The Indicator from Planet Money - How many times can you say uncertainty in one economic report?

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

Uncertainty. That's the word-of-the-moment with tariffs, market swings and lots of economic volatility. It's also showing up in the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book, featuring anecdotes across the U.S. economy. On our latest edition of the Beigies, what can a farmer from the Mississippi Delta tell us about uncertainty? Related episodes: How USAID cuts hurt farmers (Apple / Spotify) Why Trump's potential tariffs are making business owners anxious (Apple / Spotify) For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Tyler Jones. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

NPR. Waylon, what do you think when you hear the word beige? Well, Robert Smith, my first instinct is to think about the government publication known as the beige book. Because you're a nerd. And how we at The Indicator always do a fun show when the beige book is released. I mean, we kind of invented the beige franchise and podcasting. So imagine my horror. When I discovered that two TikTok influencers are fighting.

over who owns the beige aesthetic in social media? How very dare they? I do know there is something called the clean girl vibe on the internet, women who love to wear neutral and cream and have immaculate, minimalist houses. I know nothing about this being cluttered and maximalist myself. Well, apparently there are two women who do live that way, and they're trying to market that same vibe, and one has sued the other for $150,000 for mental anguish.

Legal experts are calling it the sad beige lawsuit. Well, that sounds super depressing, so maybe we should emphasize that we invented the happy beige vibe. And I will note that the beige book was first published by the Federal Reserve 55 years ago. So maybe we should all be paying them. They've got enough gold in their vault, Robert. Let's just give them an award. It's the Bezzi Awards. Our eight times a year salute to the art and science.

of telling stories about the economy. I'm Robert Smith. And I'm Waylon Wong. We may not be on the cutting edge of fashion, but we know what's hot and what's not in the economy. On this edition of the Beji Awards, we find that businesses and economists across the nation are certain of only one thing.

Uncertainty. So much uncertainty. And we'll meet one man whose farm is being crushed by it. After the break. I always like to remind everyone how this award show works. There are 12 regional banks in the Federal Reserve System. Each one carefully studies their local economy and brings back these little stories of what they see. They publish them in the document known as the Beige Book.

We read it so you don't have to. And then we give awards to the very best stories. And this time in the Bege Book, one big thing stood out to Robert and me, the word uncertainty. That word showed up 45 times in the Beige Book. That's a new record and more than twice what it's been recently. That is a very specific level of uncertainty. It's like the smartest people in business are throwing up their hands right now and saying, hell if I know what's going to happen.

Honestly, it's really scary. Businesses depend on planning. How many products should I buy? How many people should I hire? How much money should I set aside for the future? And right now, everyone is flying in the dark. Part of that is tariffs. Tariffs were mentioned 49 times in the beige book, by the way.

The president has been slapping tariffs on. and then unslapping those same tariffs and then delaying the slap and then doing that thing where you sort of fake a slap and then point and laugh. And that is creating a lot of feelings as detailed in the beige book. The Minneapolis Fed reports that the head of a trade group in the district said we're seeing a nervousness around tariffs and its impact on the industry. Nervousness. The Dallas Fed reported in their beige book entry, quote, Respondents said the back and forth tariff talk has been strict. And that the heightened uncertainty is highly disruptive.

Stress and nerves. A bad combo if I've ever heard one. But we got to pick up the mood here. It is an award show after all, and we can't be ringing our hands on the red carpet all day. Robert, please pass me the envelope. There you go. The Bezier Award goes to the St. Louis Fed. Coming to the stage is an economist for the St. Louis Fed, Charles Gaskin. Or wait, do you go by Chuck? Either one.

I mean, my mom calls me Charles, so we'll go with Charles. Okay. Everyone else calls me Chuck, but if she hears this, I think she'd prefer to hear Charles. Well, congratulations, Charles, and congratulations to your mother, too. Your entry in the beige book stood out because you mentioned a couple of industries beset by uncertainty, but that have no choice but to move forward anyway. You talked about construction and construction firms and how they're facing worker shortages because of immigration policy and potentially paying more because of tariffs.

But once you break ground in the spring, like, you have to keep building. Yeah. And the second story that stood out to us was about agriculture, farming, another industry where you have to start right now in the spring, even though the future is scary and unknown at this point. The award-winning entry from the beige book reads, quote, A contact in Memphis noted that the current agriculture market was in a worse spot than

the same time last year, with low cash flows due to high input costs and low commodity prices. Context noted that tariffs, policy uncertainty, and a lack of clarity regarding farm bill safety nets were negatively impacting the sector. Some farmers also reported having no expectation of profits in the 2025 crop year, and others have gone out of business. No profits. I know. Charles, it's always a hard time to be a farmer, but it seems like it's even harder this year. Yeah, I think that's a fairly accurate statement. We've had relatively high real crop prices for the better part of the last decade, but they are at historically low levels right now.

You know, fertilizer prices have moved up. The reports from farmers do suggest that, you know, they're not going to be able to sell the crop that they planted last year to generate enough cash. So it is a very difficult environment for the ag economy. We wanted to hear how farmers are personally navigating this, difficult environment. So we called up one not too far from the Federal Reserve Building in St. Louis. My name is Zarlane Woodard. I'm a fourth-generation farmer in Tunica, Mississippi. My farm is Urban Hills Farms. In the Mississippi Delta. Definitely a blues situation right now in the agricultural

part of the Delta. Zerlund told us that a lot of the farms do a winter wheat that they sell around the world through USAID. The same USAID that's been essentially cut by the Trump administration, So there's a lot of extra grain sitting around. And looking forward to this season, Zarlane is worried about the rising cost of fertilizer. A lot of our fertilizer comes from Canada. And with tariffs that's heating Canada now, that's going to really drive up the price of fertilizer, which ultimately affects your overall profit margin. In fact, Zarlane is changing his plans right now based on the tariffs.

rice. The crop rice apparently takes a lot of fertilizer to grow, so he's switching to soybeans, which requires a lot less fertilizer. But soybean prices are low. And they're unstable. If Brazil has a big crop, then worldwide prices will drop. And China has just put a 10% tariff on U.S. soybeans in retaliation for our tariffs. Zerlin spends a lot of his time on his phone watching international news and soybean prices. It'll get to some point to where you have to make that decision to where are you going to continue to farm. Because if you can't make a profit, you know, there's no point in continuing. So the farmer started by your grandfather. What would he say now? I don't know what his ideas would be right now. You know, it's tough. But Sarlane isn't dwelling on it. When we left him, he was staring at soy prices on his phone again,

trying to figure out if he should lock in a price now or gamble on it going up later. There's a lot of people watching the minute-by-minute changes in the economy right now, including our Beji Award winner, Charles Gaskin of the St. Louis Fed. When we talked to him last Friday, he was doing a million things, getting ready to go on spring break with his family. We are heading to New York to see family and hit the sights in the city. You know, when you win a big award like the Bejie, you're supposed to say you're going to Disneyland.

I know. Unfortunately, that's not happening for us this time. New York is a fine consolation prize. Congratulations again to the St. Louis Fed. This episode is produced by Julia Ritchie with engineering by Neil Rouch. It was fact-checked by Tyler Jones. Kaking Cannon is our show's editor and The Indicator is a production of NPR.