Federal reservations

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1:19Then go seafood. There's an abundance on sale at Whole Foods Market, where it's all sustainable while cod or responsibly farmed. At the bakery, grab seasonal treats like their strawberry pretzel cream pie, and you can't go wrong with a ready-to-heat quiche Lorraine, deviled eggs, and fresh-cut fruits to go. Celebrate mom with Whole Foods Market. Wake up to money from BBC 5 Live. Hello, welcome. It is Wake Up to Money. We're waking up to an extension to the ceasefire in the Middle East, but the blockade continues. What will that mean for gas prices, oil prices, the length of this war? We're going to have a look as well at Donald Trump's pick for the next chair of America's central bank, the equivalent of their Bank of England.

2:02It's been grilled by politicians. Are you going to be the president's human sock puppet? Senator, absolutely not. And with only 50 days to go until the World Cup, shaping up to be a costly affair for the travelling fans, We'll be speaking to one fan and a hotel boss over in the US about what impact those high prices are having. Wake Up To Money with Sean Farrington. Good morning, it is Wake Up To Money. A warm welcome to you on this Wednesday morning, the 22nd of April. It is, as ever, just after five o 'clock. Thank you for being with us this morning, 85058. The number to use to get in touch.

2:43Pop us a message about all we are discussing this morning. and plenty more besides as well. We're here going to chat a little bit about Primark and its future on the high street. What is going to be the prospects for one of the most major names in our town centres around the country? It's had a bit of a change up to how it's run. It's being spun off from the wider business that owns it with a bit more of a clearer individual management focus on running Primark and it means that in the months and years to come we'll get a little bit more information about what is going on behind the scenes at Primark.

3:25The kind of approach that we might get if we talk about the likes of Next on the high street, M &S and these other companies that are listed on stock markets in their own right. Primark's been part of a wider business for some time. So have you got any thoughts on Primark and that world of faster fashion, how high street shopping has changed as well. 85058. Be very interested in your thoughts. We always have good chats when we talk about some of those major players on our high streets, those major clothing retailers in particular over the years, whether it's been M &S, John Lewis, Debenhams, Fraser's Group, all of this kind of stuff.

4:01So Primark, interested in your thoughts on that as well. I've got Freddie Cahoon with me today, Investment Director at JM Finn. Freddie, good morning to you. Morning, Sean. Primark going to There'll be one that you'll be able to look out for a little bit more closely now. Would ordinarily have been part of this ABF Associated British Foods company with tea bags and bread and sugar businesses all part of it. But now we're going to learn more about one of the biggest names on our high street. Yeah, exactly. Not many people perhaps know that it was contained within Associated British Foods. And the board have decided after quite a long period of time that they are actually going to split it off from the food business and send it away on its own.

4:40And what do you think that means now for the battle that Primark has for our spend, our clothing spend? Well, as you say, it's a very, very competitive landscape for Primark to be operating in, not only with the well-known figures on the high street such as M &S and Next, but also, you know, it's fighting against the growing trend of retail sites such as Vinted as well, which seems to be becoming even more popular today. Got Lil Bremmerman, Richard with us as well this morning, Chief Executive of Oxford International. They place international students into universities around the world, including the UK, US, India, Australia.

5:19Lil, very good morning to you. Good morning, Sean. Thank you for joining us once again this morning, Lil. And another aspect to your placing of international students has been prospects for a campus in the Middle East. I just wonder, since we last spoke and the developments that we've had with the war in Iran, we'll go through some of the very latest developments in the last few hours, but just more broadly, has it changed your approach at Oxford International to the Middle East? um sean is actually impacted us in potentially three ways one is the current challenges in the middle east have created concern in our planning around will students be able to afford coming to the uk or going into the west from asia pacific considering the growth in prices for flights.

6:17So we've taken a bit of a cautious approach from that perspective. The second one was around opening a campus in the Middle East. In our planning, we had 2027. Now we've pushed that back to 2028. However, on the other hand, we have focused on looking at growing in the UK and building more partnerships with universities. We've also looked at Europe as a new destination and we've signed a new partnership with Whitecliffe University in Germany that is proving to be a huge success. And we have deep dived into more skilled focus programs, which obviously is a key topic for young people around the Western world and ensuring that they can get jobs faster.

7:13Have you noticed a habit change from those parents that will, you know, will obviously often be making the financial decision behind the decision to be educated further afield. Have you noticed a move away from thinking about the Middle East and more now towards the likes of Europe? Yes, in the short term, we have. We can't speculate as to what's going to happen in the future, but in the short term, the number of international students going into Dubai as a global hub has dipped. And the number of students going into Europe, the UK specifically, and also places like Southeast Asia, destinations like Hong Kong and Korea have increased, yes.

8:09Safety is a key criteria, Sean. So it's a quality of education, safety, networking. So naturally, there is an impact in the short term. Freddie, another one of those things that Lil mentioned there, you know, in terms of short term impact is the ability to travel and the importance, Freddie, of the Middle East and some of those hubs, you know, Dubai, one of the busiest airports in the world. And just seeing headlines this morning that airfares are up by nearly 25 percent as the Iran war forces flights to reroute. Is that something that can have quite a big ripple effect into economies right around the world when a major hub is held up and the price of airfares shoots up?

8:58Yeah, absolutely. It's just another increased expense on not only the airlines, but the people using the airlines as well. I mean, we're hearing anecdotally that flights are being absolutely jam-packed to the rafters anywhere around the world other than the Middle East. And the problem is that you've got the airline companies also cutting back on the number of flights that they're now being able to run due to concerns over jet fuel. So, yeah, it's certainly creating a lot of trouble for many, many people, actually. We're going to talk a bit later about alternatives to the jet fuel that, you know, so many planes and airlines know and love.

9:35alternatives to it that we've heard about people moving towards more sustainable versions and using more sustainable aviation fuel along the way. It's been a big growth story in recent times, but how that is changing in the light of all this. Just to bring you up to speed with the very latest from the Middle East, Donald Trump says he's going to extend the ceasefire with Iran until talks between the two countries have progressed. The US president says the blockade of Iranian ports will also continue until Tehran presents a unified proposal because that ceasefire agreement had previously been due to expire this week.

10:10In the end, the Vice President J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States, did not depart for Islamabad in Pakistan as expected on Tuesday. He stayed in Washington. The White House has said he'll not be going now. So as ever, Freddie, lots going on. When we glance at where the oil price is at the moment$98 a barrel this morning. It's been hovering around those levels for a good few days now, Freddie. I just wonder what people think about the longer term prospects for the price of oil as this goes on. Is that changing at all? Yeah, well, I mean, in these sort of situations, which are always incredibly fast moving, and we're at the whim of a tweet every 24 hours, you have to put in some probability analysis of what you could think may happen.

11:00And so, you know, we see scenarios whereby the oil price could, if we have significant escalation heading up towards the$140,$150 a barrel, or indeed, if we're having this sort of slow burn sort of rolling effect of, you know, ongoing ceasefire, ongoing negotiations, having oil at around 90 or 80 to 90 feels about right. But there's no doubt that the oil price is going to be structurally higher as and when they come to some sort of agreement, given that there's going to be extra risk premium on oil coming out of that region. So when you say structurally higher, it's sort of all things being equal.

11:39It's a new world now for the production of oil and the supply of oil from the Middle East. And there's not really a feeling we're going to go back to the flow of supply and production that we had before for a while. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, as we came into 2026, analysts were suggesting, you know, about$60 a barrel was the new norm. We can certainly see that now around 80 to 90 as the new norm. So, yeah, people can do the maths very quickly on that and figure out how much that might have a ripple effect on prices further down the line. Something that is absolutely high up the priority list of those in the decision making roles in the United States.

12:21There's a big question mark about the prospects for the next Federal Reserve chair. It's a bit like the new governor of a Bank of England that is going to be on the way in the United States where they help set interest rates and lots of financial policy. And the minute they're in a bit of an interesting situation over in the US. Here's this bizarre exchange yesterday. Professor, what's the sock puppet? I heard the reference from Senator Warren. Yeah, what is it? I'm not sure I know. I think it's that thing you stick your hand in. Are you going to be the president's human sock puppet? Senator, absolutely not.

12:59So that was one way of a politician getting the President Trump's pick to be the next chair of that Federal Reserve, getting them to answer questions about whether they're going to be Trump's sock puppet or not. So that was Kevin Walsh answering those questions, somebody we may well be talking about and hearing that name. Plenty more in the coming years on Wake Up to Money. He was asserting he would maintain that independence of the American central bank from the White House. He had a bit of a grilling by politicians in America yesterday. We've got Eric Swanson with us, who's a former senior economist at the Federal Reserve, professor of economics at the University of California as well.

13:38Eric, thank you for your time. What did you first just make of what you heard from Kevin Walsh and the questions asked of him? I don't think there are any big surprises. I mean, you know, his confirmation is largely expected to go through. It just may take some time due to some other issues beyond Warsh's control. But other than usual sort of political grandstanding, there wasn't a lot of news out of the confirmation here. So what do you think President Trump is going to be thinking about his appointment? Is he thinking that the new chair of the Federal Reserve is going to be a bit more in the line of thinking of Donald Trump?

14:20I think President Trump certainly hopes that. And there's been some, I think, overtures made by Kevin Warsh to get the nomination that he would be more in line with the president's views. Ultimately, whether that pans out or not, we don't know. Once Warsh is confirmed, he will be largely independent and can do what he likes, mostly. And just tell us a little bit, Eric, about how households around the United States are doing at the moment. That has always been a big pitch for Donald Trump in the run up to winning the presidency. We've got those American midterms, the elections coming up a little bit later in the year, which is a bit of a test of the mood of the American public right now.

15:03And yet we've got a war in Iran that's pushing prices up. So what's happening with households? Well, the mood of households is pretty bleak. Like you said, the war in Iran has boosted gas prices up enormously. And people see that every day and it's very painful to them. Other prices are still quite high. They're not being boosted by the Iran war so much, but just still in general, inflation has been on the high side and people are very unhappy about that. We hear a lot, Eric, about how the United States, you know, one of the world's biggest oil producers in itself, is more shielded from the inflation issues, the price rise issues than maybe some other countries around the world, particularly compared to here in the UK.

15:50So why is that still the case that those prices are upwards? Well, it is true the US is shielded as a nation because we are largely self-sufficient in oil and other energy. But it's an issue here, I think. You have the oil producers and people who own the oil companies are, I think, making money hand over fist. But then you have the consumers, the households who do not have any stake in the oil companies. And they're the ones who are feeling the brunt of the higher oil prices. Oil prices are up all around the world. It's a global commodity. And the prices are high, but it's just distributing. It's reallocating income from one branch of U.S.

16:30households to another branch of U.S. households. Is that actually impacting the economy at all when you look at jobs or confidence of businesses? It impacts consumer confidence, but we have not seen any impact on any of the U.S. macroeconomic indicators. Probably because, again, the high oil prices are benefiting some parts of the country and some people, and it's hurting other parts of the country and other people. That's been a big thing, hasn't it, Eric? You know, for all the talk of tariffs, and I know a lot of it was unwound and there's various compensation being paid to businesses now who paid some of Donald Trump's earlier tariffs that courts ruled actually can't do that.

17:08But there was lots of talk that it would be the American household, the American business that would be paying for a lot of this. And yet it hasn't really played out the American economies being whacked by Donald Trump's policies. Yeah, the American economy is chugging right along. I think some people would argue that AI is propping it up, but it's really hard to tell. I mean, I think the economy has been, even if you exclude AI, the investments in AI, data centers and the like, I think the economy has been fairly resilient, more so than many people thought. Very interesting. Eric, thank you for your time.

17:47Eric Swanson, former senior economist at the Federal Reserve, now at the University of California. Good morning to you. Wake up to money on BBC Five Live. Lil Bremmerman, Richard with us this morning, boss of Oxford International, placing international students in universities around the world. Lil, just hearing Eric there talk about what the American economy is like, you place students in universities right around the globe, including in the US. Do you notice that the American economy overall just feels a little bit maybe more immune to global shocks than what we would be talking about daily here in the UK?

18:27Certainly, that is what comes through the press and the general conversations. However, from my interactions and my team's interactions with the US, the situation is quite challenging at the higher education level. So universities across the US that have been welcoming large volumes of international students and just to maybe share, it's important that the audience understands the US is the number one destination globally for students. to travel to, particularly because of its reputation around Silicon Valley and tech and innovation. And the volumes of students going to the US has been declining.

19:16Last time I was in your show, I spoke about a 17.5 % decline. And that was late 2025. That decline has continued into the first quarter of this year to over 25 % drop of international students choosing to go to the US. Why is that? Mainly two reasons is the geopolitical environment and the perception around the US leading some of that. And second is the immigration approach that we have been reading about recently with the students not being sure whether they will be able to obtain a visa or even when they do have the visa and they're in the US, they may be asked to leave. Is any of that meaning that the UK is becoming a more attractive alternative to the US for these students?

20:18Yes, the UK is benefiting from it for certain, but also other places like Europe, India, Asia, as we have been talking about. Are we taking advantage of it as the opportunity as much as we could be in the UK? I think the answer is relatively balanced. I think over the last three years, we are taking a conservative approach to volumes of international students. And I think it's appropriate to ensure that the UK welcomes the very best students, very good students and genuine students.

21:08So I think the answer is yes, but we are being cautious. I think is right. We need a sustainable industry. Universities benefit from diverse students, from international students, and so does the UK economy. So again, to share some big numbers, international students contribute 38.5 billion pounds to the UK economy, and only 50 % of that is on tuition fees. The other 50 % is positive for local shops, for bars, for clubs. Well, that is a big number. Can you give us a bit of insight into where in the UK you've seen stronger growth? Where's doing well at this? Because there are good universities right across the country.

22:07Universities across the country, some of the larger university Russell groups are doing very well with international students, but also universities that are focusing on key skills around AI, computer science, engineering, business, entrepreneurship. Is there a city or maybe even a university that you've just noticed is coming up more in conversation for the UK at the moment, for students from overseas? Students are, they like going to cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, certainly London, Bristol, and also Scotland, places like Edinburgh, Glasgow. so it's the big hubs but students and particularly students from Asia Pacific they like safer environments around Wales so I don't think universities need to think we need to be in a big city to be successful I think the UK is very attractive for its safety for its multicultural environment and also for its quality of education And probably I should have named that first.

23:30The UK has a fantastic brand in terms of quality of education. And it was notable as you sort of listed, you know, some of the many of the major cities around the UK in terms of population size that you mentioned Leicester in there as well. I guess, is that an example of how education, I don't know whether that is to do with Loughborough being nearby as well as other universities that are in Leicester as well, that education can bring quite a big boost to the local economy? Well, Sean, some of the cities, the universities, are in the top two employers in the city. so it has a huge impact on the local economy and on the vibrancy of the city so I don't think we can undermine that and in fact we should consider that and to take that a step further innovation is happening in these universities and opportunities for future trade So when we have international students in our local universities interacting with us, that builds a connection with that international student that then returns to their country and chooses to trade with the UK or to build businesses with UK connections.

25:00So the soft power built by having these international students as part of our community is much longer standing than we understand. So it's the£38 billion generated on an annual basis plus the future economic opportunities that come from it. 85058, your thoughts if you work in the sector? And if you're particularly interested, you know, if you work in the education sector around Leicester, do you notice that that is a real important hub? Perhaps wherever you are in the UK, you have education as being one of your biggest employers for that further education that we are talking about this morning, particularly with Lil.

25:50I just had a few messages coming in. I'm going to be talking more about the World Cup in the United States, the Men's Football World Cup a little later in the year. Well, just in a couple of months time, 50 days time, actually, somebody being in touch saying morning, Sean, and wake up to money. The dollar is critical for those going to the World Cup in person for every one pound sterling currently. One dollar thirty five cents, says one. Freddie, time for us to keep an even closer eye on that direct exchange rate between the pound and the dollar. What has been the trends for that of late? Yeah, well, so, I mean, looking over the last 12 months, actually, sterling has strengthened against the US dollar.

26:32As you say, it's at$135 today. And it's been fairly resilient, actually, through the course of this conflict in the Middle East. Normally, in normal times, when sort of conflicts are on the horizon or in place, the US dollar normally strengthens against a bucket of other international currencies. And although it has strengthened somewhat, I would say it hasn't strengthened as much as what it could have done. And we think that that's primarily down to international investors perhaps losing trust with the US administration. It's quite interesting, Freddie, actually. I was just bringing up the chart of the pound against the dollar.

27:16And, you know, the 10-year chart is often one you can just click on and have a look. And it made me realise, blimey, 10 years, you know, I can just about see where the dollar was before the referendum in 2016 on the UK to leave the European Union. And so just before we were at around$1.4546. Has there been, you know, going back further, has there now we've had 10 years to play out on something like this? Do you notice big shifts in the value of the currency because of a move like that? Well, absolutely. I mean, it impacts everybody, essentially, you know, particularly businesses who are sort of importing and exporting from the UK.

27:57I mean, we have to go all the way back to before the financial crisis when sterling was trading at over two dollars. Sorry, two dollars a pound. And that was before the financial crisis. And unfortunately, over that period of time, Sterling has just been knocked back by a number of events that have not helped Sterling's progress, including Brexit, of course, as you mentioned 10 years ago. And really, actually, over the last 10 years, Sterling's traded in quite a wide trading range from the levels just before the referendum all the way down to almost parity with the dollar in the mini budget crisis of the Liz Trust tenure.

28:37and now it's sort of back up to sort of the middle of that trading range. But it certainly has an impact, particularly on business. 85058, your thoughts, particularly if you are plotting a trip to the World Cup in 50 days time, or maybe you have in the past and have thought, actually, this one isn't for you. The pound against the dollar there,$1.35 for your pound at the moment. Don't know how different that is to where it was the 1994 World Cup last time. the Men's World Cup was in the United States.

29:35Unlimited. Garantía de precio no incluye impuestos y cargos. Velocidad de datos móviles se reduce después de 20 gigas al mes. Make Mother's Day even more special at Whole Foods Market. Kick off brunch or dinner with quality cheese and charcuterie with no synthetic nitrates. Then go seafood. There's an abundance on sale at Whole Foods Market, where it's all sustainable while caught or responsibly farmed. At the bakery, grab seasonal treats like their strawberry pretzel cream pie, and you can't go wrong with a ready-to-heat quiche Lorraine, deviled eggs and fresh cut fruits to go. Celebrate mom with Whole Foods Market.

30:12Wake Up To Money with Sean Farrington. Good morning. Wake Up To Money on BBC5 Live on this Wednesday morning, the 22nd of April. We're not far off 25 to 6. Hope you are well. 85058 to keep your thoughts coming as we chat a little bit more about trips to World Cups, Big sporting events. Later on in the programme, we'll be looking at what is going to be going on in the United States. Prices seem to be a big one this time round. I mean, it often is, but particularly some of the numbers being mentioned are pretty eye-watering. Maybe you're going, are you making adjustments? Have you just written off the cost because it's a trip of a lifetime?