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August 22, 2025 • 14 mins

Richard Clarida, global economic advisor at Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco), reacts to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium with Bloomberg's Tom Keene, Annmarie Hordern and Michael McKee.

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. Pimco Global Economic advisor
and former FED Vice Chair Rich Clarita joining us Now
and Rich, what's your take on what we just heard
from FED Chair J Powell?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, I think the Chair certainly intended to open the
door pretty wide to cutting in September. Importantly, Lisa, he
spent a lot of time on balance of risk, which
is what policymakers do, but at the two key junctures
he highlighted the balance of risk to the labor market
is to a weaker labor market, and he basically indicated

(00:39):
that the balance of risk to higher inflation doesn't appear
to be a first order concern in terms of persistent inflation.
So I think the message was they think they're going
to cut in September, we get some more data, and
the markets have reacted to that.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
How much do you think that this is partly to
maintain the Fed's credibility, not as is they'rely with respect
to the president, but that right now, if they get
it wrong on the labor market front, that it is
that much more pernicious based on some of the job owning.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
By what we hear from the president.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well, yeah, I mean, as the share said in the remarks,
it's a curious kind of balance in the labor market.
The payroll employment growth has been very, very weak in
the private sector, but the unemployment rate has not gone up,
and so they are really focused on the balance of risk. Look,
the FAT has a dual mandate. It's costly to let

(01:34):
inflation move higher and stay there, but it's also costly
to have a recession with the rise of the unemployment.
And I think, Lisa, you're correct they are tilting in
that direction now.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
It feels like a very different Jackson Hole. And this
is something that we've been talking about with all of
our guests today. Rich that people have come on and
said there is a different tone about central banking independence
and a question of how to communicate at a time
of political interference.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
What's your sense of where that was.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
In the speech that we just heard from FED Chair
J Powell.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I think the approach the Chair took was to really
focus front and center, Lisa, on the dual mandate that's
assigned by Congress, maximum employment and price stability. And the
Chair gave a very reasoned and thoughtful analysis and discussion
of how they're balancing the dual mandate risks, and I
think that's the Jay Powell message to the issue of

(02:31):
FED independence. We have an assignment from Congress, and this
is what we're doing to achieve it.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
At this point, we also are dealing with the headlines
that are coming out about FED Governor Lisa Cook, where
at the same time that Jerome Powell was giving his speech,
President Trump came out with this truth post saying that
he will fire Lisa.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Cook if she doesn't resign.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
We did hear reports that in the Jackson Lake Lodge
and the lobby that James Fishback was screaming at Lisa
Cook that why did she commit mortgage fraud? What's your
take on what this does in terms of both the
FED composition but also just the ability to be clear
minded about making FED policy.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Well, obviously understand just looking at the headlines that you
mentioned myself and don't know the details or the facts
in this particular situation, but clearly we're in an environment
where FED independence is under scrutiny. And my conviction is that,
notwithstanding all of the very relevant factors that you mentioned,

(03:39):
that the Fed's is going to keep doing keep doing
its job.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Richard Claire to Tom Keene here, thank you so much
for joining. U's very valuable. I've got two texts I
want to take here that I think are important. You
recently said that what matters is the institution, that this
chairman and any future chairman has to protect the institution.
What's the day one first mandate to protect the institution

(04:06):
for the next chairman.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Well, I think first and foremost it's to have in
place a plan and communication that will deliver expectations of
price stability. I think the chair was right today to
emphasize that the FED has to focus on getting price
stability because that's going to deliver the ability to deliver
maximum employment. I've also written Tom that the FED is

(04:32):
sort of a complex, encumbersome institution with nineteen folks around
the table and the Reserve Bank presidents. But I do
think that is a strength right now of the institution.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
Right Well, this is really important because it's as fractious
as a meeting of the bond team at PIMCO. In
the middle of the speech, Powell channeled a few years
ago at PIMCO the New Normal. For a moment, I
thought Mohammed Hlarian had personated in to write the speech.
There's your optimal new normal for the Fed, which Powell

(05:03):
mentioned today. What's the best new normal for the next Fed?

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, I think a new normal would be inflation moving
down towards the two percent target, which would let the
next FED chair cut rates down towards a neutral level.
You know, PIMCO in twenty fourteen we rolled out the
idea of a new neutral and we've been operating in
that new neutral world now for more than a decade,
and so I think well anchored inflation expectations, getting tariffs

(05:31):
in the rear view mir would allow the FED to
cut rates by probably one hundred and fifty basis points
from here in achieving that ultimate soft landing. So I
think that would be a good new normal destination for
the next FED chair.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
What risks are there to that given what we're seeing
with the dollar, given the fact that we really have
a very high level of uncertainty around which tariffs are
going to stick and how much is going to get
past along to consumers.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Sure, and I think the Chair was right to point
out that we are seeing evidence of tariffs showing up
in the price indexes for imported goods, but that's been
offset to some extent with a decline in services inflation. Again,
I think where they are focused is to make sure
that what is an inevitable increase in the price level

(06:20):
from tariffs does not over time result in persistent inflation.
And I think the speech today addressed their thinking right now,
which is that their baseline is that that will not happen,
which will give them the room possibly in September, to
cut rates.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Yeah, at least I think it's important to mention within
the market, check that the market is putting on steam.
Here an hour after the beginning of the speech and
Mike McKee's bombshell headlines a Dow lifting up, I'm not
told I can't leave Jackson Hall unless Dow goes up
a thousand points.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Well, I'm getting pretty close to it.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
It sounds like you're going to be hiking for maybe
another six hours and then all of a sudden not
so much.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Rich.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
I do want to know, though, about what this does
in terms of the currency ramifications and where your preference
lies in terms of the good investment backdrop, because what
we heard from Fetcher J.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Powell is so vastly different from what we.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Heard from Joakim Novel of the German Central Bank where
he said we have to focus on inflation and right
now that is more concerning to them than trying to
support growth by cutting rates or being stimulative. The fact
that that is the framework there and it is such
a different framework here, does that make you want to
invest in Europe a little bit more?

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well? You know, I think one of our themes at
PIMCO is that we're in a world where taking advantage
of a global opportunity set makes sense. Also, we're in
a world where makes us to focus on valuations and
without getting into particular markets or securities. There have been
some pretty big divergencies between valuation and the US and Europe,

(07:55):
especially in inequity markets. Also, you know, the Europeans are
much closer to their two percent target than is the
FED because from your point of view, the tariffs are
really a disinflationary for so we're at different points in
the rate cycle and that does open up some good opportunities.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
Richard Clarita, you are definitive in the mathematics, the modern
mathematics of our economics.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Then, you know, we.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Talk about a new framework and it's a lot of
job boning about process. Maybe it's what are we going
to do with the dots? What are we going to
do with the mathematics of modern economics forward? Is it
diminished after all this turmoil?

Speaker 2 (08:39):
You know, you know, Tom, you and I over the years,
decades now, I've talked about that a number of times,
and my thinking continues to be the mathematics, the models,
including my own, our tools. They're a starting point for
analysis and discussion. But they're not They're not handcuffs, nor
are they the destination. And certainly, you know, the the

(09:00):
last five years have been unusual with a pandemic and
all the rest. But I continue to believe that models
in math are our tools, not handcuffs.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
My goal right now, Rich is to get you on
the short list, is to be the next chairman. So
let's talk tariffs here. What is the clarita mathematics of
Trump tariffs?

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, as Mike mckeeth said, they are raising a heck
of a lot of revenue, and I would agree with
my Washington there you go. I think I think Washington
may very quickly get hooked on the two or three
hundred billion dollars a year in tariff revenue, especially if
you know the initial cost of raising that revenue is
in the rearview mirror, which which I think I expect

(09:45):
to be the case down the road. Look, we're in
a different regime, you know. We talked at PIMCO in
June about uh an era of fragmentation, and these trends
have been accelerating and the destination global trading system and
global economy is going to be very different in five
years than it was in the thirty years of globalization.

(10:08):
So I think to be continued is the way I
would answer your question.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
He's running, Is that what you think?

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I know?

Speaker 4 (10:17):
Bullets running?

Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
I think by the time we get done on the
show today, we're gonna have Tracy Alloway running.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think that maybe we'll doubt but I am we will.
She's sitting here with us. I'm sure, she says, I
bag Rich. I am curious though, going forward this idea
of how inflationary tariffs could or couldn't be given the
fact that this is a new world order. And we
were talking with Adam Posen of the Peters Constitute earlier
and he was talking about how he sees inflation as

(10:44):
having nodes of the nineteen seventies and potentially being really
pernicious Why do you not necessarily see that?

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Why are markets more sanguine on that risk?

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Well, I think simply because the the nineteen seventies we're
a very serient experience for the current group of policy
makers who lived through it, and I think there were
some important lessons learned. And one lesson learned is high
and persistent inflation is very costly to the economy. And

(11:19):
I think politicians learned that as well, and so I
think that central banks have earned a lot of credibility
the under Vulcar, under green Span, under pass FED chairs
in the US and abroad, and I think that expectations
of inflation, we're sort of in a world in which
the bomb markets at least think that over a five

(11:39):
year period, the FED is going to do whatever it
takes to get inflation down what I call two points something.
And I think that's an important victory that central banks
are still benefiting from. And I would expect that and
certainly hope that will continue.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Richter Clarita with us follow you on radio and TV.
We've extended this wonderful show with a huge market movie
c today. Off of the Powell speech, I want to
turn to Michael McKee because my head's spinning. I've got
Chairman Bullard, Chairman Clarita, Chairman Alloway, and the rest. So
when they're in the Oval Office and they're sitting on
the couches and President Trump is going to turn to

(12:18):
the people he trusts. Here, let's start with the Secretary
of Treasury. What is Beson can say to him about
the qualifications needed for a Trump chairman.

Speaker 5 (12:30):
Well, probably from Scott Besson's you would hear the importance
of being able to relate on Wall Street. It was
put once to me that the Treasury Secretary's job in
terms of the markets is to be able to calm
them down when something is going wrong. And so that
I would argue for a certain number of the candidates,
maybe miss Alloway, it fits in that category that have

(12:52):
that gravitas to be able to do that. The idea
that you want to cut rates is that's not really
part of it, because you wouldn't be on the list
if you didn't want to cut rates at this point.
So it's going to be somebody who is the president
will feel comfortable with maybe this move if the Fed
cuts rates. He's more comfortable with a wider group of

(13:14):
people because he started to get what he.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
Wants and Joe Wisenthal.

Speaker 5 (13:19):
We could add job Weisenthal because well, we don't know
if the president is a country music fan. We'd have
to find that out first. But I think going forward,
the one thing you could say maybe out of this
speech is if an ordinary administration which wasn't going to
be subject kind of the whims the way Donald Trump
does things, this would have really given a boost to

(13:39):
Chris Waller because essentially what they're saying is Chris Waller
was right that inflation looked through inflation from tariffs because
it will be a one time price boost.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, Now the question is going to be and ultimately
is this going to be.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
A hawkish cut or a dubbish cut.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
In September, Pimpko goes at Rich Clarita, you've been incredibly
generous with your time. Thank you so much for being
with us as we dissect that speech. It was a
lot longer than as prior speeches, and it was one
that signaled at the beginning of a new rate cutting cycle.
They have not cut rates since December in twenty and
twenty four
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