Chris Rugaber
@ChrisRugaber
Covering the Federal Reserve and the economy for the Associated Press. I root for the economy. Contact me on Signal at ChrisRugaber.01 and at [email protected].
Bessent here recycling some of Kevin Warsh's complaints about the Fed's "mission creep." Since Trump's election, critics have made hay about the Fed's research in areas like climate change and finance. But it hasn't been that big a focus for the Fed.
Today in a CNBC interview, I called for a review of the Federal Reserve. It is my belief that the central bank should conduct an exhaustive internal review of its non-monetary policy operations. Significant mission creep and institutional growth have taken the Fed into areas that…
Texas Republicans aim to redraw House districts at Trump's urging, but there's a risk apnews.com/article/trump-…
cost of starting a podcast is going straight up
🎤Audio equipment +8.8% podcasters are getting crushed
With gavel in hand, Trump chisels away at the power of a compliant Congress apnews.com/article/trump-…
"The central bank had wanted glass walls to reflect the Fed as a transparent institution, but three Trump appointees to a local commission felt marble best fit the building’s historic character. Marble was added as a result" via @ChrisRugaber & @joshboak apnews.com/article/powell…
Federal Reserve's Powell says in letter to White House that building renovation complies with law, defends its costs. apnews.com/article/fed-fe…
Data out this morning is pretty positive: _ Retail sales rose 0.6%, more than expected. _ Unemployment claims declined slightly to 221K from 227K The American consumer remains resilient.
Goods prices rising pretty steadily, tariff impact seems clear in today's inflation data. These are goods prices, excluding food and energy:
So I’ve been on vacay for a week and a half — It seems Jerome Powell will be fired unless he releases the Epstein files? Do I have that right?
Trump says he's imposing a 50% tariff on Brazil because its tariffs and trade barriers are causing "unsustainable Trade Deficits," which he calls "a major threat to our Economy and our National Security!" But the U.S has a trade surplus with Brazil.
“It’s kind of a giant game of chicken”: Trump's trade blitz produces few deals but lots of uncertainty apnews.com/article/trump-…
Trump's previous tariff push terrified the world economy. He's betting this time is different apnews.com/article/trump-…
So the proper point of comparison is not import-to-domestic. It's import prices against their own trend. Notice off the bat that CEA's durable goods import price index is up by 0.5% since December. It's very likely that's against a pre-2025 where prices were *falling*. /3
The methodology CEA used in constructing its import price index looks reasonable. 2 things to keep in mind when interpreting it: 1st, the assumption underlying the CEA report is that the right counterfactual to which to compare imported goods prices is domestic goods prices. /1
New @CEA47 research finds that the prices of imported goods have *fallen* this year, and declined faster than overall goods prices since Feb. More below 👇