The Fed Update with Jill on Money

CBS News Business Analyst and host of Jill on Money Jill Schlesinger joins us to discuss the upcoming Fed meeting. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I have think one of my favorite parts of the
week is the before the interview, the green Room interview
with Jill Slessingers, CBS News business analyst and host of
Gill on Money. We're talking about TV shows we should
all be watching.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, we should release that as our little blurb if
we get excited.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
If we have time, well, we're going to talk about
the FED meeting and what that might mean for you
in your pocketbook this week, but eventually we'll get to
TV shows if you think it's good for you. Guys,
I just sit here and I have a front row seat.
I'm just all ears man and they're mash nothing where
Ciskel and Ebert. But we're so two day policy meeting
and there's a lot going on with your money. What

(00:37):
might we see? What might they be considering?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
So remember Fed's got two big jobs. That's called the
dual mandate. And the two jobs are one make sure
that prices don't go crazy, like inflation doesn't bubble up
or that deflation that like prices go down and no
one's spending any money. So that's called price stability. That's
one side of the Fed's big job. The other side
is make sure the economy is strong enough to create

(01:02):
a job for anyone who wants a job. So labor
market is like another big focus of the FED. So
like think of those as like the two big jobs. Now,
let's just talk about what the FED sees this second.
This second, it looks like the job market is okay,
it's kind of stable and I would even say solid,
so so far that this year we've seen one hundred

(01:23):
and forty four thousand jobs a month. You know, it's
down slightly from last year's but you know, we were
going to likely have this amount, like one hundred and
thirty to one hundred and fifty thousand jobs a month
is what most economists thought way back when you know,
in October of last year, regardless of who was in
the White House, that was what the thought was. We're
going to slow down in job growth, but not going

(01:43):
to go off a cliff. And now on the other side,
we see the prices have come down and that's great, right,
the inflation rate has come down, and it's it's sort
of like stable. And so if we just knew that
in isolation, if you just said those are the two
pieces of information you need, the FED would be like, great,
let's cut rates. However, they're not going to cut rates likely,

(02:06):
and the reason is we don't know the actual impact
of the tariffs that have been announced by President Trump,
and the impact could be really felt in the coming months,
so not right away. So growth can look good, the
job market can look good until it doesn't, and prices
can kind of trend lower until they don't. And so
I think the Fed's kind of waiting to see what's

(02:28):
the actual impact. Remember, the announcement was April second. The
rollback came a couple of weeks after that, of like
the ninety day tariff reprieve. But you know, a lot
of folks are saying, well, we don't have any deals
that are announced yet, so maybe we better plan on
these tariffs being in place for a while. If that's
the case, the FED would expect prices to rise and
the economy to slow down, which one happens in like

(02:50):
a greater degree will be what forces the FED to
act and anything but the unknown, right, I mean, some
of the sheriffs might not even happen.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
It's just, yeah, we don't know, we don't know. Some
sort of definitive would be.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Cool, absolutely, and you know, and I think that's the
same way for businesses, but also for consumers. I mean,
look at what businesses did. They went crazy and ordered
a bunch of stuff in the first quarter of this
year ahead of the tariffs. That was before April second,
right before that Rose Garden announcement. So we know that
that's happening. And then we look at consumers like, oh,
my gosh, I better go buy If I need a car,

(03:23):
I better go buy a car right now. Or I'm
doing a housing project. A lot of builders saying like
I better go buy my lumber today. But that kind
of masks what could happen in the future. So we
want a real read of what's happening. And I know
that it's annoying because you say to yourself, you shouldn't
the FED. No, But a lot of what we're seeing

(03:43):
in the hard data, the economic data, it's kind of
a little bit of a mirage. We know that there
are certain things that are happening underneath the hood of
these reports that would indicate that things could happen in
the future, but it's not showing up in the data
right now.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
And to your point, as a kid that grew up
watching bugs Bunny, I thought there'd be more rages all
over the place.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I mean, truly, truly, Yes, I did right. Watch Bugs
Bunny and you know that's a classic, and I appreciate
you giving me a callback to that.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Same with quicksand I thought there'd be more of that.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Jill brick Stand in the Bugs World, CBS.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
News Business Analyst, host of Jill on Money. Thank you,
thank you,