Marketplace - What happens if the Fed goes mum

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

The era of frequent public speeches given by Federal Reserve officials on monetary policy may be over. Incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has expressed a desire to reform the central bank’s robust communication style, which has been the norm since the 1990s. In this episode, what do we stand to lose if the Fed zips its lips? Plus: Retailers weigh passing higher costs onto cash-strapped consumers, stateside EV sales don’t keep up with European surge, and cities make an economic case for planting more trees.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

This is so far a hypothetical, but how many Fed speeches aren't too many Fed speeches? From American public media. This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizzdahl. It is Tuesday, today 19 May. Good as always, to have you along, everybody. I think I said this yesterday, that this is an especially light week on the economic data front. Today, in fact, Bupkis statistics.

wise. But you do know what we do have over the next couple of days in surplus, actually. Fed officials offering their thoughts. Fed Governor Christopher Waller today, Philadelphia, Fed President on a Paulson as well. A couple of more through Friday. Friday, as it happens, is when Kevin Warsh is going to get sworn into the board of governors and a four-year term as chair thereof. We have mentioned a couple of times, I think, since Warsh became the nominee, that things are going to be different with him in charge. Most not. noticeably in the way the central bank communicates. Warsh has suggested he might stop holding press conferences after every meeting.

He has criticized the Fed's forward guidance, that thing Fed officials do or they say where they think interest rates are headed. And he has suggested members of the Board of Governors and Regional Fed presidents might be giving too many speeches like, oh, say, the ones this week. So Marketplace's Justin Ho gets us going with why we pay attention to those speeches anyway. and what might happen if there were fewer of them? Keeping track of Fed speeches is a big part of Preston Moy's job. I try to keep up with every bit of Fed speak I can get my hands on any speeches, prepared remarks, blog posts, LinkedIn posts, tweets, anything like that. Moy's an economist with the Economic Advocacy Group employ America.

And he says he keeps track of all this to help him figure out the Fed's thinking. We want to know how they're thinking about economic developments, how they see the risks, where they see inflation going, they see the labor market going and that informs the kind of policy advocacy that we're going to engage with. Moe says all this Fed speak can be a lot to keep track of. Probably on an average week, I'm looking at six or seven members that are speaking. It wasn't always this way. Central banks like the Fed used to try not to communicate as much or as clearly with the public.

That's Carol a binder, an economics professor at UT Austin. She says back in the 70s and 80s, the Fed used to be in two. intentionally opaque because it thought surprising markets was a good idea. If you say want to boost the economy, you create a bit of unanticipated inflation. And that allows kind of boost to the real economy in the short run. But Binder says that strategy drew a lot of complaints about accountability. So the Fed started to become more transparent. Meanwhile, the Fed, like other central banks, set a specific inflation target and felt the need to explain to people how to get there.

And if inflation's not at its target, explaining why not in a way that reassures people that that's still the target and that they're going to get there soon enough. There is a point where too many Fed speeches can start to become noise, says Courtney Schubert, in a economist with the research firm macro policy perspectives. I think if you're hearing too many conflicting signals or if you're not hearing a consistent narrative or framework, then it can become confusing. But Schubert says more communication in general is better, especially. in times when the economy is uncertain. Because you end up having more smooth market functioning and fewer surprises if you're regularly hearing from officials. And in today's economy, we don't exactly need any more surprises. I'm Justin Howe for Marketplace. I do wonder what Alan Greenspan's thinking right about now. Wall Street today, I'm going to spoil tomorrow's show a little bit by telling

you we're going to be doing a bond story because today the 30-year treasury hit almost 5.2 You want to know why and what it means? Tune in to borrow. But here's a partial answer. Mortgage News Daily reported today the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage sits at 6.75% the highest it has been in almost a year. Elsewhere in American market capitalism, equity traders weren't all that happy either. We will have the details when we do the numbers. Home Depot reported quarterly profits this morning.

Basic gist is that its customers, are still spending, but more carefully and perhaps putting off big renovations for now. Kristen Schwab gave us the consumer side of those corporate earnings yesterday, how they're responding to the energy price shock that's rippling through this economy. Today, the retailers side of things, because they're dealing with higher transportation and energy costs too, you know. Marketplace's Nova Sopho has that one. The increase in energy costs is hitting retailers on multiple fronts, says Zach Stambor of e-marketer. Their operating costs are going. up and the purchasing power for consumers is going down.

Wholesale inflation rose 1.5% between March and April alone. And Stamber says those higher costs will likely hit consumers within months. But retailers' pricing power is not uniform. Jason Miller is at Michigan State University's business school. A good example where it will be challenging to raise prices is for things like, you know, major durable appliances. where prices are already up because of tariffs and consumers have been pulling back. Retailers risk losing customers, Miller says, if they raise those prices further.

But for items we have to buy, groceries, for example, prices are already rising. You're shipping from California all the way to the East Coast. You're paying thousands of dollars to have those strawberries transported by truck. And importantly, several thousand dollars additional to what you were but budgeting this year. Had the energy disruptions from the Iran War been short-lived, Miller says. We might not have seen long-term price increases, but the Strait of Hormuz has been blocked for more than two months. We're in the opening innings of how this energy cost shock is going to filter over into consumer goods. This is a particularly vulnerable time for smaller retailers, says Vanky Shankar,

marketing professor at Southern Methodist University. Those who have been capable of of handling shocks better, typically tend to be large scale. They have also strong pricing power and more diversified revenue streams. If smaller retailers and regional ones raise prices more than big box stores because they have to, they could end up losing market share, says he marketers, Sacks Stambor. The Walmarts and Amazons of the world are in a strong position here. As consumers increasingly focus on value and how to get the best bang for their buck, The bigger retailers, he says, are likely to lean into loyalty programs, private label products, and bulk offerings to keep customers spending. I'm Novosafo for Marketplace.

Okay, here's today's fact from history that is showing up in today's economy. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says that when Europeans first showed up in what's now the Buckeye state more than 200 years ago, maybe as much as 95% of that territory, was covered by trees and forests. Today, it's very much not. So all over Ohio, towns and cities are trying to bring parts of their forests back. They're hiring arborists and hosting tree planties and expanding the tree canopy. It's not cheap, but the Arbor Day Foundation says every dollar cities put into trees grows $3 in return. Marketplaces Kelly Wells explains how that works. Ed and Donna Hoffman just pulled up to a neighborhood park 15 minutes west. of Cleveland. They're here to pick up a sapling of an eastern redbud tree that their city,

Lakewood, is giving away for free. It was really easy. Yeah, it was online and then you pick out which one you want. And so we jumped right on it. They check in with a volunteer sitting at one of those plastic foldout tables and pick out their red bud from a row of native witch hazel, serviceberry, oak, and bucky trees. 200 and all, every single one reserved by residents within 24 hours. We missed it last year, so we decided to get it this year. This is Lakewood's third year doing this. We really take our tree canopy very seriously,

and it's something that we've been trying to increase for the last few years. Sophia Zellis is Lakewood's city planner. We've been planting, as the city, separate from this event, 350 to 400 trees every year, and that is a significant part of our budget. Almost $150,000 per year, which comes out to roughly $375 a tree. Worth it, because Lakewood estimates the average tree in city limits is worth about $1,500. Part of that is pretty simple.

Trees make shade in places like public parks and can divert heat from heat islands where there's lots of asphalt. That translates to fewer dollars spent on air conditioning. Trees also make humans happy. Expanding the canopy decreases crime, according to the U.S. Forest Service study. Trees make houses more valuable, and trees near business districts make people spend more, says Regional Planner Tyler Cliffman, with the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. People tend to spend a lot more time in the greener spaces that equates to spending more money in those places, maybe just by being willing to explore a little more, to linger, to be more comfortable.

Then there's the savings on health care. A University of Illinois study found that even when you control for all other demographics, people living near more green space spend nearly $400 less per year on health care. If you wind all that up across a full population and entire city, then you start to see the benefit of these tree planting programs. Kathleen Wolfe is a research social scientist at the University of Washington. She specializes in urban forestry and has no problem rattling off plenty of other reasons. Trees save cities money. Air quality, water quality, stormwater management. Storm water management benefits can be substantial.

Substantial because root structures and canopies make it easier for land to deal with rainfall. That means dollars saved on watering nearby plants and tax dollars saved on storm runoff infrastructure. Wolf says all. All of that has led cities to invest more in planting trees. With the research about ecosystem services of urban trees, parks, green spaces, about health benefits, wow, that has really surged in the last decade or two. And that surge is especially prevalent in Ohio. It has more tree cities designated by the Arbor Day Foundation than any other state.

In the last century, tree cover has rebounded spectacularly, according to the State Department of natural resources from a low of 10% more than a century ago to more than 30% today. In Lakewood, Ohio, I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, which means oil and gas are still high. That's a global reality and a big part of the reason we're seeing a boom in electric vehicle sales in some parts of the world. Sales are especially strong in Europe. EV purchases are up 26%. this year over the same period last year. That's according to benchmark mineral intelligence. So far, though, the EV frenzy has not spread this way across the Atlantic, even though gas is.

Sorry, just checking my notes here. Yes, an average nationally of $4.53 a gallon. Marketplace's Henry App explains why higher gas prices have been kind of a mixed bag for the American EV market. A year ago, there were still a bunch of government policies in the U.S. pushing carmakers to build more EVs and enticing consumers to buy them. But those policies have been stripped away by the Trump administration and Congress. No more EV tax credits, no more fines for companies violating fuel efficiency rules. So the auto industry reconsidered its American EV plans, says Gil Tal at UC Davis. Car companies were quick to react in stop production. Ford, GM, Stalantis, and VW have all since scaled back. And that's partly why U.S. EV sales have lagged behind Europe lately, Tull says.

We're just not making as many of them. And they're expensive to import, too. If you're a Korean car company, for example, or a European one, bringing the car to the U.S., you will pay high tariffs. Plus, there's a strong market for EVs in Korea and Europe. Europeans, for decades, have preferred smaller vehicles, more efficient vehicles, simply because they pay more for their fuel in the first place. Sam Fiorani is with auto-forecast solutions. Americans, meanwhile, still buy lots of.

of big pickup trucks. And they tend to change their buying habits over time rather than on a quick rise in gas. But there are signs some Americans do want more fuel-efficient cars, says Stephanie Valdez Streedy at Cox Automotive. I think the hybrid is the story we're going to start to see in the next couple of months, and we're already seeing it. Sales of hybrids rose 36% in March and April compared to the same period last year, she says, and used EVs are selling better, too. Jesse Lur has seen that firsthand. He runs the used EV company Greenwave Electric Vehicles in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The year started off slow, but in March, sales took off. We've gone from concern about what adoption is going to be like to how can we get as many cars ready for sale as quickly as possible.

Because more drivers are coming in, he says, fed up with paying for gas to power their commutes. I'm Henry App for Marketplace. Coming up. I've also painted, like a, is it a pigmy pig or those like tiny pigs? Painted portraits, gang, portraits. Not the actual tiny little pigs. First though, let's do the numbers. Now industrial is down 322.

Today, two thirds of 1% 49,363. The NASDAQ subtracted to 220 points. That's 8 tenths percent, 25,870. S&P 500 down 49 points, two thirds percent, 73, and The maker of Arc Drax outerwear, Solomon Shoes and Wilson Tennis Gear, raised its revenue growth forecast for the year. American Sports is that parent company

beat sales expectations for the first quarter. Ticker Simple AS climbed 2% even. Driven brands holding. It's an automotive services franchisor. Get it? Driven brands. It owns Mako, body shops, and mighty key mufflers, also take five oil change. Forecasting profits for the fiscal year

are going to come in below. Expectations. Driven brands holding slowed 7.1% on the day. Bonds down, yield on the 10-year T-note. Pay attention. This is coming back tomorrow. 4.65 percent. You're listening to Marketplace. This Marketplace podcast is supported by Inuit QuickBooks. If you're trying to grow your business, Intuit QuickBooks Workforce can help you lead your business with confidence, clarity, and in a way that makes sense for you. As a sponsor at Marketplace is my economy, QuickBooks Workforce recognizes that no one person

or businesses' finances are the same. As your needs evolve, QuickBooks Workforce evolves with you, Bringing together the core HR capabilities businesses expect with the flexibility to adapt to your specific needs. QuickBooks Workforce combines human intelligence and AI-powered tools so you get smart automation without ever losing control, spend less time reconciling and more time deciding what to do next. Your processes get streamlined, and you get precious time and energy back to move forward proactively.

Move from reactive to proactive with brand new tools by making the switch to QuickBooks Workforce today. Your Marketplace is My Economy at Marketplace.org my economy and learn more about how QuickBooks can help your business grow at QuickBooks.com slash workforce. That's quickbooks.com slash workforce. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl.

It is not getting any cheaper to run a college. According to a higher education price index from the Asset Manager Common Fund, university operating costs were up more than three and a half percent last year. That outpaces inflation for 2025, which if you check the CPI, the consumer price index, you know was 2.7 percent. We will leave tuition increases for another podcast, but the fact of the matter is that higher education is in need of revenue, and they are increasingly finding it, or some share of it anyway,

in something called executive education. Rob Mandelbaum had the story for Bloomberg Business Week. Rob, it's good to have you on. Oh, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Would you please, just so we all know what we're talking about here, explain executive education? Sure. executive education usually comprises sort of short courses that you can take, you know, as a company leader.

They don't count for credit towards an MBA or anything like that. It's sort of like continuing education for the C-suite, right? It's different actually from what they would call a professional degree, which might be an executive MBA program or a specialized masters. And as you point out in this piece, even though there have been these kinds of programs for a while at very, you know, named schools, they're now sort of becoming more, more relevant in the revenue sphere. Talk to me about that for a minute. Sure. Well, business school just gets more and more expensive to operate with each passing year. And you can only raise money through tuition or school appropriations or legislative appropriations by so much. and business schools are desperately looking for alternative revenue streams to finance sort of their marquee MBA programs and their undergraduate programs and things like that. Are schools good at this?

I mean, look, a lot of schools teach really well, a lot of schools do research really well. Do they do this specific kind of thing well? They do it well. I don't think that many schools do it particularly profitably. I mean, I think they do it well from a content perspective, but I think it's very challenging for a school to turn this into a real revenue stream. Teaching executives is very different from teaching undergraduates and graduate students, and a lot of the faculty don't have that kind of experience. And when you're talking about tenured fact, they're doing research and things like that. They'd often don't have the time.

Along those lines, you refer to this at some point in this piece as basically a B2B operation, business to business, right? Business executives looking for sort of business guidance here. And that is actually another part of the problem is that it's really a sales organization that that thrives doing executive education because they're cultivating relationships with companies. The real money when you're running an executive education program is in doing custom programming for individual companies in your area. And they also sort of rely on companies to sponsor open enrollment courses. So you might see the course online, but a local company is guaranteeing a certain number of seats. So it's very important to cultivate those relationships with companies.

And that is also something very difficult to do in a traditional academic. environment. You know, it's sales work and sales work that, you know, should be highly compensated, and that's just really tough to do. So broadly speaking, this is, this is challenging work, but it's going to grow, right? I mean, just in the face of the revenue challenges. I think so. You know, a lot of companies are, have a lot of existential questions on their mind that have to do a lot with AI. And you might have read that somewhere. And I think that schools are racing to tap into that, not just in executive education programs, of course, but in their graduate programs and their undergraduate programs as well.

Rob Menelbaum, writing in Bloomberg Businessweek. Rob, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much, Kai. I appreciate it. Retailers, as Novo was talking about earlier, are doing what they can to keep careful consumers spending. And it turns out even really small businesses can do all right.

If people spend just a little bit on something that makes them happy, here's today's installment of our series, My Economy. My Name is Rebecca Holopter, and I am an artist. I came out to Los Angeles from Missouri to be an actor and work in the film industry. And then I also am a pet portrait artist. About a year ago, my friend was like, we have the first Friday art walks. You should pop up and do pep portrait artist.

portraits in 10 minutes. So now I do these pop-ups two to four times a month. Most are dogs and cats, which are very fun. And I love it when they have like a costume on. That's probably my favorite. And then I've also painted like a, is it a pygmy pig, or those like tiny pigs? And I've also painted a pigeon, which I loved. I've also done personally, I didn't like it, but I did it anyway, a hissing cockroach. It's pretty. The colors are pretty, but yeah, that was probably the, I feel bad saying the worst one because I don't want to judge someone's sweet little pet, but that was pretty gross for me. I do a four by six, and that is 40, and a six by eight, and that is 50. For the longest time, I was a waiter thinking I had to have like a side job that didn't have

anything to do with my creative career, that would be like the steady paycheck. The pet portraits have kind of substituted that role for me in the sense of, yeah, if I need to make extra money this week, I can go pop up somewhere and make that extra cash. Serving was kind of draining my soul, and this definitely doesn't drain my soul. It's silly to say like a pet portrait pop up makes me feel all these things, but it does make me feel like I do get to make people happy with my art and my creativity. It's made me feel more confident in my skills and my abilities too, because a lot of times your creative work, no one sees that part of the process. So also sometimes at these markets, other vendors watching me do it for hours at a time gives me like a little boost of being like,

oh yeah, you are good at this, Rebecca. You are doing a good job. So, yeah, it's given me a lot. Rebecca Halopter, running a pet portrait business and hustling for acting jobs too here in Los Angeles. Let us know how you are making this economy work. Would your marketplace.org slash my economy? This final note on the way out today

in which I do believe corporate speak has hit a new. new and all-time low. Standard Chartered, one of the big banks over in the UK, does most of its business in Africa and Asia. It announced layoffs today, 7,000 people, about 15% of its workforce. Here is the money quote from the CEO on a call today. It's not cost-cutting, he said. It's replacing low-value human capital. What he said? So Neil Maharaj, Jordan Manj, Janet Wyn, Olga, Oxman, and Virginia K. K. Smith are the digital team around here. I'm Kyle Rizzdall. We will see tomorrow, everybody. This is APM. Anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder. At least half of us will experience a mental illness in our

lifetime. In a new series of special reports from Call to Mind, we hear about the mental health impact of stress, climate change, immigration, and more. Tune in for conversations with people managing hardship and experts seeking solutions. Listen to Call to Mind from American Post, with media.