：凯文·沃什倡导将货币政策讨论视为“家庭内部争论”（family fight），鼓励委员之间毫无保留的激烈交锋。 - **信息升华法则**：单纯的基层故事无法左右利率决议，地方调研的价值在于把草根现象升华并锚定至全美宏观议题（生产率、劳动力市场与潜在通胀）。 --- ### `32:15` 消费韧性的谜题与AI数据中心浪潮下的回访期许 采访告一段落后，节目主持人乔·威森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）与特蕾西·阿洛威（Tracy Alloway）就巴尔金透露的微观细节展开了延伸复盘。特蕾西尤其对消费者所展现出的“创造性支出手段”深感触动。她认为，市场目光往往过度聚焦于企业投资激增带来的通胀冲动或国际原油价格波动，却忽略了普通大众如何通过去储蓄（de-saving）、承担债务以及使用“先买后付”（BNPL）等金融工具顽强维持消费水平。乔则反思了这种消费狂热背后的心理机制：起初人们可能会以为这是一种经历疫情后的虚无主义狂欢，或是面临恶性通胀预期前“抢购银质烛台”（silver candlesticks）般的末日避险采购；但实际宏观数据显示，居民储蓄率虽然持续走低，却并未出现断崖式崩溃，美国民众对日常消费的执着胃口依然异常顽强。 随后，两位主持人回忆起2024年他们前往北卡罗来纳州芒特艾里（Mount Airy）录制外景的经历，感叹经济叙事在短短两年间的剧烈演变。乔与特蕾西调侃道，如果倒回两年前，他们甚至未曾在当地向纺织企业提过哪怕一个关于人工智能或ChatGPT日常应用的问题；而如今，数据中心带来的电力负荷与资本开支已演变成席卷各地的超级经济浪潮。彼时无人提及的算力与能源基建，在过去两年中已彻底改变了商业投资版图。两位主持人约定，明年一定要重返芒特艾里探寻新答案，随后向听众致谢并介绍了《Odd Lots》制作团队成员与社群订阅渠道。 - **消费行为观察**：消费者并未因借贷成本上升而停滞，而是通过信用下沉、动用储蓄及灵活分期（BNPL）等创造性渠道平滑日常开支。 - **产业叙事变迁**：从2024年深入传统纺织小镇对AI只字不提，到过去两年数据中心基建爆发性重塑宏观格局，实体经济的技术渗透速度远超预期。 ## Notable quotes > `01:25` 听完演讲后，所有人跑来问我的第一件事都是：这是否预示着 9 月美联储会有动作？ — 汤姆·巴金 > `01:25` 沃什打心底就不喜欢前瞻性指引（forward guidance）。因此，你绝不应该试图从一个从不提供前瞻指引的人的演讲中，去硬抠出任何前瞻性指引。 — 汤姆·巴金 > `10:00` 整整一代人都极度渴望买房，眼下只是觉得价格不合心意。可一旦他们迎来第二个孩子、急需更大的房子，刚性需求就会爆发。如果届时无论是租赁住房还是独栋住宅的库存都不足，房价必定卷土重来。 — 汤姆·巴金 > `13:14` 就必须把帆脚索拉得更紧（tighten your sheet） — 汤姆·巴金 > `16:29` 我看到美联储‘承诺’今年还要再降息两次。 — 商会企业家 > `21:55` 在过去三四个月里，大家都在忙着领退款，而不是交关税；当你手头正享受着这种好处时，自然不会到处嚷嚷了。 — 汤姆·巴金 > `23:45` 尽管客户很不乐意，但我们别无选择，而且基本上都成功传导了出去。 — B2B企业客户 > `25:12` 数据中心在完工后根本留不下多少雇员，普通居民在里面根本没有亲朋好友。这就导致它们完全缺乏当地的政治基本盘。 — 汤姆·巴金 > `27:32` 但我认为它写得实在不怎么样，它根本模仿不出我的语气 — 汤姆·巴金 > `30:00` 每个人都喜欢听好故事，但单个轶事根本无法推动货币政策制定。 — 汤姆·巴金 > `30:00` 世上有许多不同类型的家庭。 — 汤姆·巴金 ## Mentioned 汤姆·巴金 (Tom Barkin), 乔·威森塔尔 (Joe Weisenthal), 特蕾西·阿洛威 (Tracy Alloway), 凯文·沃什 (Kevin Warsh), 杰罗姆·鲍威尔 (Jerome Powell), 奥斯坦·古尔斯比 (Austan Goolsbee), 本·伯南克 (Ben Bernanke), 里士满联邦储备银行 (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond), 美联储 (Federal Reserve), 芝加哥联储, 杰克逊霍尔 (Jackson Hole), 大提顿山脉, 芒特艾里 (Mount Airy), 格林斯伯勒 (Greensboro), 沃尔玛 (Walmart), 一美元连锁店 (Dollar Stores), 微软 (Microsoft), 谷歌 (Google), ChatGPT, 华尔街日报 (The Wall Street Journal), 安娜·卡列尼娜 (Anna Karenina), Odd Lots, 彭博社 (Bloomberg) ## Video description <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true" data-pm-slice="1 1 []">The implications of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole speech are pretty clear: Traders expect a rate hike given the hawkish hints littered in his address, largely focused on inflation. There are still a number of open questions and Warsh's lack of forward guidance does not exactly lend clarity to how the Fed will act in the coming months. Today, we recap the speech &mdash; in a conversation recorded from the Lodge at Jackson Hole &mdash; with Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Tom Barkin and he explains why his thinking around the Fed's communication policy is changing, and he gets into what is still useful about things like the dot plot. He also tells us what he's hearing at Chamber of Commerce meetings about the impact of AI on local communities, how businesses are using their tariff refund checks, and whether the Fed will have to start paying attention to the economic effects of data center politicization.</p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true">Read more:<br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-30/bond-investors-wary-after-warsh-fans-wagers-fed-poised-to-hike?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Bond Investors Wary After Warsh Fuels Wagers That Fed Is Poised to Hike</a><br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-28/ai-data-center-boom-power-grids-strengthen-investment-case-for-copper?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Where to Invest Now as Data Centers Turn Copper Into a Hot Commodity</a></p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true">Only <a href="http://Bloomberg.com" data-inline-card="" data-card-data="">http://Bloomberg.com</a> subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at&nbsp; <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots</a></p> <p data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="paragraph" data-prosemirror-node-block="true"><a href="http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter</a><br data-prosemirror-content-type="node" data-prosemirror-node-name="hardBreak" data-prosemirror-node-inline="true"><strong data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="strong">Join the conversation:</strong> <a href="https://discord.gg/oddlots" data-prosemirror-content-type="mark" data-prosemirror-mark-name="link">discord.gg/oddlots</a></p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/095923e3-5c15-4936-b26b-b4b70018f8d6/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[1:25] 汤姆·巴金: 听完演讲后，所有人跑来问我的第一件事都是：这是否预示着 9 月美联储会有动作？ [1:25] 汤姆·巴金: 沃什打心底就不喜欢前瞻性指引（forward guidance）。因此，你绝不应该试图从一个从不提供前瞻指引的人的演讲中，去硬抠出任何前瞻性指引。 [10:00] 汤姆·巴金: 整整一代人都极度渴望买房，眼下只是觉得价格不合心意。可一旦他们迎来第二个孩子、急需更大的房子，刚性需求就会爆发。如果届时无论是租赁住房还是独栋住宅的库存都不足，房价必定卷土重来。 [13:14] 汤姆·巴金: 就必须把帆脚索拉得更紧（tighten your sheet） [16:29] 商会企业家: 我看到美联储‘承诺’今年还要再降息两次。 [21:55] 汤姆·巴金: 在过去三四个月里，大家都在忙着领退款，而不是交关税；当你手头正享受着这种好处时，自然不会到处嚷嚷了。 [23:45] B2B企业客户: 尽管客户很不乐意，但我们别无选择，而且基本上都成功传导了出去。 [25:12] 汤姆·巴金: 数据中心在完工后根本留不下多少雇员，普通居民在里面根本没有亲朋好友。这就导致它们完全缺乏当地的政治基本盘。 [27:32] 汤姆·巴金: 但我认为它写得实在不怎么样，它根本模仿不出我的语气 [30:00] 汤姆·巴金: 每个人都喜欢听好故事，但单个轶事根本无法推动货币政策制定。 [30:00] 汤姆·巴金: 世上有许多不同类型的家庭。

[0:00] Tom Barkin: not in the right place [5:00] Tom Barkin: bound and determined to spend [5:00] Tom Barkin: borrow from the future [10:31] Tom Barkin: You just sail differently if you've got the wind behind you than if you're sailing into the wind. You can still get there. You just have to tighten your sheet. [17:14] Tom Barkin: being able to hold two opposable thoughts at the same time [17:14] promised two more rate cuts this year [20:00] Kevin Warsh: squarely on the Fed [20:00] Tom Barkin: the plane is going to land [21:48] Tom Barkin: soldiers in the fight against inflation [21:48] Tom Barkin: a devil of a time [25:12] Tom Barkin: They ought to name an elementary school after Microsoft or Google or whoever and say, 'Here's Google, they just brought you this elementary school.' [25:12] Tom Barkin: no idea how massively [30:00] Tom Barkin: There are a lot of different families [30:00] Tom Barkin: Everyone likes a good story, but it doesn't really move policy. But if you can synthesize... what's driving it, how long is it going to last... I try to tie it to those things and then bring a synthesis.

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So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans At Venture Global we think about what can be done not what usually done Through innovation Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's venture global. That's unstoppable energy. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. Joe, we're still in Jackson Hole. That's right. Plenty to talk about. Plenty. We just got the speech from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, which I think most people would describe as hawk-ish, although maybe there's kind of a gap in between the hawk and the ish part. Sure. And there's still plenty of questions about the direction of the U.S. economy and monetary policy in general So we should talk a little bit more about it We should And beyond that you know there many theoretical questions out there What is the neutral rate of interest What is the role of AI on productivity And all of that is very interesting. Where's the term premium at? But also, it'd be interesting to know what the central bankers are hearing about actual businesses right now. And like, what's going on on the ground? On the ground color. OK, and there is one man that we go to for on the ground color. We have the perfect guest, of course. We're going to be speaking with Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin. So, Tom, thank you so much for coming back on Odd Lots. Great to be back with you. I think it's my third year in a row here in Jackson Hole. Oh, we appreciate it. Yeah, no, and they let you outside of the hotel room. We get the Tetons in the back. So this is great. The production values have gone up, I will say. OK, so let's just start very simply. Warsh's speech. What do you think? I mean, he does a great job. He's a great speaker. And I thought it was a very authentic speech. I mean, Kevin laid out, I think, how he sees the world. He laid out how he sees the economy. The folks I've talked to appreciated the clarity in the thing, and I personally thought he had a very accurate sense of the economy. So I was very much aligned with what he said, and I thought he said it well. So he said, OK, inflation seems to be going in the wrong direction right now. He described policy as not restrictive. So then you fill in the blanks and it like OK that means rate hikes But he didn quite say that Just for you as you see things A do you agree about inflation and the stance of policy But then more importantly then what do we do about it Yeah, so the economy is solid. I think he said that. And you can definitely see that. And the GDP numbers and the consumer spending numbers. I mean, it's been crazy this year that gas prices went up and consumer spending accelerated. It's been crazy that you have all this uncertainty and artificial intelligence spending has led business investment to almost double versus this historic thing. So there's a lot of momentum in the economy. Jobs market seems to have stabilized. Unemployment rates low. So all that's good. And I'm not saying inflation is definitely heading in the wrong direction. It's just not in the right place. Okay. And that's how I think it's not in the right place. I also would say the job market's good, but it's not frothy. Yeah. I mean, this low fire thing continues. And so that's where we are. The policy thing we'll figure out. I've had the number one thing people have asked me after his speech is, well, I guess that makes you – that tells you something for September. And I said, well, I listened to his speech, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't like forward guidance. Right. So I don't think you should take any forward guidance from a speech from a guy who doesn't give forward guidance. and I think it's probably a good way to think about it. We can't help ourselves is the problem. No, I know. But it's, I mean, I think you can talk about the economy in a very good way and then you can talk about forward guidance. If you choose not to do forward guidance, you don't do forward guidance. [5:00] I want to talk more about forward guidance, but since you mentioned the resilience of the economy, do you have a working theory for what's going on here? Because I think, to your point earlier, it surprised a lot of people that even with prices still pretty high, gas going up, all the economic uncertainty, consumers keep spending. They do keep spending. And I would compare it to coming out of the Great Recession, where out of the Great Recession, you had people who lost their jobs, lost their house, lost their car, savings destroyed, need to rebuild for retirement. We had five, six, seven years, the secular stagnation, where people weren't spending the way you thought they would. I compare it to COVID. We thought for two months it was going to be terrible. But then coming out of it, people had money in their pockets. You had stimulus. You had money you hadn't spent. You had equity values up. You had home values up. And I think you had a mindset that just says, I'm bound and determined to spend. And so we all know the wealthy people are spending because they have more wealth. But even those with less wealth, what I hear is a very creative consumer figuring out ways to find money, to spend money, to borrow from the future. You can see the finding money and the growth of private label the move to Walmart and dollar stores if you look at their results But people aren carrying insurance There a story in the journal a couple weeks ago about more people living from home You know you and I think more people living from home Oh, my God, my kids are coming back. I think, wait a second, those are people not paying rent, and they're using that money to spend on something else. And I've talked to auto lenders who talk about people being 60 days delinquent, not 120 days delinquent, because they need to find the money, but they don't want to lose their car. I've talked to gas providers who say people aren't paying the gas bill during the summer because no one's going to have a problem with gas in the summer. It's the winter that matters. So people are finding ways to effectively borrow from the future, savings rates down. And I think that's what's keeping the spending going. And underneath it all is this just positive energy to keep spending. And I really do think as long as the markets are healthy and people have jobs, they're going to keep finding a way to spend. That was a very good sort of summary of one of the engines of the economy that's clearly continuing to fire. We traveled with you. Was that 2023 or 2024 that we were in Mount Airy? 24, I think. 2024. And at that point, one of the things, you know, we were talking about sort of rural housing issues, rural child care issues. But also in one of the themes that came up was the scarcity of skilled trades And now I have to imagine it much worse because if you a skilled electrician you probably are working at least in theory the AI boom et cetera We talked to Austin Goolsbee yesterday, or I lost time. We talked to Austin Goolsbee maybe two days ago, and he's like, yes, we hear a lot of people complaining about the scarcity of skilled trades and the AI build-out. People are always complaining. He wasn't sure how much is actually related to data center and AI construction. What's your read on the scarcity of parts, materials, and labor for general things, and the degree to which AI investment is crowding out and making life more difficult for other types of industry? Yeah, so it's been a monumental construction investment cycle. $700 billion announced in one week, I think, at the beginning of February alone. And for sure, if you're trying to find switch gears or transformers or electricians, They are very hot and in very short supply. So there's no doubt in my mind that there are constraints being put on it. I think the overall construction cycle, though, it's fascinating because office buildings aren't being built. Multifamily starts are way down. You do have industrialists starting to come back. Home buildings okay not great And so I do think there been a big movement in terms of construction from one sector of the construction market into another sector of the construction market Now how much of that is crowding out I think is a good question Because when I talk to people in let say multifamily construction, they'll tell me you can't pencil it out. And they want to talk about interest rates. And of course, I say, well, is it really interest rates? Because we had the same interest rates in 04 and 05, and you're building lots of buildings. And then they'll acknowledge that construction costs are up and labor costs are up and they have to put more equity into projects and all that kind of stuff. And so it's more than that. But you could argue that all this data center construction is making it more expensive to do this other construction, which means they're not doing this other construction because it's more expensive. So there's a chicken and egg question in there. Just within your district, I know you travel around and as we said, you like to talk to people on the ground and actual businesses. But what are the most notable impacts of AI that you're seeing so far, whether it's on something like the labor market, in the low-hire, low-fire environment, or prices? Well, so it's interesting. I mean, the number one impact is a political impact. And what I mean by that is every Chamber of Commerce meeting I do, every town hall I do, I'm getting questions about jobs and water and data centers and all the rest of it. It's really quite striking. And you can see when you travel the issues on people's minds by the questions they ask. In terms of the economic [10:00] itself, I don't think it's having this massive productivity impact quite yet, outside of just a couple areas where there really is a structure where you can substitute an agent for call centers, programming. I mean, you see it there. There's some heavy documentation, compliance documents. But by and large, the productivity boom we're seeing, which is significant, I think has really been driven by 2022, when you had people short workers, and so they invested in automation, They invested new staffing models and different operating processes, and they're reaping the benefits of those today. And people are enthusiastic. Owners, executives are enthusiastic about AI. Workers, somewhat less so. But it's still being very much used as an extra added get my job done better, get my job done faster kind of thing. The one place you see it, though, is on the hiring side because this may not be true for Bloomberg, but in everywhere else in the economy, people are saying, you know, I don't know what the future looks like. Maybe I don't need to hire as much. I wonder whether I can do that job. And so why don't you leverage and see if you can't fill the job using AI first and then we'll hire later? That happening at some scale And so I do think that the place where it most relevant You know one thing that clearly working in I guess the Fed favor when it comes to the dual mandate is the housing market is pretty you know it not very hot That's sort of most of the numbers there are going in the right direction, so to speak, from a getting inflation back to target perspective. But how confident are you that that will persist, especially if we've had softness in construction? Then eventually, do you have any anxiety that eventually then that turns into housing tightness again? Oh, I think that's highly likely. At some point, you've got a whole generation of people who really want houses and the price isn't quite right for them. At some point, they'll have their second kid and they need a bigger house, and so the demand will come. And then if you don't have the housing inventory, whether it's rental or single family, then the prices will go back up. I will say we sort of got in the mode a few years ago that I think we should back off of, of trying to take the inflation data and parse it and take this part out of it and this part of it. It's very tempting to do that and to torture it and get the answer you want. And I was getting for a while when rents were coming where market rent numbers were coming down faster than the CPI rent numbers I was getting emails from real estate developers saying you got your numbers wrong and the rents are coming down faster Well I not getting those emails anymore You know they not saying hey let take the Apple you know your Apple phone just got more expensive No I mean so you don want to over parse it You want to say overall there's a there's about a money in the system. There's an amount of goods people are trying to buy, you know, with that money, maybe prices of housing came down, but maybe prices of something go up and you're looking at inflation as a total basket. That's how I like to think about it. Yeah. So Warsh was talking about this yesterday. You know, he was talking about looking at the breadth of inflation and things like that. And I'm curious, do you still see he was also talking about a lot of the one off shocks that we've seen. So the Iran war and the impact on gas prices and things like that is the overall environment just more inflationary in general when we see these one off shocks that just seem to keep coming. Right. It's like this month, it's this one thing. And OK, maybe it'll fade away into the background after a while. But then the next month, there's another thing on the way. It seems like it. And I think the question is, is normal today or was normal 10 years ago? And I think normal may be a lot more like today than it was 10 years ago. If you think about the environment of 10 years ago fracking and what that did to help bring energy prices down and demographics which meant you have more workers and kept wage costs under control and e which was bringing prices down for stuff you bought online And there was just a bunch of globalization, access, all these factors which were, I think, bringing inflation down. I don't think it's ridiculous to imagine that 10 years later, you might have a bunch of factors that would bring inflation up. Now, the inflation we realize in time depends on what we do about it. So just because I like to use the analogy of sailing, you just sail differently if you've got the wind behind you than if you're sailing into the wind. You can still get there. You just have to tighten your sheet. And I think that's the kind of risk we've got if you're in a world with an ever-continuing set of inflationary shocks. You just have to lean against that wind. Thank you. [15:00] PayPal comes in. 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And when a bad day does come, Cincinnati Insurance has real people there to help make things right. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next, it's about making sure you're ready for what you can't predict. Let Cincinnati insurance make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at CINFIN.com. So obviously one of the things that came up in the speech, and again, we know that Chairman Walsh is not a fan of forward guidance. There going to be these task forces et cetera that may revisit some of the Fed approaches to communications et cetera Would you be on board with saying you know what we don need dots anymore we don't need to have press conferences, like for most of Fed's history, the chair didn't have a press conference. In your mind, should all of these things be on the table? Should you be talking to us right now? Yeah, yeah, seriously. So there was someone who said the theory of a great mind is being able to hold two opposable thoughts at the same time. So I hold the following two thoughts to be very clear. One is if we're relatively transparent about how we think about things, that helps build credibility with the public. It helps build trust in the institution, and it helps markets do some of the work for you. That's the famous Bernanke theory. I also 100 percent agree with Chairman Warsh when he says sometimes if you give too much forward guidance, you get stuck in it and you end up having to make a suboptimal decision because you've misguided. misguided. And I think it's fair to say that's part of the 2021-2022 story, which is we had very strong forward guidance in place, and it was very hard to get your way out of it. So I can hold both those thoughts at the same time, and I hope to keep coming and talking to you as long as you'll have me. What about dots and these specific techniques? We'll have to debate the techniques, and I sure we will My view on the SEP is I really like doing the SEP I mean I like negotiating arguing debating with my team my policy bias next to my economy bias. And, you know, it often happens that I've gotten a little out of whack. I mean, I've I still think the policy ought to be that, but I'm not really thinking about it in the right way. And and we have those debates. I feel it really sharpens my thinking. So regardless of whether we release it or not, I plan to keep doing an SEP because I I think having your own forecast and working against the forecast is a pretty healthy thing. Now, should we release it? The one thing I don't like about the SEP is I think the dot plot itself is a picture that overwhelms the story. And I've said this in other forums. But if what comes out is I go do a Chamber of Commerce in Greensboro and somebody says to me, well, I see the Fed promised two more rate cuts this year, then that's not good communication because that's not what we've done. We've done a set of forecasts independently. And so good communication to me has to communicate well. And if what's happening is that picture is swamping the narrative, then we're going to think differently about the picture. So I take the point that there's a risk with forward guidance that the Fed could get boxed into a certain decision in a suboptimal way. But that said, and I also take the point that there's a distinction between forward guidance and the reaction function. [20:00] in general. But all of that said, at some point, if inflation is above target, you would think the Fed needs to act. And Warsh kind of insinuated this in his speech. He talked about, well, inflation's been above target for, what was it, 65 months or something? And he said that is squarely on the Fed. When you hear something like that, I mean, you were in the room, you were at the Fed for part or all of the past 65 months. What do you think? What's your reaction? Well, I'm definitely 100% insistent on getting inflation under control. And I think it's fair to hold that mirror against what we're doing and ask ourselves the question of whether we're doing it the right way. I think there are two ways you can look at where we are today. You can take a 65-month view, or you can take a, I'll get the months right, a 47-month view followed by an 18-month view. And if you do the second, which I'm not arguing for, I'm just saying it's a perfectly defensible way to do it. As you say, inflation happened. Maybe we were a little slow. We raised rates. Inflation came down. If you go to March of 2025, you've got 2.3%, 2.4% inflation, and everything seems to be headed in the right direction. The economy is moving. The labor market was a little weak The plane is going to land And then of course you had this series of external shocks whether it be AI or tariffs or oil price increases and that taken inflation right back up But you could argue in that and then we bring it down That is an argument. It's a colorable argument, and it's not a 65-month argument. It's a 47- and 18-month argument. On the other hand, you say, don't give me your excuses. It's been 65 months, and it's been over, and maybe rates aren't that restrictive, and maybe you have to think about it. And that's the argument I'm sure we're going to have. What are manufacturers in your district saying about tariffs these days? It feels like it's become behind AI and oil shock. We don't even talk about trade. Oh, it's a lot quieter than it is now. But, I mean, it depends what sector you're in. I mean, if you're a steel or aluminum manufacturer, that's created a price umbrella that's helped your industry. If you're somebody moving operations into the country, you know, there's a real argument there. The people who are the most unhappy about it are the people who it affects the most. And the ones who are most poignant, if I could put it that way, are the foreign manufacturers who have assembly operations. Many of them are in South and North Carolina. And they said, no, we've actually moved manufacturing to the U.S. But what that actually means is they create their components in Europe and they ship them to the U.S. And then they assemble them. They still getting tariffed And so you have those sorts of stories out there Quietly what happened on the tariff side is the numbers went up the collections were never as big as the numbers were and then the Supreme Court ruled and they put through all these refunds So one of the reasons you're not hearing a lot about it is for the last three or four months, people have been collecting refunds as opposed to paying more tariffs. And when you're collecting, you're not talking about it quite as much, you know, when it's working to your advantage. Are the refunds stimulative in your mind? I mean, it's a decent chunk of money. It has to go They're very positive for earnings. If you read through the earnings reports of the people who've gotten the refunds, you hear they're going to reinvest it in the customer. You hear a lot of that. Reinvestment in the customer occasionally is price, but I think it's a lot more marketing, store refits, staffing levels. Yeah. So positive earnings are stimulative. I mean, companies do less likely to do layoffs, more likely to hire, more likely to invest. So it is stimulative. But is it coming through to price? I think in very targeted ways, but not in a massive system wide way. Well, this was also going to be my next question because there was a debate about the tariff pass-through into price. And I think some people would have said when the tariffs were first announced, well, consumers are stretched. Companies aren going to be able to pass them on But now we seen consumer spending just stay resilient as we discussed earlier How are you thinking about that pass ability now So the B2B companies I talk to to a person they convinced they passing it through Tariff costs have come in. I've had to pass it through. I know they don't like it on the other side, but what am I going to do? We have to do it. And they tell me they've been pretty successful at passing it through. If you're a B2C company, back in April of 25, you would have said, oh, yeah, I've got to pass it through. A lot of them had trouble passing it through. Easier if you serve wealthy customers, harder if you serve less wealthy customers. But those people who sell into the major big box retailers, they tell me they're having a devil of a time trying to pass it through. And the mindset of those retailers is I need to find some price to give to my customers. So I think the consumer pushback is very real. It's most real B2C. It's most real low to moderate income B2C. And then you might say, you just told me earnings were good. How is that? And that's where the productivity stuff comes in. There's been very little wage pressure and people are really driving productivity again through the set of things I think that they launched three or four years ago. Those big box retailers, they're truly our strongest soldiers in the fight against inflation, holding the line on prices on behalf of the customer. Well, that's another, you know, I was talking about all the disinflationary stuff in the 20s. [25:00] The rise of the big box retails, the rise of private label brands, all those things, you know, help keep prices under control and help keep spending. You're saying we didn't know how good we had. I want to actually go back to just because it's so in the news these days. You mentioned you go around and people talk about data centers and stuff like that. And the picture that like I always have in my mind, I haven't done any like on the ground reporting on this topic. But the picture I have in my mind is a lot of people very anxious about it. And then a town manager or a mayor like trying to explain to them, no, it's going to bring your property bill down or actually plenty. And then people are upset. Is that more or less the shape of it, that you have some people either at the business community or the town management community that this could be a good thing? And they're trying to persuade the citizens that actually it could be. Is that more or less right? Here's the thing. If I have a manufacturing plant in my hometown, then the kids of the people who work in the manufacturing plant are on the baseball team and on the football team and on the hockey team. And if you have a data center, they don't have very many employees. So people don't really know data. So the data center thing is exactly what you described. You got the economic developers talking about how great this is for the tax base and the citizens saying whatever version of I don like what it doing to water I don like how it looks I don trust AI it been politicized in that way But I think at its core, it brings tax dollars, but it doesn't bring enough workers after the construction for the citizens to have friends who work in the data centers. And so there's no political base. I tease sometimes that they ought to name an elementary school after Microsoft or Google or whoever and say, here's Google, they just brought you this. If you're going to market it, they just brought you this elementary school. But that's not how people think about it. Is there a point at which the political pushback against data centers becomes a big enough economic issue that the Fed has to pay attention to it? Because if you think about price pressures in the economy, a lot of them are coming through on the construction side because of the data center build-out. If you think about growth components, a lot of people will say that the AI build-out is a big driver of that? Well, I like to say we're going to grow the AI footprint of this country massively, but we have no idea how massively. We're going to grow the data center footprint massively. We have no idea how massively. We're going to grow the energy. And the one thing we know is we're going to get those numbers wrong. And so we don know whether we going to get the number too many or too few And so there could be a backlash on data centers and maybe that be the perfect thing to do economically because we won overbuild the way we would have otherwise overbuilt or maybe there won And now we going to underbuild So yes it could have a big impact, but I do not have, I need AI forecasting skills to help me figure out how big this thing's going to be because you're trying to meet a very significant moving target. Have you tried asking ChatGPT what it thinks? Just type it in, just ask. I've also asked ChatGPT to try to write a speech for me, and I didn't think it did a very good job. It could never capture your voice. Have you been back to Mount Airy since we've been there? I've been through. I haven't stopped, but I've definitely driven through. I think we should. And I was in Greensboro just this week. I was thinking how striking the questions we would be asking now are versus 2024. Maybe like in 2027, like I don't know what your schedule is like. Absolutely. But there's like, because I'm curious about, you know, the state of housing, obviously. I'm curious how that big textile manufacturer that was doing the synthetic textiles is doing. I'm curious about- The carport companies. The carports, and there's just a bunch of things. It would be fun to go revisit that. No, we'd love to have you back. And I'm in West Virginia next week, if you guys have any time, we'll take you there. Oh sure I on vacation next week Well okay speaking of AI we mentioned productivity quite a lot already but there is this assumption that at some point you might get this big productivity boom And so maybe that gives the Fed a little bit of room when it comes to things like R-star and the neutral rate of interest. How far ahead should the Fed be looking when it comes to expecting that productivity boom? Because in the here and now, it's not that evident. And in the here and now, its most tangible impact on the economy is higher prices. I think it's really hard to make a forecast of what it's going to do a year, two, three years from now. Like I say, the range of possible outcomes is very wide. In addition, how that outcome plays out in terms of prices or borrowing rates, because, you know, you could be crowding out capital or labor employment is a big deal. And so, you know, and I think Kevin said this yesterday, you could have models of this thing that end up looking very inflationary and you have to move one way or things that look, you know, very distressing for the economy. You have to go another way. And there's 18 different versions in between. And so, you know, we can argue about the direction, but I think you've got to get some more confidence before you can make too much policy based on an assumption. I just have one last question, and I know you're going to play it coy. But so I will not ask you, you know, what are we doing at the next? [30:00] No, no, not even. Have the two Worsh meetings felt substantively different than Powell meetings? We've been in these meetings for a long time. They're relatively structured in how they go. I believe, you know, as part of these task forces, we're going to take a fresh look at everything we do, including these meetings. But by and large, they've looked like the meetings we've had. And the chair has shown up and, you know, led very well. And I think, you know, he does like this idea of a family fight is a phrase he likes to use. And, you know, he encourages that kind of debate. We certainly have that. Is the nature of the debate feeling more open or different? Or would you say that Powell meetings were also a family fight? There are a lot of different families. OK, good to know. I'm thinking of that. What's that Russian quote? Yeah. All unhappy with something. Well, I had my last question was going to be something related. But we know that one of the distinctive things about you and the way you fill the role as regional Fed president is that you like to gather anecdotes and on the ground. color. Are there particular anecdotes or data series that Warsh is interested in versus Powell? Like, are there particular things when you come to him and you say, oh, you know, I was talking to the carport company yesterday and they mentioned this that he really interested in Well so what I try to do is I try to come up with a synthesis that backs off from individual anecdotes I think the anecdote doesn everyone likes a good story but it doesn really move policy But if you can synthesize, like what we're talking about, consumer spending and where the B2C and the B2B, both Jay and Kevin, in my impression, have been very attentive to that. They live more in a cloister. I get to go out a lot more than they get to go out because the press follows them everywhere. And so, you know, I think they really do want to hear what's happening there. And then the challenge and the commitment I try to make is to tie it to whatever the issues are we have on the ground. And so, you know, productivity has expanded. What's driving it? How long is it going to last? We've talked about that. Inflation, you know, underlying inflation, what's happening in the consumer world. I think I try to tie it to those things and then bring a synthesis. And that's where I try to do it. And I think they're both very appreciative of it. At least they tell me that. All right. Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming back on All Thoughts, and hopefully we can all do another road trip in Mount Airy. We'll see you next year here and maybe in Mount Airy. Really look forward to it. Thanks, you guys. Joe always good to catch up with Tom I love chatting with Tom You know what I thought was really interesting is his description of the creative ways consumers are continuing to spend which actually I don't think has gotten the attention probably it's deserved, right? Because there's so much talk about the inflationary impulse from all the business investment happening right now. And then people talk about oil, etc. but the de-saving or the dis-saving and the going into debt and finding ways to continue to consume we hear about it a little bit we talk about it and when we talk about bnpl and stuff like that but maybe that's a thing we should be paying more attention to i always thought this strong consumption was like maybe sort of like a nihilistic response to the pandemic experience but you actually you don't see it that much in the savings rate right like i think the savings rate has gone down but it's not like it's plummeted no it's not plummeted right no it doesn't feel like the sort of spending that you would expect before like the end of the world for the upcoming hyperinflation where everyone's going out and buying silver candles well you probably buy silver candlesticks but everyone knows you have yeah i'm sure you do i'm so sorry i'm saying yeah it doesn't feel like that but it does sound like the appetite to keep buying stuff he laid it out very well yeah and i do think going back to mount airy next year would be a really good idea because if you just think back to 2024 I mean we didn ask a single AI related question right I'm pretty sure we didn't. I agree. And like the process, something bad about us as a journalist. Well, I don't think anyone was talking about it. None of them were talking about it. If we would have asked the textile company, are you using chat GPT in your daily operations? I don't think they would have had a response. Yeah, I can't really remember. But they certainly, no one was talking about data centers the same degree. And that boom really has been basically over the last two years. So really, like, since we were past there. Yeah, we got to go back. There are some really interesting questions out there. Yeah. All right. Got to get some answers. Another All Thoughts road trip. Sounds good. But shall we leave it there for now? Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. You can follow me at Tracy Allaway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Ehrman, Dashiell Bennett at Dashbot, Kale Brooks at Kale Brooks, and Kevin Lozano at Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And for more OddLots content, you should check out our daily newsletter. You can find that at Bloomberg.com forward slash OddLots. And you can chat about all of these topics 24-7 in our Discord, discord.gg slash OddLots. And if you enjoy OddLots, if you like this conversation, then please leave a comment or like the video or better yet, subscribe. [35:00] Thanks for watching and listening. If you listen to financial news, you know a lot of time is spent thinking about what's next. The next opportunity. The next investment. The next move. But sometimes what matters most is being ready for what you never saw coming. For more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has worked with independent agents to help protect businesses, homes, valuables, and more. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next. 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