A little doomsday feeling is weighing on the economy

0:01NPR.

0:11Darian, you know that feeling when you love an obscure band and suddenly the band blows up big? Yeah, there's a little bit of pride, a little bit of superiority. We were there first, right? Well, I was listening to the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jay Powell, give a speech. And all of a sudden, he brought up our favorite obscure government report, The Beige Book. So let me say a word about The Beige Book. So there are 12 reserve banks, as you know, around the country. And they do a deep dive and they collect lots and lots of information about the economy. And so... It's like he's doing the show for us.

0:44Right? Right. Powell walks through how the Beige Book works, just like we do, how the regional feds gather stories about the economy. And that information gets collated and put into what we call the Beige Book because it's beige. And we're not that original. And I have to say, I don't know of any source of sort of qualitative information about the economy that even approaches this. That's a five star rating right there. I will say, even though Powell talked about the Beige Book, he didn't do the most important part. He didn't give an award for the best entry. Thankfully, we still have our jobs.

1:24It's the Beige Awards! Our eight times a year salute to the art and science of telling stories about the economy. I'm Robert Smith. And I'm Darian Woods. While the government was closed, the Beige Book was still churning out anecdotes, and we'll hear some of those on the show. and will give a special Beigie Award out in the field. Sometimes the best way to figure out what's going on is to just ask people what's going on. Support for NPR and the following message come from Warby Parker, the one-stop shop for all your vision needs. They offer expertly crafted prescription eyewear, plus contacts, eye exams, and more.

2:03For everything you need to see, visit your nearest Warby Parker store or head to warbyparker.com. This message comes from Schwab. Everyone has moments when they could have done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. Support for NPR and the following message come from Edward Jones. What does it mean to live a rich life? Maybe it's full of brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes, and everything in between. And with over 100 years of experience, your Edward Jones financial advisor can help. Edward Jones, member SIPC.

2:44Always good to remind everyone how this award show works. There are 12 regional banks in the Federal Reserve System. Well, Jay Powell already said all this, right? Each one studies their local economy, has their own section in the Beige Book. We give awards to the best one. And across the most recent Beige Book, there were reports of the consumer economy slowing. But we had to give a runner-up award to the Kansas City Fed, who gave some unusual advice. I will read it. Quote, One firm remarked that now was the best time to get a tattoo, as even top artists have more open appointments than usual.

3:20It's a real glass half-full way of looking at a slowdown. At least there's no waiting line for tattoos. We also wanted to give a runner-up award to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, who pointed out that there was at least one industry that was booming, AI data centers. But as they say in the Beige Book, quote, some described a collective holding of breath as these fast-paced build-outs became a primary driver of demand. A collective holding of breath. I love that line because it does seem like we're watching a bit of a high-wire act with the AI build-out. Yeah, we all hold our breath as we see AI doing flips and twirls and catches, all without a net.

4:01All right, so now it's time for our big winner. And it's a special one. The envelope, please. The Beigie goes to the Richmond Fed. We actually decided to give this award before the Beige Book came out as a sort of lifetime achievement award. I was traveling down to Richmond, Virginia to follow around the president of the Richmond Fed, Tom Barkin. And so I brought news that he had also won the Beige. Congratulations, Tom. Thank you. I've been needing one for my desk. Yeah, it's virtual, but... Fair enough. Yeah, so it doesn't add to your baggage travel allowance. Yes, it was easy to bring. Tom Barkin won this special Beige because he embodies the spirit of the Beige Book.

4:45He loves to travel around his district and get people's stories about the economy. When we talked to him on November 19th, he had already done about 150 live events this year with students, workers, business owners, and he loves to ask these big, open-ended questions. We know we're in this low-hire, low-fire environment. Why aren't they hiring? What's stopping them? Demand's good. Why aren't you hiring? So I'm always trying to sort that out. Layoffs. One thing that's true about layoffs is you don't just wake up in the morning and do them. You have to plan them. So I'm trying to ask the big companies I talk to, are you planning any?

5:20When are they coming? What would you think? Because I'm trying to get ahead of the data. I'm trying to understand the nuance. I'm trying to get my mind around the turning points. I follow Tom to one of his events at a ballroom at the University of Richmond, the quarterly luncheon of the Virginia CEOs Group. There are some fancy bigwigs here, but I spot a guy dressed in more casual work gear. My name is Scott Turner. I'm the founder of True Timber Arborists and Riverside Outfitters here in Richmond, Virginia. I have to say I picked you out because in a room full of suits, you're wearing red plaid.

5:54That's right. One of the reasons I chose my profession was so I could keep dressing up like a little kid and not, you know, wear the monkey suits. Scott's company trims trees and takes tourists on rafts down the James River. It's as fun as it sounds like. And in fact, like a lot of people here, he says his business is doing just fine. But he worries. Mostly because everyone else is worried. Just general uncertainty that people feel around, should I be holding some money in my pocket? You know, a little doomsday feeling around what our politics and what our government is doing that makes people maybe a little tighter with keeping some money in the mattress.

6:34The president of the Richmond Fed, Tom Barkin, gets to the event early. He stays late, shakes hands, asks questions. How do you set your prices, he asks. How do you know when you can raise prices? And when the lunch gets served, Barkin takes the stage and basically reflects back what he's been hearing. I will say in our outreach, the field is extraordinarily different by sector. If you build data centers, or you provide energy, or you sell to higher income consumers, or you trade in Wall Street, or you build pharmaceutical plants, then your economy is hot. But if you're a farmer, or a realtor, or a manufacturer hurt by tariffs, or you're dependent on lower-income consumers, then you're struggling.

7:14When it's time for questions, the tree trimmer in the red plaid jacket stands up. Scott Turner says he's worried about the young people with college degrees not finding jobs. He says he offers jobs to a lot of college graduates, even if they don't actually need all of that book learning. I mean, I have a great job offering, but you didn't have to invest$200 ,000 in an education to get my job offering. What does that do to everybody if those students stop finding placement? Tom Barkin answers that it is a real challenge, balancing the right kind of training with the right kind of jobs that are actually out there.

7:47I was in Hickory, North Carolina. I did a session with a bunch of furniture manufacturers, and they were complaining about their lack of people. And then I did a session with a bunch of students at a community college, and I asked why they didn't go into furniture manufacturing. And they said, my dad was in furniture manufacturing. He got laid off. Why would I want to go there? Tom says you have to look at providing incentives for blue-collar training that make sure that they can not just get well-paying jobs now, but have a whole lifetime career. It's an interesting give and take during the luncheon.

8:18Tom Barkin doesn't try to predict the future. People don't actually demand inside info from him. Everyone is just listening to what everyone else is going through. It's kind of like economic therapy. And Tom Barkin doesn't make any broad conclusions from what he hears. He says the mood is different in bigger growing cities like Richmond than it is in small towns. He hears different complaints in red states and blue states. He may talk to hundreds of people in his travels, but the Beige Book teams talk to thousands to put together the book. Next week when he travels to Washington, D.C. for the meeting of the Federal Reserve, he'll bring some of these stories with him.

8:54And they do make their way into the conversation. A single anecdote is interesting, sometimes amusing if you read the transcripts, but it doesn't drive my colleagues to have different policy views. But I think if you've invested in a serious way over a bunch of time and proven that you could bring advantaged insights coming out of what you've learned, not from a story about one restaurateur, but from a synthesis or conclusions out of what you're learning, I think people will listen to that. congratulations again to the richmond fed for the special beijing award in december but now that the government is open and producing data again maybe the beige book will return to its place of obscurity just for those like us robert who are in the know this episode was produced by cooper gas for kim with engineering by sophie mccarthur was fact-checked by Tyler Jones.

9:48Kate McCannan edits the show and The Indicator is a production of NPR.

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