Moody's Talks - Inside Economics - An Economic Grab Bag

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Mark, Cris and Marisa recap the week’s economic news, including the now highly likely confirmation for the Fed Chair nominee, Kevin Warsh, the ongoing conflict in Iran and its impact on energy and related commodities, and the proposed bailout of Spirit Airlines. After the stats game, the team takes a few thought-provoking listener questions about tax policy and tariffs. Email us at [e-mail] for more info about the Moody's Summit '26 Conference in San Diego Hosts: Mark Zandi – Chief Economist, Moody’s Analytics, Cris deRitis – Deputy Chief Economist, Moody’s Analytics, and Marisa DiNatale – Senior Director - Head of Global Forecasting, Moody’s Analytics Follow Mark Zandi on 'X' and BlueSky @MarkZandi, Cris deRitis on LinkedIn, and Marisa DiNatale on LinkedIn Questions or Comments, please email us at [e-mail]. We would love to hear from you.  To stay informed and follow the insights of Moody's Analytics economists, visit Economic View. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Inside Economics. I'm Mark Sandy, the chief economist of Moody's Analytics, and I'm joined by my two trusty co-host, Chris DeReedies, Marissa De Natale. Hi, guys. Hi, Mark. Hi, Mark. Happy Friday.

Happy Friday. Do you guys have a good week? Yeah. Busy week. Busy week. Anything in particular? Getting ready for the summit. I know.

That's coming up pretty quickly here. Right? We're going to make our way out there in a... Is it a couple weeks or two to three? I think maybe it's two weeks. Two weeks. Yeah. Two weeks.

Yeah. And just for the listeners, obviously, that's our big summit. We do this once a year. We're having it in San Diego. And, of course, it would be great to see you there if you're so inclined. That would be May 6th, I believe, is Economics Day. Do I have that? Yeah.

And I think, aren't we doing a mock inside economics podcast? Yeah. Yeah. We are. Yes. Yeah, that should be a lot of fun. Yeah. Good. Well, I do want to, I know we have a lot of listener questions. We're going to take those questions. We're going to play this statistics game. But before we go there, the news of the week, not a lot of economic data this week, but there's a lot of stuff going on just before we came on. And this is now Friday, the 24th of April in the morning, just learned that the Justice Department is going to drop.

its investigation of the Federal Reserve Board. I think they've decided to allow the Fed's IG to investigate instead. And so by so doing, this reduces the blocking of Kevin Warsh as getting approved by the Senate and become the next Fed chair. So it now feels like he's going to be in that position on schedule in May. So it feels like that's done. Did I get that right, Chris? I read that very quickly before we came on. Did I get that right?

Yep, that's my understanding. There was a Republican senator from North Carolina, right, Tillis. That was threatening to put the confirmation on hold unless the Powell investigation. was called off. So this should open up the door for the confirmation hearings. Or, well, he had the confirmation hearing. So they should open up the door for the vote.

And like you said, everything should move ahead here. Right. So what do you think? What kind of changes? I mean, it feels like there could be some pretty big changes, at least process-wise at the Fed. And maybe even policy-wise at the Fed. What's your sense of that?

How do you think about that? Yeah, at least from the Senate hearings, Warsh indicated some type of regime change, right? And pretty far ranging, not only in terms of the actual execution of monetary policy and how big the Fed's balance sheet should be and what interest rate should look like, but even some of the mechanics of which how should we measure inflation, right? We tend to focus on core PCE inflation, but he suggested maybe we should change that to the trimmed mean inflation rate. Or he also spoke out against perhaps forward guidance or even how the Fed is communicating with the markets more generally. In his opinion, the Fed has been perhaps a little

bit too forthcoming in terms of their policies or maybe a bit confusing in terms of those policies and that's spook the markets are caused higher interest rates. So, know, some pretty significant changes not only in terms of the actual policy, but in terms of the communication as well. But we'll see. We'll see how this proceed, right? He's one person. He is the chairperson, so clearly that matters, but he's just one vote at the end of the day. Yeah, I guess fundamentally he's saying something is broken at the Fed. I'm not sure exactly what it is that's broken. I mean, to make these kind of change, or maybe not. Maybe these are changes on the margin, but it feels the things he's been talking about, like the Fed's size of the Fed's balance sheet,

feels like a big deal, like a big change. So it's like, you know, I guess underneath all of it is the implication that something is wrong at the Fed, that they're not conducting policy in the way that they should or it's appropriate. Or as he puts it, they're not staying in their lane. They're encroaching on fiscal policy. What's your, do you feel that way as, do you have, is that your sense of it as well? Is something, What is it we're trying to fix here? Is there something to fix? I'm not convinced that there is a fundamental shift that would occur here,

that the Fed is really conducting monetary policy in a haphazard way. At the end of the day, I think it's more about refinements around the edges, right? We can and should debate whether the dot plots, for example, actually help or hurt, right? these for the release of the forecast by the individual fed governors in a survey. There's been a lot of debate whether that helps or hurts the market. But that to me seems, you know, again, are kind of around the edges. Maybe the communication could be a little bit clearer, crisper. That's fine.

We should constantly be re-looking at that. But I don't expect that there is going to be such a radical or more fundamental change, right? the balance he grew during the GFC, you know, to prevent a panic or during the pandemic, I don't know that we're really going to back away from these types of policies when it comes to monetary policy overall. And which metric we use, that certainly debatable. Yeah, that's fine, but it doesn't really fundamental. I don't actually think that changes what monetary policy would have been or would, will be going forward to a large, degree. Maybe it's a quarter point cut a month earlier or a month later, but those metrics that we're

using are pretty highly correlated. What about you, Marissa, do you think there's something fundamentally wrong at the Fed that needs fixing or not? I don't think so. It seems to be operating the way it was intended, and they seem to be sticking with their dual mandate. It's a tricky sometimes and maybe sometimes it gives the appearance of looking political, I guess, was part of his argument, but they have to balance these things and there's debate among Fed governors about what should be done. You know, one of the points he made was that he thinks there should be more dissent on the FOMC. He said, you know, there's very rarely, until recently, right, with Stephen Myron on the Fed, that there's rarely been real dissent when the rate decisions

come down. But then when you listen to Fed governors speak, they do have different opinions. And they are more nuanced. And he said he wants to encourage more debate during those meetings and have more people give different opinions, which I think is fine and reasonable. I don't know at the end of the day that you end up in a different place with that, right? I mean, they're still voting and the majority rules there. But I don't, I'm not convinced that there's something fundamentally wrong that needs to be overhauled there. I think his suggestions seem to be around the margin. And I don't know at the end of the day that it's going to make a real difference in the way the Fed operates on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah, I'm confused by it all. you're right. I mean, the Fed should and always does take a good look at its process, you know, how it's conducting and communicating monetary policy. And it changes that every so often. It has a policy framework that it publishes. I think they have a process where they do this every five years or so. And they make changes over time. I mean, it wasn't long ago, at least, I'm getting older, so long ago, might mean a long ago, might mean a lot longer for other people. For me, not long ago, the Fed was operating in a very different way. I mean, not transparent, no forward guidance. There was no press conferences after the meetings. There was no every quarter of forecasts that provided in a lot of details regarding the distribution around those forecasts and trying to give people, you know, sense of what's, what's, how,

Fed members are thinking about things and where things are headed. So a lot's changed. So that always is the case. And I think that that's all obviously a very good thing. But other than that, I'm just a little perplex as to what is it we're trying, what is he thinks is broken and it needs fix it, you know, in a fundamental way. I mean, one thing he brings up, you know, is the balance sheet, the size of the balance sheet. And yes, the balance sheet is a lot larger than it was, you know, pre-GIF. FEC, the monetary policy was conducted in a very different way back then, and, you know, the way it's

conducted now, you need to have an ample amount of reserves, and therefore the balance sheet has to be much larger. And I don't see any going back to the previous way things were conducted in terms of the conduct of monetary policy. There's just no going back. The banking system would, I think, have a lot of indigestion and throw away. up all over that. I just don't see that happening. Yeah, maybe you could argue that the Fed has stepped across the line a little bit and entered into fiscal policy when it expanded its balance sheet by buying mortgage-secure. It buys treasuries and it buys mortgage-backed securities that are backed by institutions that are backed by the federal government, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA. So maybe you're

kind of putting your, you're putting your finger on the housing scale if you're buying mortgage security. So maybe that's fiscal policy. But that really feels like on the margin to me. So, you know, I'm really hard pressed to think that, that, that's a problem to be fixed. I don't know. He started talking at the hearings about being less transparent. You know, maybe there wouldn't be a press conference after meetings. You know, maybe there wouldn't be a dot plot. You know, maybe there wouldn't be as much information provided with the summary of economic projections. That's the forecast that they provide, you know, every quarter.

But is that a good thing? I can't imagine going back to less, more opaque, less transparent monetary policy makes a lot of sense. It just introduces more uncertainty, more volatility, which adds. to costs or adds to interest rates and spreads and everything else. So I really don't see that as a problem and certainly that, you know, becoming less transparent as a fix to anything. So I'm all confused, I'm very confused by it all. So I guess though, Chris, you made the point in the support of one. He's one person on committee and at this point it doesn't feel like he's going to convince the rest of the committee members to come on board with some of those big changes.

But we'll see. We'll see. Okay. Anything else on the Fed? You know, at the end of the day, Chris, do you think it's going to change where interest rates go? I mean, are we going to see rates come down more quickly as a result or any change whatsoever? I don't think so. You don't think so. It's quite doubtful. Like I said, I think that's the more of the communication, I think the argument kept me made that the messaging has been muddled at time. So has it? Give me an example when you say that. In some of the press conferences, right, it's not all that clear. And perhaps because of hedging, right? The Fed doesn't, the chairman doesn't want to make a very clear, give a very clear signal of where things are headed. But that could be misinterpreted by the, by the markets, right?

You've seen a lot of volatility around the markets as a result of the press conference itself. But really? I mean, how can they be clear? I mean, they're dealing with pandemic. They're dealing with Russian invasion of Ukraine. They're dealing with the tariffs. They're all over the place. They're dealing with Iran war.

So how can you be clear, you know, given the uncertainty that's being generated and created that, in fact, that you're reacting to? So I don't know. I think they're about as clear as they possibly could be. And do you think it's clearer to not have a press conference? I mean, no, no. I think we want a press conference, certainly. I do wonder about the dot plots themselves. They introduce a level of volatility or it's not very clear to me what the real value is, right?

They show a distribution, but it's a pretty small sample. so things subject to change, does that really provide a whole lot of insight? Or does it just create a lot of noise, right? Go through all this exercise to try to identify who all. Whose dot is that, right? Right. Try to piece things out and try to read more into it

than perhaps it actually is. And I think that was part of his point is that you have this dot plot where people have different opinions, but at the end of the day in these meetings, they're usually mostly unanimous. They have been. So then people are confused, like, well, you have this sort of different,

some people have this different view of inflation, but they're not really saying that or it's not clear. Yeah. But I totally agree that saying nothing seems worse. Worse to me. That seems more confusing to say nothing. Yeah. Not explain your thinking behind the rate decisions that you're making.

And this kind of debate discussion around dot plot is perfectly fine. And, you know, maybe it changes. I view that as going back to the policy framework and the process and that always should be evaluated and it should evolve and change over time. So I don't really have a strong view on the dot plot. You know, one benefit of the dot plot is you can see how wide the distribution of forecasts are. So if everyone's kind of centered around the mean or the median, that's one thing. If it's widely distributed, that's another thing, and that I find that helpful and useful, provide some information. But I wouldn't die on that hill. You know, people want to get rid of the top plot. You know, that's okay. The trim mean, you brought that up. Do you want to explain that? That's kind of interesting.

And what's your thoughts around that idea? Yeah. So the, you know, so we talk about inflation on the podcast quite often. We talk about the headline inflation, which includes all of the different components. in the in the case of the CPI, the CPI basket or the PCE components as well. So we have all these different individual prices and we're aggregating them with different weights.

And then we have the core, right, which is the excluding food and energy prices. And the rationale there is, well, those prices can be volatile. They can go up and go down. You know, food prices can go up if you have bad season, but then they tend to correct, right? Supply demand kind of balances,

things out. So the idea is you want to have more of a better read of a true underlying inflation, right? So the core is a good first approximation, but there are other attempts that we can make to come up with measures of underlying inflation. One of those is the trimmed mean, where essentially we look at all the prices and we look at all the price movements in any given month, and we cut out not just food and energy per se, but whatever is in the tails, whatever happened to spike within a particular month. So most recently, you remember the big spike in eggs, under a trim mean version of inflation, you trim out those big increases and those big decreases and really focus on a more central part of the distribution. So I think there's a lot of theoretical

justification for that. I had a classmate in graduate school that focused on this. She convinced me that this was a better approach to measure underlying inflation. Right. Because you are kind of not just arbitrarily selecting food and energy, but really focusing on whatever prices might be jumping around. So it's some standard deviation from the mean. Is that how it's figure out what to do? Yeah. Or somehow you're trimming the tails. So say the bottom top of 10% or 5%, however you want to define it. But yeah, typically you'd be looking at points in the distribution. And still using the PCE as opposed to the CPI? Correct. There are both, right? And actually, I think it's the Cleveland Fed that produces the trimmed CPI and the Dallas Fed produces the trim PCE, right?

I think PCE would still be the preferred measure overall. I believe that's what Warsh suggested as well, just because the weights are more dynamic, right? They're accounting for substitution effects. So I think it's a reasonable proposal. It does, if you look at the data currently, the trimmed versions are lower than the poor. Are they lower? I haven't looked recently. Are they lower?

They are lower. But yeah, it's like, so 2.3%. It's still above the Fed target, but modestly lower than what you might see from the PCE numbers. But so I don't think it's still justification to immediately take a rate cut, but it's arguably a better measure of a true underlying inflation that's, certainly the headline or the core. Right. I mean, I think that's reasonable. That's definitely a reasonable debate.

I mean, I've got other complaints about, you know, using owner's equivalent rent and including that. I mean, I think it should be a thousand flowers bloom kind of thing. Look at all the statistics and, you know, all the inflation-related statistics. They all have their – each one has their advantages and disadvantages, and it's important to look at all. all of them. I will say, though, I have gotten a greater appreciation for the consumer expenditure deflator in the context of the government shutdown and the impact on the CPI. Right. And the lower weight on the OER, you know, there's equivalent rent. It's meaningfully lower. But, yeah, that's a, that, and I put that in the bucket of process, you know, again, fair,

fair game. We should be thinking about that. And also, this is, more of a stretch. And I don't think Warsh brought this up, but, you know, I might have if I were, you know, testifying on this issue would be whether the 2%, excuse me, whether the 2% target is the appropriate target, right? I mean, should it be a range? And should it be, you know, should it be 2 and a half? Should it be three? I mean, is 2% the right number? I mean, we've got now a number of a number of years. behind us with using two, a lot of cross-country experience as well. So maybe we can go back and take a closer look and see whether that's the optimal kind of target inflation rate going forward. So I think those are all reasonable kinds of questions. Okay. Anything else on Kevin Warsh and the Fed? Oh, I guess the other key question is going to be whether Fed Chair Powell actually stays on because, you know, he still has term left. He won't be chair, but he could still participate on the committee.

What do you think? Is he going to stay or go? Marissa? I think he's going to go. You think he's going to go? Chris? I'm not so sure. Not so sure.

Might stick around for a while. See how it goes. Just to be a thorn in the side. Just to make it explicit, the issue is that if he leaves the Fed altogether, then the president has a position to fill, and obviously would fill that with someone who thinks along the same lines as he does with regard to lower interest rates. So, and this goes to Fed Independence, and so the thought is that Chair Powell, he would step down in his chair, but he would remain on the committee and he still have a vote and stymie the president's ability to, you know, put his own person

into that position. It'd be really interesting to see what he decides to do. I really don't know. I don't have a view, so be very interesting. Oh, one other quick point. The Fed obviously not only conducts monetary policy, but it also is the key regulator of the financial system. And in fact, I think that's where the Fed has more influence on the real economy and can get outside its, quote-unquote, its lanes, because it has a very significant influence and impact on bank capital, bank regulation, bank oversight, liquidity, and all of that goes to, you know, where banks are going to lend or not lend. And that really does have real economy, direct real economy implications and could be thought of as moving in on conduct of fiscal policy. But that hasn't, that didn't, as far as I know,

hasn't really come up, has it, Chris, in the discussions in the nomination process? No, no. Yeah, which is interesting. Yeah. Okay, well, let's move on. And let's talk a bit about what's going on in the Middle East and the Iran War. Marissa, maybe you can just spend a minute. What's the current state of play there?

It feels like it's changing by the second. But where are we? Right. I mean, I actually didn't look this morning. So I don't know if something changed overnight. But, I mean, the sort of fighting has ceased. but the strait is still seems to be mostly blocked. So the U.S. has forces in there and had been preventing any tankers from either entering or exiting Iranian ports.

Iran has forces there that essentially had opened the strait for a few days the other day, but based on the ceasefire, the deadline for that passed. They weren't satisfied with the talks that happened in Pakistan over the weekend. They are, again, taking control of the straight and seemed to be blocking most of the traffic that's going through. It seems like some things are getting through. Like there were a few cruise ships that had been stuck there that were allowed to pass through. There's actually cruise ships there? Yeah, there were two ships that had been stuck in there since this started.

Can you imagine being on that cruise? No. I can't imagine being on a cruise, which is going to... In the straight of Hormuz. Anywhere, but straight of Hormuz? Yeah. Yeah, wouldn't be my preferred itinerary right now. Anyway, so there's...

Some things are moving through, but it still looks like things are mostly blocked. We're mostly where we were a couple weeks ago. At least that's what I saw yesterday. Yeah, I think that's right. I looked this morning on it hasn't moved. And oil prices are, depending on which oil price you look at, there's big differences, whether you look at the spot price or the forward price, if you look at West Texas Intermediate, whether you look at Brent, it feels like, at least on Brent, one month forward, that we're sitting

somewhere just north of $100 a barrel. I think I have that right, you know, somewhere in there. And it could correct me if I'm wrong. Chris, but my understanding is that that $100.105 is actually lower than what's implied by the amount of oil production that's been disrupted by the conflict. So just for context, before the war started, the world was producing and consuming about 100 million barrels of oil a day. because of the conflict in the shutting down of the strait and the damaged infrastructure in the region, were down to about 90 million barrels a day. So we've lost about 10 million barrels of oil.

And if you kind of sort of do the arithmetic, think about price elasticity of demand for oil, so forth and so on, that would suggest that oil prices need to be somewhere around $120, $125, $130 per barrel. But they're not there. they're closer to 100, 105. And the thinking is that everyone believes that this war is going to come to an end, this trade's going to reopen, that production is going to improve, and therefore 125 isn't the right futures price. At this point, something closer to, something closer to $100 a barrel.

Does that sound about right to you, Chris? Do I have that arithmetic right? Yeah, I think that's the logic, right? That's the thinking. That's the thinking. Whether or not that, I don't know if you believe that, that'd be, what do you think? Well, I mean, I was going to see, you're very clever because I was going to, I was going to ask you that very same question. I was going to frame it as, how do you think this is all going to play out?

Do you think the futures prices have it right? But should I go first? No, you go first. I'm the host. You go first. I thought we're co-host. Oh. Oh, oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Ouch. No, there's definitely a main character here. I'm the lead co-host. How is this going to play out? Does the futures have it right? Is 105, 100, 105, the right price? Or is it higher or is it lower?

What do you think? So the way I think about it, the futures might have it right if indeed maybe we're miscalculating. Maybe we're not accounting for some Russian oil or some other oil that's out there, right, that exit, or the reserves, the petroleum reserves are out that. I don't know. I don't think that's the case. It seems like that would be on the margins, but it's possible that there are other sources of oil that we're just not accounting for.

Or maybe there's more oil being routed through the western ports of Saudi Arabia or what have you. So that's certainly possible. But assuming that's not the case that the numbers are real, I'm suspicious that the markets do have it wrong, that they're quite optimistic. And even if at least the reports I read suggest that even if the, The straight is opened up today, right? It still is going to take quite a while to get things back online, and there's going to be a risk premium that's out there that continues to persist for an extended period of time, right?

Who's going to really believe that this ceasefire or this opening of the street actually holds? Anything could flare up once again. And as it stands, Iran, has the capability, as we know, to shut down the straight pretty easily. So I'm suspicious. So what are you saying then? So we're at one, let's say we're at $105 a barrel on, and that's the one-month futures. We say it has it wrong.

Do you mean that you think a month from now the price is going to be higher than 105? Yeah, quite possibly. Okay. At least on a probability weighted basis if you think about the future here. Yes. So the narrative that would support that perspective is that this seeming game of chicken that's going on between the Iranians and the U.S. will continue on here for a while and that the straight will remain largely closed for not the next few days, but at least the next few weeks, maybe another month, two or three. That's kind of what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. That's my, that's my forecast. And even when it opens up, it's still, it's not going to be, it's not going to come back online as quickly as the, or the oil flows are not going to come back online as quickly as traders are anticipating. So when we sit down and discuss the assumptions around our May forecast, which is coming up here relatively soon, you're going to be advocating for a higher oil price path than we have right now to push it out. Yeah.

right now, I think we have it averaging around here for the quarter and then coming down to about $75,000 by the end of the year. Sounds like you would advocate for something higher than that. At least in the year term. Maybe we still get back to the end of year at 80. Maybe that still sounds reasonable, but in the interim, it might be a higher for a longer path. Right, right. And, Marissa, what do you think?

What's your forecast? Would you stick to the current baseline or forecast the 1-105 for the quarter down to 705-80 by the end of the year? Or do you think futures also have it wrong? I think I'd stick with the current baseline right now. And I don't have enough confidence or disagreement in the baseline right now to actually change it. I mean, this has already gone on longer than I think a lot of people thought it would. Including us. Exactly.

So I think there, I think it is very, it's becoming increasingly likely that this continues for another month or two like this in some fashion. And even when it ends, as you said, it takes a while for things to come back online. But even when it ends, you know, what does this do to everyone's evaluation of the risk of energy coming out of the Middle East in terms of the straight itself, in terms of insurance? for these tankers. I mean, it seems to me there's going to be a reevaluation of the risk of 20% of the world's oil, which is going to tack on, you know, as we think it will, right? We have oil, in our assumption, this kind of ends, but even in December at the end of the year, fourth quarter, we're still at sitting at a much higher oil price than we were coming into this. And I think that that could be a new reality in the oil market that there's,

There's just this assumption that this is a lot riskier than people previously thought it was. So I like the baseline. I think I'd stick with the baseline. And when we do this in a couple weeks, we'll see where we're at. But it seems all right to me right now. Well, and just to put a finer point on it, if we have oil at 7580 at the end of the year, it does suggest a risk premium, right? Yes, that's right.

That's right. Because before this, we were 60, 65 bucks. And so that's a 20, as much as a $20 per barrel risk premium built into price, at least through the end of the year. So that's, that's consequential. Well, I'm a very mixed mind. And I'm glad I got two more weeks before I have to make up my mind. I mean, on one side of it is I can't quite think of how the president is going to declare victory. here. It doesn't, it feels like there's no, there's no success. There's nothing that's going to be viewed as successful. That the regime is still in place. They now have complete control over the Strait of Hermuz. They've shut it down completely, which is moving things in the wrong direction, I think, from the rest of the world's perspective. The, the nuclear material is still there. Getting to it, I don't know, is feasible. It just doesn't, they're still a military threat throughout the entire region. So they're talking about charging a fee for any ship or tanker that goes through the Gulf,

collect revenue. How does the president stand down, declare victory, and move on? So I'm having a hard time getting my mind around that. So that's more consistent with your view, Chris, that this thing. drags on for longer and it takes more economic pressure to force the president to stand down and declare victory. I mean, obviously, the pressure is intensifying here pretty quickly because of the damages causing to the economy and the fast approaching election and the implications of all that. Of course, the Iranians are under a lot of economic pressure, but they've got a different kind

of government, you know, in regime. So they don't particularly, it doesn't matter whether they they care or not. I mean, they can do whatever they want. The president seems like he's under more pressure. But having said that, I then think about what just happened this morning when the president had the Justice Department, obviously, dropped its investigation of the Fed and Chair Powell. That was a sticking point. The question was how was he going to stand down to clear victory there? And he just did it.

You just, okay, I'm done. I'm going to move on and, you know, come up with something else. We'll have the IG, you know, investigate, whatever it is. But in my mind, that's stand down and declare victory and move on. So he has a great ability to pivot immediately, and it doesn't really matter. You know, everything else doesn't really matter. He'll just do it. And so, thus, I'm a very mixed mind.

So I, you know, but again, fortunately, you have a couple of weeks to see how this all plays out. But either way, no matter how this plays out, at this point, there's been economic damage. And, you know, we're paying a price for that. I will say that the damage would have been much more serious, if not for the fiscal stimulus that we received, the temporary deficit finance, tax cuts and spending increases that, you know, have helped support the economy, particularly the tax refunds are larger. and that's helped to cushion the blow. And by the way, you can see that in some of the economic statistics. You sell the retail sales numbers from March. They held up much better than I anticipated.

And I think that goes to those refund checks, which we're hitting in full force at the same time that the economy was struggling with higher gasoline prices. So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I think we're fortunate that we have two more weeks before we have to decide what to do here. Anything else to add on this, Chris? Marissa? No. I just wanted to say because we've gotten some questions about this, given the elevated price of oil now for the past couple of months, U.S. oil producers have not responded. You know, there's no increase in drilling activity in the U.S. So there was a lot of, you know, talk as this was happening is, oh, this will really benefit parts of the U.S. economy, right? That sort of the oil patch of our country, they'll start drilling again. They'll be able to create more jobs on the oil fields.

That has not happened at all. So if you're looking for U.S. producers to come to the rescue here and fill in the gap, it's not going to happen unless this is extremely prolonged, right? And oil prices are elevated for a very, very long time. But I'm not seeing much upside to the U.S. economy here. Yeah, I think that goes to the futures prices, right? I mean, they're focused on. Exactly. Exactly.

They're saying, well, if this is going to end, why invest? Yeah, why invest? Yeah, it's just not going to happen. So, well, I want to move on to the game and then take a few more listener questions and we'll call it a podcast. I will say I'm wearing, you probably have noticed, a headset. Did you notice that? Oh, we did, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So I think that's an upgrade. But because of that, now I can hear everyone's little moves. So I'm hearing Chris bump up against his desk. It's like it's actually unnerving. I can hear everything that's going on. All the dogs barking. Can you hear my dogs barking? Can you hear that?

I heard somebody's dog. I heard a couple dogs, I think. Sorry about that. Well, I was just going to say, don't burp, because I'll hear it. I'll hear it. Anyway, do I look really nerdy with these things on, or do I look professional? No, you look very, you look like a podcast host. I look a podcast.

Okay, I'll take it. I like Joe Rogan, huh? No. Do I want to look like Joe Rogan? Probably not. Probably not. Anyway, let's move on. Let's play the game. We put forward a stat. The rest of the group tries to figure that out with clues, questions, deducted reasoning. The best stats, one that's not so easy. We get it right away. One that's not so hard, we never get it. And if it's apropos to the topic at hand, which I'm not sure what that is. This podcast is a popery. all the better. And as tradition has it,

we always begin with Marissa. Marissa, what's your stat? My stat, well, you kind of already took my stats. So here's my backup stat. 4.7%. Economic statistic? Yes.

Government statistic. No. No. A percent? 4.7%. You said 4.7%. statistics that came out this week. Mm-hmm.

U-Mish. Yep. Oh, I know what it is. Inflation expectations. That's right. It's the one year ahead inflation expectation. Yep. 4.7%.

Did that come out today? An update came out today for the month of March? Yeah, that's right this morning. Yeah. So this was the revision to March. You might remember when it first came out that it was a record low. The overall sentiment index had dropped to a record low in March. So it was revised up a little bit with this with this revision, but it's

still a record low. Thank goodness, because I wrote an op-ed focused on that record low. Yeah, it went. The original reading was 47.6 and it moved up to 49.8, but that's still a record low. But yeah, the inflation expectations measures both the one year and the five-year jumped hugely, particularly the one year, it had been 3.8 percent in February, it jumped to 4.7 in March. So consumers at least are obviously very keyed into what's happening with gas prices. And we know Michigan is very sensitive to gas prices. Yeah, I mean, this goes back to the Fed. Inflation expectations are obviously really critical here.

I mean, if they look like they're coming undone, that they're rising, then it's much more likely the next move by the Fed's not to cut interest rate, but to raise interest rates because they're going to be fearful that that gets embedded into wage price dynamics and exacerbates the kind of the stagflation scenario effects. Did we talk about this last week inflation expectations, Chris? I can't remember. We talk about it all the time. We talk about it all the time.

And have you, I haven't looked this over the past week or so. And I tend to downweight the consumer inflation expectations because they're obviously very sensitive to things like. like gas prices and they go up, they go down, they go all around, but therefore pay more attention to expectations embedded in the bond market and securities prices. Have you looked at that, Chris? Anything changing there? I think we settled on the five-year treasury break-evens as a good proxy or five-year,

five-year forwards. Yeah, they've been drifting upward, but they're not, it's right around 2.5, 2.6%. So still, that kind of the high end of. of the band that it has been in for the past few years. So not on more quite yet, but certainly higher than to watch than they have been. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Anything else in that you missed survey? Do you want to point out, Marissa? Republicans, Democrats, I'm sure that's still the case. You know, I didn't actually look at that breakdown. I usually do. I didn't look at it. I'm assuming it's what it usually is. What it usually is.

But I should say that the enormous drop in the index in March, it was mostly around expectations versus present conditions. They both fell, but it was the expectations index that fell more. You know, as the listeners know, we've been doing a lot more with AI, and I've been vibe coding with Claude, and I was experimenting with the different measurement surveys and different parts of the sentiment surveys. and different parts of the sentiment surveys as leading indicators to see which would be the best leading indicator. And I've always had the view that the conference board survey of sentiment

is a better indicator of what's going on and what people, where the future is headed than the University of Michigan survey, particularly in recent years for lots of different reasons. And that vibe coding actually bears that out. And here's the one new piece of information the within the conference board survey, the component that is most predictive is present conditions, you know, the present conditions index.

That's much better than the expectations index in terms of even as a leading indicator. So aren't you proud of me? I'm all in on this. I am. I'm very impressed by your use of AI. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. I appreciate that.

I need this. I need all the stroking I can get. Okay, let's move on. Chris, what's your stat? Okay, $600 per metric ton. $600 per metric tonne? It's a commodity. It is.

Very good. Price of copper? Nope, no, that would be in ounces, wouldn't it? Still? Metric tonne. It does go in. into copper mining. Coal?

Nope. It's not steel. No. Is it a metal? No. Is it a gas? No. Is it energy related?

Loosely. Loosely. It's not a form of energy, but it's derived. It goes into the production of what? A copper. It goes into the production of copper, nickel metals.

Oh. Geez, we should notice. What's that? It's not sand, is it? No, no. It's a material, though. Yes. It's a metric tonne. So it's got to be a material.

Oh, geez, are we going to kick? It's a non-metallic chemical element. Are we going to kick ourselves? We're going to kick ourselves when you tell us? Probably not. It's a tough one. Oh, it's a tough one. We probably never even heard of this thing.

Have we heard of it? You've heard of it. It's yellow. Smells like rotten eggs. Ammonia? Sulfur. Sulfur. Sulfur.

Really? Yes. Wow. Sulfur is up $600 per metric tonne. That's up 40% since February, since the start of the conflict. And it, what's that? So sulfur is used in the production of all these different types of metals? Yeah, sulfuric acid is.

Oh, sulfuric acid, right. Yeah. It's also in fertilizer. Mm. Right. And so I bring it up just, well, one, because it's a pretty shocking increase, big increase in a short period of time. And then it does go into these other products. And it's one of these unintended consequences, right?

We talked about helium in the past and how that goes into semiconductors. But sulfur, quite a bit of sulfur is produced out of the Middle East. I think half of all the seaborne sulfur comes out of the Gulf. So it's certainly having an impact on fertilizers and some of the other metals prices that we might be watching as well. So again, some of these unintended consequences are going to continue to bubble up the longer this goes on. It's not just about oil or petroleum and the direct effect on gas prices. It has an effect on a lot of other things. And fertilizer in particular, right?

That goes right into food and timing is really important, right? So there could be increased pressure on food prices throughout the year if we miss the growing season. So sulfur is energy intensive to produce sulfur? It requires a lot of energy. Is that why it's in the Middle East? I believe it's a byproduct of oil or natural gas production or something? That's a good question. I didn't look that up.

Good question for Claude. Yeah, yeah, I'm right on it. Right on it. Yeah, I'm very curious. I had not heard that. And do we track software prices? Where did you find that? We track it.

We don't, well, you might have a PPI, if you will, but these are current market spot prices. So I look at trading economics. Oh, I see. This was actually in a Barron's article. Ah. I was to take a look at that. Oh, that was a really good one. Okay, we'll come back when you get the answer from Claude or chat, GPT, or remember.

But my stat is twofold, 13.2% and 22.2%. 13.2% and 22.2%. It's a stat that came out this week. It's a government stat? It's, yeah, it comes from the government. Bankruptcies. Very good. Very good. So what's the 13.2%?

I think that's the increase over the past month? No, that's a year-over-year in personal bankruptcies. So personal bankruptcies are up 13.2% in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of last year. And 22.2% is the year-over-year percent increase in corporate business bankruptcies of year-over-year. So bankruptcies are moving. That sounds like a big number, right? Do you just hear those numbers you go? oh, that can't be good.

But you have to put it into a historical context. And bankruptcies, personal bankruptcies are still, despite the increase, not quite where they were prior to the start of the pandemic. So they obviously fell very sharply in the pandemic with all the forbearance and lower interest rates and everything else. And they have been moving higher for the past few years. But they're still not quite back to where they were pre-pandemic. And even pre-pandemic, they were much, much lower than they were historically. for lots of different reasons. Business bankruptcies, they moved up more,

and now they are now higher than they were pre-pandemic. So that was still well below their all-time highs, nowhere even close, but they're up from where they were pre-pandemic. But even there, I'm not sure I'm getting, I would get overly exercised. We also have a lot of business formation.

You know, there's been a surge in business formation, new startups, the pandemic hit, and, you know, if you get more form business, new businesses, that obviously many fail, so you're going to get more business failures and more bankruptcy. So I don't know that the increase in bankruptcy, business bankruptcy is a sign of stress per se, but more just the fact that you've had a lot more business formation as well. So I thought that was an interesting statistic. you know, it's indicates that things are

you know, kind of some stress is developing, but in the grand scheme of things, it's still very manageable, not that big a deal. Good. Anything else before we move on to the listener questions on the game? Chris, you wanted to talk about Spirit Airlines, right?

Oh, the bankruptcy is a good segue to Speer Airlines. right? Right. And, yeah, so the Trump administration has indicated the possibility of a bailout for otherwise bankrupt Spirit Airlines, I think, half a billion dollars. That seems pretty low, isn't it? Is it, 500 million, is that the number they've been talking about? Is it an outright purchase of Spirit?

it? That I'm not sure of the detail. It was, so it's indicating a 90% ownership share. Okay. All right. So I guess you have to kick out their, make the existing bondholders somehow. I don't know. I don't know the detail.

I don't know that details have been released. Right. But just in general, there's been now quite a bit of debate in terms of industrial policy and what, you know, is this, should the, should the government be involved in a bailout, like Spirit yeah there's been many Republicans

actually have come out against it right have you ever flown Spirit? Have you ever been on Spirit Airlines?

I have. You have? Oh my God. Wow. Yes. They're mostly Northeast, right? Are they

Florida, I think. Florida. Yeah. So what do you think? It's the great hound of the air. It's

No, I don't think the government should not be involved in bailing out this failed airline, right? We've had bailouts in the past. They've been very targeted in the sense that, you know, at least there was some, you could make the case that there was some broad economic consequence if these key industries or our businesses failed, like the auto industry or, you know, some of the banks during the financial crisis. but this is a small airline, small share, not well loved. I don't know what the, what is the rationale for the federal government to step in and take it over? What is the rationale? That's why I'm asking you. That's why I'm asking you.

I'm co-host. I'm asking these questions. I mean, what's the ostensible rationale? I guess there would be jobs saved, right, or the same. airline would Yeah, I mean, there were, what I was reading

yesterday, I mean, there are a lot of jobs associated with it, sure, but I mean, the counter

rationale is, well, there's many counters to it that I can think of, but it's a poorly run business,

let it go under. Some of those people will get snapped up by other airlines, right? I mean, this is a

small airline in the grand scheme of things. There's pilots, flight attendants, all the, you know, mechanics,

everybody affiliated with it. I mean, there's, there'll be a lot of demand for some of those people. So it's not as if you're kind of leaving all of that to flounder. I mean, that's kind of the way things work. But this business goes under and then pieces of it get snapped up by other players in the industry. I don't know why the federal government wants to own Spirit Airlines. I really don't get that. Well, what about the equity stakes that the government is taken under the Trump administration in things like Intel or critical minerals companies, that kind of thing? What do you think about that? Is that reasonable? I'm not a huge fan of those, but I can at least justify those a bit more.

Because of national security maybe. Yeah, that's sorry for those. Yes. There's some. I think it also creates perverse incentives and conflict. of interest, so I'm not, again, not a big fan. If you were King, you wouldn't have done that, taking an equity stake, no.

Maybe in some of those more selective, I don't know about Intel, that's the one I'm most concerned with. It's a pretty big stake. Or the Nvidia deals, I don't know. Maybe some of the more strategic minerals or some of those companies, I could argue for national security, for national security, security reasons. You want to preserve an interest in those, but yeah, I'm not a fan of industrial

policy in general, so just my your take. Well, yeah, I think one of the strengths of the U.S. economy, one of the things that sets our economy apart from others is you can fail. And, you know, and you should allow failure because if you don't, then you're hurting all the other companies, industries in the same industry that you're trying to support, right? I mean, if you're propping up Spirit Airlines, doesn't that mean you're hurting American Airlines and United Airlines? I'm making that up because I don't know what their footprint is, but in how big they are or what it really matters. But the principle of it is, you know, you're propping up zombie companies. That can't be good in terms of allocating scarce resources to where they're going to be most productive. And so I think

that's a big mistake. I think you can make a case in times of crises, you know, when, you know, an industry might be at risk because of circumstances are, you know, completely independent of anything they've done. It's not about their business practices per se, but they're just getting, like the auto industry in the teeth of the GFC, you know, for example, they got a bailout. If they didn't get a bailout, then they would have been wiped out. All the dealers would have been wiped out. there was a real, that would have been a mistake, I think. So I'm okay with that. And the way it was structured was you took an ownership, the government took an ownership stake, but there was warrants and other things to allow them to get out. And there was a lot of incentive for the

government to get out. And the government did get out, you know, pretty quickly of those ownership deals after the crisis passed. I guess you can make a case on, I think you can make a case on a strategic level. I think that's reasonable. So critical minerals that, you You could, you know, that feels like something may be okay. Even the Chips Act, you know, that's another form of industrial policy. Maybe, Chris, you don't find, you're not a fan of that. But I can make, I think that made sense. You know, we were very, we are, we were even more vulnerable to China, Taiwan, because we were, there was no chip production here, very little, and it wasn't coming here.

The Chip Act made it very attractive for chip companies to come and open up. shop and expand here. And that's worked quite successfully. And I think that you could make that case. So that was a good. That was providing incentives, though, right? It wasn't taking ownership stakes in those companies. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, that's different kind of industrial policy. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. That's absolutely the case. Yeah, totally, totally the case. So I think in general, I'm on board with what you're saying, Chris. I think you want to make the level playing field and let everyone have at it and compete. and the best business wins, right?

And it's successful, and the losers, those researchers get reallocated, and they don't weigh down the winners. So I think that's a pretty intrepid path to go down, I think, if you're starting to bail out individual companies like that. Without any clear, you know, rationale or criteria, you know, It's just seemingly done on the fly, you know, without much thought. I think that that would be a big mistake.

Okay. Let's take a – oh, go ahead. No, sorry. Is this a next natural step after protectionist tariffs, though? Protectionist tariffs are also, you know, coddling or protecting certain companies. In spirit is the same thing, pretty much, just in different form. You're bailing out certain companies. companies because they can't compete globally, right? So, okay, well, believe it or not, we're

an hour into the podcast. And I wanted to take a few listener questions as promised. So let's just do that. Let's turn to those questions. And Marissa, what have you got for us? Well, I have to say we, we answered a lot of questions just in the course of our conversation. Did we? Okay. Yeah, we did. We had questions about the Fed's balance sheet. We had questions about the 2% inflation Target. Chris, you just seemingly answered one as well about knock-on effects of the closure of the straight and what other products or commodities are being affected. So we've done well without even meaning to.

Here's one. And this probably, this might be a little unfair. It probably requires, well, I don't know, Mark. You have a. Who's your favorite macroeconomist? No, that isn't the question. Okay. The question is, has any federal, this is a question about the one big beautiful bill act.

We've talked about how it is a tailwind to growth and it's helping to offset some of the economic damage that's happening because of Iran. But this person wants to know if any federal tax cut legislation has ever paid for itself. We always talk about how the OBBA is deficit financed, right? So therefore, it will not pay for itself. It very much puts us in a hole. But has any tax cut legislation ever paid for itself that you know of? I'd say general – I don't know. I haven't evaluated all the various tax cuts that have been implemented over the years or tax cuts.

policy more specifically over the years. So I'm not sure. I would doubt it, though. You're arguing that the benefit of the tax cut to the economy is so significant that you generate all these other additional revenue that it offsets the loss of revenue from the tax cut. That's a pretty tough bar to get over. So it's certainly not these big tax cuts, these like the OBVBB, or the Tax Cut and Jobs Act back in 2017, that clearly has not been paid for by increased economic activity. And Congressional Budget Office is weighed in on this and is pretty clear on that. There might be some smaller, specific tax cuts. Maybe, Chris, you can remember some along the way, but I'm hard pressed to think of what they would be where they would pay for themselves.

So the answer is no. I don't think so. I think they're, you know, they're, as you would expect, you know, you lower taxes, you lose revenue on that. Chris, am I missing anything? No, I've kind of racked my brain as well. I can't think of, certainly, again, I think nothing on the large tax cuts that we're all focused on. Maybe, probably some smaller tax cut you could make the argument. But there's a, it's hard to measure.

as well, right, dynamically. So that's always been an issue, but, yeah, I can't think of any large. Yeah, I guess you could make more of a case when we cut taxes back in the 1980s, right? Because the top marginal rates for individuals was very, very high, right? I mean, I think in that period in the 60s and 70s, the top marginal rate was, I'm making this up, but I think it's close to right, like 99. 95 percent. So what that means is for every dollar of income, you lose 995 cents to the government in the form of the tax. So maybe in that case, if you go from 90, 95 down to 50, 55, you know,

people will work more and therefore you get more tax revenue and it pays for itself. So that may, that may be a good case and point, but even there, I'm not sure. I think it might be closed. you could make that kind of an argument. But here we are, the top marginal rate is, what is the top marginal rate now? I should know this, right? I should. Is it 35 to 40 percent?

Somewhere in there. Yeah. Without considering state and local tax. And that doesn't feel high enough that if you lower it, you're going to get a lot of additional work and economic activity and therefore pay for it. So the answer is generally not, certainly not in the current tax environment

that we're living in. That's a good question, though. Maybe there's been some studies there that we can take a look at. Yeah, I mean, I knew it was kind of a hard question, but it is... Oh, that's what you said. It's unfair. It's unfair.

But, yeah, I don't know. It's fair. It probably requires a little more research, right, on our part to definitively answer that. But in terms of big tax packages, I think that's right. Right. I guess we've argued for the capital gains tax

on housing. That's a good point. Right. That it might actually pay for itself, actually. You're right. You want to explain that? That's a good one. That's a good point.

Yeah. So you sell your house. Currently, there's an exemption of $250,000 in profits for capital gains for singles, $500,000 for married couples. The argument is that many homeowners are not selling their homes because of this. in part because of this capital gains potential tax that they would pay. If they've been in their home a long time, they could be exposed to a large gain. Instead, they can prefer to live in their home and then pass on the home to their errors,

who get it on a stepped-up basis and don't pay any capital gains tax. So theory here is that if we actually increase those thresholds, say, to half a million or a million dollars, that could lead to some additional sales, right? So you lose some revenue or the federal government lose some revenue from a capital gains tax perspective. But then you make it up with additional sales activity. So you would have everything from sales taxes as those or transfer taxes as those houses are bought and sold. And then you have all the things that go into home ownership in terms of remodeling and everything else that goes on as you get the housing market moving again. So net net, if you consider everything, it could be the case that those taxes, those capital gains taxes get offset by increased sales tax or property taxes or other taxes do when properties transact.

There you go. There's a good case and point. Yeah, good one. Good question. Let's take one more and then we'll call it a podcast. Okay. This is about tariffs. and how tariff policy this year has changed the trade deficit surplus mix and how has that impacted GDP?

And this listener says, is it true that much of GDP growth is really just a result of falling imports rather than any real increase in economic activity? Should we be skeptical of the GDP numbers? I'm speaking from my mind's eyes, so I may not have it precisely right, but my sense is that the trade trade. deficit has not shifted to any significant degree. It's gone up. It's gone down quarter to quarter because of the tariffs are up and down and all around and creates a lot of confusion. But if you abstract from the ups and downs and all around, just take a look at the deficit in 2025 and compare it to 2024. I don't think it's materially different. You know, what's happened is there's been shifts in the pattern of trade. So, you know, obviously trade with China has fallen.

off quite considerably because the tariffs on Chinese product has been so much higher than everywhere else. But that just means it's gone somewhere else, you know, to Mexico, to Vietnam, to other countries. And so the net, net, net, I don't think it's had any material impact, at least so far on the trade balance. In terms of, you know, what it means for growth, you know, quarter to quarter, it's had really big impacts on GDP. That's why you get some quarters that are three, four, five percent, other quarters that are very, very, very, very, week. We had a decline in Q1, 2025, you remember back, and that goes to the surge in imports in anticipation of the tariffs that were coming, and that were subtracted from economic growth.

But, you know, there, again, if the trade balance hasn't shifted all that much, just had very little impact, abstracting from the volatility on GDP growth. Do I have that right, Chris, do you think? Did I dig it that roughly right? You do. I'd emphasize there have been some of these reports that were using a little bit of cherry-picked data, right? To your point, we had huge import surge in Q1 of last year in 2025 in anticipation of the tariffs. And then if you compare that to Q1 of this year, right, imports are much lower because of the higher tariffs in part. So you can't just look at that and claim, aha, look how successful things have been, imports are way down. You have to really look throughout the pattern of the year. Yeah, let me ask you a question

know, so the effective tariff rate, that's as opposed to the kind of the stated tariff rate. So you're actually looking at the tariff revenue that's generated as a percent of the value of the product that's subject to tariff is about 10 percent. That's up, I'm rounding, so take that into consideration. But we were at 2 percent, 2 and a half percent at the start of all this back in early 20-25. we're now at 10%, that's a pretty significant increase in tariff rates. Do you think ultimately that would all else equal reduce the size of the deficit or not? I mean, it means less trade, right?

It's going to reduce trade, imports and exports, but it could actually, if it reduces volumes, it could actually reduce the deficit over time, I suppose. I suppose. I suppose, yeah. I don't know. Probably directionally, yes. Directionally. I don't know that.

It's a large effect, though. Yeah, and of course, you're giving up a lot of the benefits. Like the, you're reducing the competitive environment, therefore it affects investment decisions and productivity growth and competitiveness and everything else. There's a lot of downsides to it. But, you know, maybe I hadn't really thought about it, but maybe it reduces it. But so far it hasn't, as far as I can tell, there hasn't really been any trade. change in trade. Just the deficits, who we have a deficit with has changed because of the

businesses are very good at changing their supply chains and take advantage of differentials and tariffs and that's what they're doing. And you can see it in the data. Okay. Anything else before we call this a podcast? I just want to say on that question, I was looking at data the other day. I mean, some of this is offset by the fact that we're now importing a huge amount of chips for AI. So there's just been an enormous increase in imports of chips because of AI that is seemingly impervious, right, to the tariffs. So while we may be reducing our imports in other areas, AI is really masking some of that because of the run-up in chips. very good which are

completely imported so yeah I guess that should change though as these over time yeah new fat plants kick into gear yeah

I would think but but even with the new fat plants the demand is so strong it's going to overwhelm the production of those fat plants and therefore we still need imported product

you know okay very good well anything else guys guys, Chris, Marissa, anything before we call it a podcast? Hydrogen sulfide. Oh. Hydrogen sulfide is naturally occurring with petroleum and therefore it has to actually

be removed in the refining process. So that's why it's a byproduct of the... Oh, interesting. So you produce oil, you're going to produce hydrogen sulfide in the sulfur and because of the disruptions to oil production, it's a disrupting supply of sulfur and therefore the price increase. Yeah. Exactly.

You got it. And that sulfur goes into the manufacturer of a lot of metal, metals, it goes into fertilizer, you know, all kinds of stuff. Oh, interesting. Okay, very good. Okay, we're going to call it a podcast, and we mentioned the summit, so I'm not going to mention that again. This might be the last time I mentioned it until we see you in San Diego.

And with that, dear listener, we are going to call this a podcast. Take care now.