The Rundown - Why Unchecked Inflation is the Economy’s Biggest Threat (ft. Josh Brown)

Episode Date: November 16, 2025

Americans are feeling the strain of rising prices and it’s driving a new level of economic anxiety. Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, joins us to break down why broad-based inflation can feel worse than a recession, how the housing market is shaping consumer sentiment, the unexpected parallels between President Trump and Zohran Mamdani, and why this moment might actually be the best time to take the leap into entrepreneurship.

Welcome back to the rundown, one of the top business podcasts in the world. Today, we are talking to Josh Brown. Josh has been in the finance media space for a long time. He's one of the best to do it. And today's interview might be our best ever. Josh was dropping some fire takes and insights. We covered everything from inflation to recession to the housing market. I mean, the half hour just flew by.

There was even a point in the interview where Josh put on a tie to match the aesthetics of the podcast. So great energy on this one. I think you guys are going to love it. All right. Let's go. All right, guys, today we are Josh Brown and welcome to the rundown. Oh, it's your show. I'm sorry. No, you can run the show, Josh. You can run the show. Guys, we got downtown Josh Brown on the show today, absolute legend, CEO of Ritt Holtz Management. You've seen them on CNBC. I know you've seen him on YouTube. You've probably seen him at an airport bookstore as well. Josh, thank you so much for hopping on the podcast. It's my pleasure and huge shout out to all the publicans and all the public fans. I am one of you. I trade on public. Absolutely. Huge fan of public here. I'm a huge fan of

your work, not just recently, not just the podcast. I'm talking like the blog boy days. I'm talking the reform blogger days. You're not going to believe this, but I was reading your stuff when I was in high school. myself a little bit. I used to get your blog notifications on Google Reader. I think you were cranking out like what, two to three posts a day at the time, right, Judge? Yeah. Oh my God. You know what? In those days, like people read blogs and the origin of the origin, the, the, the, the etymology of the term blog is web log. And people, it would be like a running log of your day. Like people would throughout the course of the day check in with different things. And then Twitter sort of like, became an intermediary where it's like, all right, I don't have to write publish on the blog.

I could just tweet stuff as I'm thinking of it. But like in the first days of blogging, that's what it was about. It was about logging everything that was going on that you thought was worth sharing. Absolutely. And you were like I said two to three, maybe even four posts a day. I would read them on my Google reader, those RSS reader things and the good old days. And what I like is that you're starting to write again. I saw that you posted a piece this week, which is what I want to talk about today. You wrote a piece today, wrote a piece this week talking about, your hot take was that a unchecked inflation is worse than a recession, which I think is an incredible take. I just wanted to kind of walk through your thought process and why you feel that

way and just kind of dive into that topic a little bit. Okay. So I think most people got what I was trying to do. I'm not political. I guess I consider myself to be, What did I tell my partner? I said I'm a centrist anarchist. I basically hate everybody. So I'm not a Trump guy. I'm not a Mom Donnie guy. I just recognize that like the extremes of both parties are, I think, ascendant because

everyone is angry and they're sort of angry about mostly the same things, although with some obvious differences. And, you know, like the financial media spends a lot of its time on recession watch. Like, oh, we're going to have a recession? Is this the year we have a recession? We actually haven't had a cyclical recession in 15 years since a great financial crisis. We had a 15-minute recession during COVID.

And in 2022, we almost tipped into recession. And then Chad Cheap-T came along and fired the stock market up and kicked off this AI CAPX boom that probably saved us from having a downturn. So like we're like 15 years post recession. It doesn't mean we won't have one. But the actual thing that animates people when they answer these surveys about how they feel about their job prospects, about the economy, they're not talking about GDP. Because GDP is growing. But they're so heavily dissatisfied in so many ways.

And I think the thing that we've kind of lost sight of is a recession really sucks for everyone. but it's like catastrophic for the people that lose their jobs. But that's only six or seven percent of the population is unemployed in a severe recession. Inflation affects all of us, every single one of us, whether we're working or not. So it's like which is worse? And I've come to the conclusion that I think widespread unchecked inflation that continues on for a really long period of time is actually worse. than a one of the mill cyclical recession. I like the take.

I think I'm there. I think I'm there now. But I wonder if like politicians agree with that because now we're seeing like what Trump is proposing a $2,000 tariff check. I feel like no politician wants a recession on their on their resume. They're so scared of that that I'm not sure if we're ever going to have another recession because these politicians are just going to hand out stimulus after stimulus and just live with inflation because they don't want a recession on their scorecard. It actually causes inflation. So there was an open question prior to the pandemic,

like whether or not there would, whether or not we would ever get inflation, like the world was inherently disinflationary. And we had had a great moderation from the early 80s until 2020 where, you know, prices rose in the economy. It's not that there was no inflation. So it wasn't deflation, but there were so many secular trends around the world that were producing disinflation. So one of those was obviously globalism and the ability to send manufacturing to countries with a lower cost of labor. That went on for decades. Some other factors was like the IT revolution that started in the early 80s with the personal computer. And, you know, obviously technology is inherently.

disinflationary because it enables you to do more things with less human capital and brings about all these efficiencies that drive down costs. So we had had these secular tailwinds that kept us in a moderate inflation environment or a disinflationary environment. And then the post-pandemic period threw all of that into reverse. And everything became inflationary. And I, you know, I think the the key thing is the politicians hopefully don't take the wrong lesson from our response to the pandemic. They effectively threw the equivalent of between interest rate cuts, direct stimulus, indirect stimulus, et cetera, they effectively threw like 20 trillion dollars at the economy. And we're still living with the ramifications. And it didn't work. Like Biden didn't get a second

term. The first thing he did, he had all these campaign promises, and the first thing he did was bring this ironically named Inflation Reduction Act to the floor, and they passed it. And it was like another trillion dollars in stimulus at an economy that was already overheating because he had like people to pay back and promises that he made. And it ended up being disastrous for him in the midterms and then in the actual election. And it's the reason we got Trump back because not only did it not solve any of the issues, it like exacerbated them in some cases. And I think the 2024 election, yeah, it was about borders and, you know, some other things.

But like the big picture was people were still pissed off about the economy. And that's with full employment, no recession in sight. And they still. So it's a really unique period of time because it's been 50 years since inflation has dominated. in our politics. We haven't had this level of dissatisfaction with the economy since the mid-70s. And the economy now is better than it was then. So people are pissed.

They're not happy with the economy. And yet the labor market is solid. Wage growth is there. So like, what is it? It's got to be prices. People do not like the sticker shop they experience every time they go to a restaurant, go to a supermarket, go on vacation, et cetera, et cetera. How much of you think this all just comes down to housing, though?

Because I think about like, if you were to survey people that bought their house before 2021, and if you were to survey them, I bet a majority of them are probably feeling okay about the economy, maybe even good about the economy. You don't think so because if you bought your house before 2021, you're locked into a low rate. Your house is appreciated 25% in value. Your cost of living is significantly less than someone who's either bought a house later trying to buy a house now, like their views of the economy are so different. And I think that 2021 period with when it comes to housing is a huge difference. Let lesson number one with anything

to do with sentiment or surveys. Lesson number one. People think the good things that have happened to them are due to their own wise decisions and and or hard work. And the bad things are someone else's fault. Nobody, nobody would say, wow, the Fed and Congress did a great job at boosting the value of my house. Instead, they say, what a great move I made in 2018, right? Trading up, bigger house, locking in a lower mortgage. I am a genius. They may not say that out loud, but subconsciously, nobody ever ascribes good luck or the work of other forces to the things they get right. they will only, though, blame everyone else for the things that don't go in their favor. And this is me too and also you.

This is just human nature. That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point. So then when it comes to the affordability crisis, right? Now we're seeing Trump get reelected in 2024 off the backs of the affordability thing. Mammani is now mayor of New York. He's kind of promising the same thing. And you kind of wrote that in your piece how they're talking about the same things that are on the opposite ends of the political spectrum,

but they're talking about the same thing, which is affordability. So what do you say to like young people that are like dealing with this right now that are turning to socialism because they're like, well, maybe that's a solution because I can't afford a house the way things are going right now. They're not turning to socialism. They're electing a candidate who has a proposal to fix it. They're not, listen, I thought long and hard about this. I do not think Gen Z are socialists. I think if they actually understood what that meant, they would literally literally. laugh. They have no, they just don't know. So I don't, I don't believe this narrative that the whole

generation is now turning socialist because of the high price of rent. I do think Momdani ran an incredible campaign. I mean, everyone thinks this. I'm not saying anything interesting here. Yeah. But he had answers. Now, we don't know if they're going to work. There's obviously a lot of skepticism because they don't work anywhere else. The bigger picture is that the things that actually matter are not in in the control of the mayor of a city like how much people are getting paid and where wealthy people are choosing to live and New York City has never been an inexpensive city outside of some pretty dire periods like the 70s like the late 80s early 90s like yeah there there were some bargains during the cracker epidemic congratulations is that what we're

going to return to. So he can't control these factors. He doesn't control tax rates. Now, is it like the end of the world if he opens five municipal supermarkets to make groceries a little bit more affordable for certain areas of the city? Do it. Fine. Who gives a shit? Like, that's not, that's not the problem with what he's proposing. Free buses. All right. I mean, you know, you know what's going to, you know what the chaos that's going to ensue. But fine, you could do that too. You could do that too if you think you can pull it off. It doesn't matter.

These things are not actually going to change the situation. The situation is it's an expensive city. It's become more expensive. There's almost nowhere for people to live. There are too many wealthy, talented people from around the world who want to be here. They occupy the space. If you fuck up the city with high crime rates, maybe that'll change and maybe be careful what you wish for.

It's like, oh, look, you got affordability back because nobody wants to stay. So yeah, you could do that. I don't think that's his plan. So I think he's, look, I think he's well-meaning and I think he ran a masterful campaign identifying the animating issue that would bring out young people, not just young people, people that were just sick and tired of being price gouged. But now, but that, you know, that was the easy part.

He worked hard, but it was easy part. Now you've got to do it, and you got a lot going against you, and a lot of these things are just outside of your control, so you made a lot of promises, and maybe you'll make enough progress to get a second term, but my bet would be this ain't going to be great. So that's just the way I'm thinking about. I don't think Cuomo had any particularly compelling answers to this, by the way.

He was kind of like dragged him to the race, because it was apparent that Adams was not going to win. And it was like kind of a desperate Hail Mary by the matriarchs and patriarchs of New York Society. They're like, dude, you got to step in here. So he did. But he had very little traction from day one. And it never really got much better.

And this is where we are. So we all get to find out together. Yeah, it'll be interesting. I wonder if there's going to be any contact. copycat candidates that try to copy the Mumdani playbook. I'm sure there's going to be all over the country. But I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about something that Trump proposed this week, which was like the 50 year mortgage, right? Like that that's another solution that they're throwing out there to help with affordability. I don't hate it as much as other people,

but I also don't think that's going to help. Like it's going to ultimately probably lead to prices of homes going up. I just wanted to get your take on like the 50 year mortgage being a potential solution to the housing crisis. It's a supply demand issue. It's not about it's not about it's not about mortgages. It's a little bit about mortgages in terms of people that have locked in a 3% mortgage just will not sell their house and trade up to a 6% mortgage. But it's getting better because those mortgages were 7%. And so as the Fed has lowered rates, the 10-year has, the mortgage doesn't key off the Fed's

overnight rate. It keys off of the 10-year, which makes sense because you're asking a bank to make a loan of a duration of 15 years or so. So it's come down. It's not great, but it's also not as bad as it was. We've seen a lot more refinancing activity than we have like, you know, new originations. But maybe that's the next step. Maybe it helps.

But like a 50-year mortgage turns a homeowner into a de facto renter. Yeah. The amount of interest that gets tacked on is, you know, obviously makes it not a worthwhile endeavor. And it doesn't get to the heart of the issue. The heart of the issue is real estate is a regional phenomenon. Now we have cities where they built too many apartments like Austin. Yep. And we have cities where there aren't enough, like New York. And it's just people are not as mobile as they should be. People need to like move around the country and find their spot where there's there's affordability, their supply of housing, the pricing aligns with what their income will bear.

And it's sloppy, it's messy, but it's not a nationwide phenomenon where there's no housing. There is. There's housing inventory, but it just might not be in the most desirable places. But it's what you could afford. So, look, I know the affordability crisis is the millennial and the Gen Z generations, like, you know, one of their biggest stumbling blocks toward building wealth. than I feel for them. And one of the more unfortunate aspects of the modern economy is that people with rich parents are living, you know, what we would have considered to be an ordinary lifestyle a generation

ago. And people whose parents were not able to help them with down payments or handing them a piece of property to live in, they're just living a different reality. And that dichotomy is growing wider. and I think it's stoking a lot of unhappiness and unrest. And, you know, again, nobody's in control of this. Like, there's nothing that can be done. Yeah, I think one of the other effects is like the emergence of the casino economy,

which you've talked about a lot, right? Like the people that aren't able to get ahead because of parents that are able to fund their lifestyle, they're throwing money at whether it's draft kings, whether it's zero-day options, whether it's, you know, high-risk investing. You know, triple leverage Nvidia call ETFs whatever. It's just driving more activity into that, which is what I worry about is like the younger generation might just be even further behind because they're throwing money in on these high risk bets. And then by the time they're 30, they're way behind. Every single person in America

between the age of 25 and 35 has, quote, a friend or a cousin or a neighbor or someone that they've heard about who made millions of dollars overnight in crypto. We know that crypto ownership in that generation is widespread enough that statistically every single person has a story. Yo, did you hear about that guy? My brother's best friend. He blah, blah, blah. And now he lives in this fucking mansion.

So that, but it's real. Like really happened. It's not fake. Yeah. And so because that really happened. that's what's captured the imagination of the 25 year old to 35 year old. And they just look at that like this, this might be my only shot.

You got to lose yourself in the music, the moment. You own it. You better never let it go. You only got one shot. Well, not this your chance. No, but what do you tell these people like, no, oh, actually, just allocate to a 60, 40 portfolio and earn 8% of,

percent a year. They're like, are you fucking kidding me? I have no, I have no prospects of of buying a house and starting a family. And you want me to earn 8% a year in a 401k while this idiot that I grew up with who used to stick a watch battery up his nose is worth $20 million on paper because he was reading the right Reddit forum at 2 o'clock in the morning and put 20 grand into something. Like people are just, they are beside themselves with like, how do I do this? So that's where we get this gambling economy. It's kind of like here to stay. They're not getting bored of it.

They're ratcheting it up. It's crypto. It's worse. It's worse. It might be worse. It might be worse. With prediction markets. And then you add in the layer of like, you know, you open up Instagram, right?

Like I'm 34. I'm about to turn 34 next week. And like even I still see some of the stuff. off like like the 23 year old with the broccoli hair driving out of his Miami condo with a with a Lamargeten. And I'm like, right. You can't take it. People are looking at that.

People are working at for an hourly wage, right? They're like sitting somewhere all day, $19 an hour, no 401k. They're just locked out of this ownership class that seems to be running away with the football. And they have friends whose parents like are supporting them paying their, apartment rent and they're just like, I got to do something. I got to break out of this. I don't know. And as a result, they're following these charlatans on TikTok, on Instagram.

They're playing right into the hands of all these get rich quick schemes. And it's, you know, it's sort of an emergency. Because most of them are not going to win that way. And a lot of them are going to make their own situations worse. But bigger than that, it feeds. into just this general distrust around capitalism and corporatism and investing. And it's like, you're all lying to me. Like, I'm not in your world.

I'm watching you guys get richer every year and my situation stays bad and I can't afford to live. And I just don't believe in this story anymore. And that is the problem. And, you know, Mount Donnie will not. be the only person to seize on this because it's becoming a powerful narrative. Now, a lot of these, let me button this up, Zayah, a lot of the people who voted for him now and they're 26, 27, some time will go by and they will figure things out.

Their career will start to click and they will start earning money and they will start, you know, moving toward the light. And then there's going to be this realization of like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't really think that we should be paying 52% taxes. I don't really think that New York City landlords should be locked out of making money on their properties and freezing. Like, there'll be this dawning real estate. Oh, this shit doesn't work. That was a fairy tale.

So we have these periodic socialist sort of like explosions. And then in the aftermath, people realize, oh, that's why this doesn't work anywhere. because it runs completely counter to human nature. I do not actually think everyone else should have the same amount of money as me. I work harder than these people. I'm smarter than these people. This doesn't work at all. So that's where like we'll eventually land.

So I'm not as like pessimistic about the future. But right now in the present, this is what it feels like. It does feel like that way. And I think what I'm starting to realize is before it was like if you were, you know, if you were earning minimum wage, you always had a bit of a reason. man, you always had, you were feeling you were fighting the system. But now even if you make like 80, 90, 100,000 dollars, you posted something on LinkedIn this week where like if you're making $120,000 five years ago, you could generally afford

a house. You could generally afford things. You make $120,000 a year today, which is a, you know, decent, you know, a career. You still can't afford stuff. And I think that's the part that scares me. Like even these people that are well off, quote unquote, they might not see the light at the end of the tunnel. They might just be like, well, I make a.

decent enough money where I can throw even more money into high-risk plays, and then they're going to end up being even more further behind instead of just doing like the boring thing that I did growing up, which is investing index funds. You know, the silver lining, though, is that this has been driving a lot of people toward entrepreneurship. True. And look, not every business that gets started succeeds, but just like giving people the impetus to say, you know what, I wasn't lucky enough to have the right internship.

in the summers in between my sophomore, junior and senior year at school. I didn't have parents that were connected. I didn't get like the great job right out of school. I'm not even working in the field that I studied to be in because there was nothing available. I'm in this shitty spot, but I always had this idea that I could blank. And a lot of those people are doing that. It's not going to work for everyone, but for a lot of people. The pandemic sort of like revealed to them it's every man.

or woman for themselves. And you kind of have to make things happen for yourself. And you can't trust a lot of companies that you work for. And you know, you can't rely on someone else to be there to provide you with employment. And so I do think that while there are these like socialistic uprisings within this generation, I also think that there is a lot of individualism and entrepreneurship. And I know those two things kind of sound like a juxtaposition that can't exist.

but very bizarrely it does exist. And a lot of people will look back on this time and they'll say, thank God I figured it out that working as a cog and a giant wheel is not for me because I never would have started my blank company. And you name it, event planning, carpentry, each back. I'm the perfect example of this. I'm the perfect example. Went from an engineer to doing talking to someone like yourself.

So there's a lot of opportunities. In another era, in another era, you might just be like, like sitting in a cubicle watching the, watching the clock to hit 5 p.m. So you could slide down the back of the dinosaur tail and, and head off home like Fred Flintstone. But like in this era, a lot of people are choosing entrepreneurship for better or for worse. I think that's sort of a silver lining for this generation. Absolutely.

I want to give you the last question. I want to talk about the wealth effect. It's something that you talk a lot about. And I hadn't heard about it. I know you're a big fan of the wealth effect. Can you just give me two minutes on the wealth effect, why it's important and what you're taking, what your take on it is? Okay. So for most U.S. households, my colleague, Cali Cox, who is our chief market strategist at Routts.

Okay. So Cali actually wrote about this recently. Like, in reality, the economy is driven by whether or not people have jobs. Like, that's really the most important thing is paychecks. That's what keeps the economy going. There's nothing else, right? Okay. But my take is like a little bit more meta than that.

Because I'm not saying, no, the stock market is more important than jobs. I'm actually saying the fact that there are more jobs is a result of the stock market. So I'm like kind of like taking her point, not disagreeing with it. I'm saying like hiring decisions are emanating from rising and or falling stock prices. And I can cite thousands of examples. you know, where companies see their share price fall and start, you know, doing layoffs and then vice versa. As market caps are expanding, we see just mass hiring at certain. And obviously it's like intuitive.

I'm not like revealing any amazing secret. But my point is I actually think the wealth effect from the stock market has become the most powerful force in the economy because people, consumers are. are making spending decisions at the margin based on how wealthy they feel. They're not deciding should I go to the grocery store or not. That's based on their paycheck. They're deciding should the family take two vacations or three. They're deciding if we go on vacation,

do we upgrade to the big Airbnb or to the four seasons or do we stay at the Marriott? The types of cars that they're buying. The amount of money that they're willing to spend on upgrading consumer electronics in the house, laptops, phones. Like, from my perspective, and I talk to people, so I know this is true. People feel really wealthy right now if they are part of what I call the stock market American class, if they are in that top 20% of households by income or by wealth or

however you want to measure it. And the only thing that's really going to stop them from spending is a prolonged down turn in the stock market. Like, let's just assume these are not people that are spending their entire paycheck. So it's not the pay. Now, of course, if they lose a paycheck,

it's different. But so long as they have a paycheck, I don't think changes in their wage, like they get a 10% raise, sure, that'll make them feel wealthy. But like this prolonged 15% average annual return in the S&P over the last 15 years is way more powerful.

And I really think if you look at the post-pandemic, K-shaped economy. That's being driven by just the sheer amount of stock market wealth that's being created year after year. Yeah, you open up the public app. You see that your portfolio is up 75% in the last four years. You feel good. You're going to go on a third vacation.

I'm totally bought in. I'm a big fan of your theory. Josh, thank you so much, man. Absolute legend. I'm a big fan again. You're an inspiration for me to do finance content. I really do mean that. I don't want people to think I'm crazy.

The tie is because you were wearing a tie when you popped on the screen. Yes. And I want to give you not lessons. I want to give you like Gen X. Like this is how you tie a tie. That's a little too small. This is actually the correct. I don't want people to think I'm wearing an ascot like I'm.

I do the millennial skinny tie. I mean, I got to do the skinny tie. I can't do like the thick bow that my dad used to do. I got to go with the skinny tie. This is a power tie. It's a power towel. I'm not there yet. Maybe one day.

I'll get there. Josh again, thank you so much, man. A huge, huge fan. And you're a legend. Everybody go follow Josh Brown, LinkedIn.

Your podcast is fantastic. Shout out to Michael Battenick as well. Compound and Friends, huge fan of that stuff. So everyone go follow Josh. And thank you again for coming on. Cheers, dude. Thanks for having me.

Of course. Well, all right, guys. Hope you enjoyed that conversation with Josh Brown. As I said, he's one of the best to do it. I highly recommend you guys check out all of his stuff

if you haven't already. Let me know on the comments on what you guys thought about this. interview and what questions you want me to ask Josh the next time he comes on. You know, we got a great list of guests coming on. Mike's been working his magic to book some great guests, and we're always looking for suggestions. So let us know in the comments and who you'd like to

see come on to the podcast next. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here on Monday. Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like, Ojo Time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play-Ojo, the online casino with all the latest slot and live casino games. What you win is yours to keep with no wagering requirements, instant payouts, and no minimum withdraws.

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