00:00A bit of a rise in jobless claims to exactly what was predicted, 210,000 for the week ending last
00:07week on March 21st. However, that's still a very low number, so it doesn't really suggest any kind
00:12of change, just a little bit of volatility. The continuing claims number 1,819,000 is down
00:19from 1,851,000 two weeks ago. So not much change on the labor side of the Fed's mandate,
00:28and it doesn't appear that companies are reacting yet to anything that's happening over in the
00:34Middle East. However, we are seeing, and I wanted to bring this back up, I know you talked to the
00:38Secretary General a little while ago of the OECD. The inflation side of the Fed's mandate
00:45is starting to show cracks. The OECD predicting 4.2 percent inflation for the U.S. this year. That
00:52may not be completely accurate, since we don't know how long this is all going to go on, but it's
00:57something that people should be considering when they're filtering through what the Fed is going
01:03to be saying over the next couple of days. And the rest of those countries, here's a point that
01:07people are starting to make in the economic circles. The rest of those countries could be in
01:12trouble because not only are oil prices going up, but the dollar's going up. And as the dollar goes up,
01:17their currencies buy less, and oil's priced in dollars. So it's a double squeeze for the rest of
01:24the world. And that could lead to demand destruction that leads to lower growth here.
01:29That's the one-two punch. Stateside, Mike, this is what I hear a lot. Let's work through it
01:33together. Inflation, ultimately, by the time we get to the end of the year, will be closer to three
01:36than two. That will constrain the Fed. But the Fed doesn't have to worry about an inflationary spiral
01:41and so-called second-order effects, because we're told, Mike, that this labor market is not as tight
01:46as it once was. Then I look at claims at 2.10 and a four-week moving average of around
01:51the same
01:51number. Mike, and I wonder just how tight this labor market is. How tight is it? We don't think
01:56it's all that tight. But the biggest issue is that we have lost a lot of population because of the
02:02crackdown on immigration. And that seems to be leading to a situation where employers need fewer
02:10workers because the economy is not putting the pressure on them at this point. And so we don't see
02:16the unemployment rate rising as you would think it might in this kind of situation.
02:22But nobody knows for sure. This is one of those things we'll be looking back on five years from
02:25now and have a better handle on exactly what's going on. But as I think Jay Powell said in his
02:31news conference the other day, economy is still performing relatively well. There are all these
02:37clouds on the horizon, though. That's the big question is, does the OECD's forecast come true? And
02:42do we see the rest of the world slow down and the U.S. economy slow down? No sign yet,
02:47really.
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