GestaltU with Claudia Sahm on Macroeconomics for Individuals and Families
Today’s guest is Claudia Sahm, who is the founder of Stay-At-Home Macro Consulting. She also writes a Substack of the same name, stayathomemacro.substack.com. She is a former Federal Reserve analyst, and also a former White House economic adviser. Claudia and I discussed the interaction between fiscal and monetary policy, and how the government and the Federal Reserve might more effectively combine forces to use the best tools available to address many of the major challenges that are ongoing in the domestic economy today. We also discuss the limitations and strengths of monetary policy and the lost opportunities for constructive action in terms of fiscal policy, and what measures we might be able to take to make progress in Washington, and if so, what type of policy actions might have the greatest impact in terms of improving quality of life without exacerbating the immediate economic effects of the current inflationary impulse. We also talk about the impact of the wealth effect and debate the extent to which housing, the rapid rise in home prices and the enormous outlier gains in equity portfolios over the last several years may be contributing substantially to the type of inflation that we’ve started to see recently on the services side, in terms of discretionary travel, shelter, discretionary healthcare spending and labor costs. Hosted by Adam Butler of ReSolve Global* *ReSolve Global refers to ReSolve Asset Management SEZC (Cayman) which is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a commodity trading advisor and commodity pool operator. This registration is administered through the National Futures Association (“NFA”). Further, ReSolve Global is a registered person with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority.