Unwrapping the Global Economy

0:00Welcome to Inside Economics. I'm Mark Zandy, the Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics, and I'm joined by my two trusty co-host, Marissa Dintelli and Chris Dries. Hi guys. Hello, Mark. Hi Mark, good morning. Hi, this is Take 2. For some reason I hear you guys say hello before, but that came through loud and clear. But it sounded a little patronizing to me. That helped that a lot. Well, it was the second time around, so it was a little forced, you know. A little forced, but good to have your board. You have a good week. Everyone have a good week. Chris, you had a good week. Yeah, busy week. Busy week. Went to Columbus. Yeah. Well, I have, I just have to recount a story. So I was at the pension real estate association, Priya, a big real estate conference in DC. And I had done, I did my talk and there was a Q&A and got off the stage. I'm walking. I had to

1:05catch a, get a car to go to another speech. And as I was walking out, this fellow comes up to me goes, do you accept gifts? And I thought it was from Priya. I thought this guy was from Priya. You know, that they give you like a little Nicknack or whatever you call it, a little Chatsky kind of thing. Yeah, I'll be happy to take it. It turns out he has nothing to do with me. May has something to do with Priya, but that wasn't what it was. So I get home and I open up the bag and he had this nice mug, give me this nice mug. Because nice story, nice show me the data. Nice, no wait, nice story. Now show me the data. This is what he gave me. He's a big inside economics podcast fan. Oh, that's nice. And he was just attending the conference and brought that. I think so. His name is Kevin Porter. So if Kevin's out there, he can tell us how I don't, I think he just was at the conference. You know, he showed up and handed me the bag. And this is, he wrote a very nice, no, I can't read the whole note to you. But let me read the first bit. He goes, dear Mark, Merissa and Christian and entire inside economics team. Thank you for all,

2:11also very much for your candid thoughts. What do you humor? He's talking about me in that, in that, absolutely clearly, clearly, clearly, and thoughtful discussion, recording the current economic landscape. And then he goes on, isn't that nice? Isn't that really nice? That's beautiful. Very nice. I was very, you know, I was very surprised. I thought it was and the thing got it wasn't like a $300 bottle of red wine because that would have violated pretty, give it a policy. It was the mug, but it was very nice of him. I don't know about you guys, but wherever I go, people just want to tell me they listen to the podcast and they like the podcast. Yeah. Merissa is same for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everywhere. They just, they really like it. They share it with their friends. Yeah. They use it for their exercise routine. So I'm, you know, really pleased. Yeah, it's gratifying. Yeah. And we also have Gaurav Ganguly, was this our colleague, Gaurav, how are you? I'm well, Mark. And as I'm not doing this the second time round, I hope this doesn't appear forced to patronizing. Well, with that English accent,

3:16you know, you can say whatever you want. It's just about as forced to patronize. All right. Of course, Gaurav is head of international economics for us and also has his own podcast, right? Gaurav. I do much, much smaller scale, much more humble than inside economics, but we're trying to try to get going and we talk about everything outside of the Americas. So a lot of, a lot of talks and themes on, on Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and a growing following. So do tune in. It's called the Global Economy and RAPT released every week. I love the name. Yeah. It's out in Spotify and Apple for free and please do feel free to spread the word. And listen to it yourself, of course. You know, I haven't been invited on for quite some time on this, this young. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't, we thought to humble in that open invitation or open invitation, open invitation. Okay. Well, it's good to have you on because there's a lot to talk about what's going on overseas. And, you know, I want to start there. And I got it a little quiz for you. Okay. This is a little

4:23quiz. Just a test. I'm going to name 10 countries, maybe nine, my nine or 10 countries. And I want you to tell me which country stock market has experienced the most significant increase since the beginning of the year. So year to date through, you know, the recent data in which of the countries has experienced the weakest stock market. Okay. You ready? Yeah. We're going to go around. I'm going to ask Morrison and Chris the same thing. All right. Here are the countries. US, okay. Japan, Canada, UK. That's where you're hailing from, right? You're in London. Yeah. That's right. I mean, UK. Are you, are you in Moody's offices? Where are you? It looks like I am in the Moody's office today. Exactly. Okay. We're in the Moody's office. Right. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, thanking you Moody's office. Oh, wow. I can't wait to come and see it. Yeah. I can't wait to do it. Yeah. It's pretty good. Okay. UK, Germany, France, China, Mexico and Brazil. I just kind of randomly

5:27picked those countries. So, which of those countries stock market is up the most on a percentage basis since the beginning of the year? Oh, I'd be inclined to see this. This is in peace up. Oh, no. No, that's not, no, no, no. I go with Japan. You can go with, you can go with any country you like. It's the world is your oyster. Okay. Can I go with Japan as the top and can I go with China at the bottom? Oh, no. Maybe France. Maybe France. Oh my gosh. Is he right? He's right. He's right. I thought I wouldn't damn him. Yeah. I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, in China and, and France, but I'll go with France. And with good reason because they're close. They're close. Yeah. Okay. Now, let's, let's really tell you. And I was expecting to have one to be on the list. So, you know, I didn't pick time on because that's like, that'd be too obvious. Yeah. That was very impressive. It wasn't impressive. Yeah. Very impressive. That's why he's the head international icon. There you go. There you go. Who hired Garov? I'm just asking.

6:31Anyway, okay. So, here's the real test. What is in now? Japan is in fact the country that, of those that I picked that had this most significant increase on percentage basis in their equity market. What do you think that percentage increase is? You know, roughly, and this is in local currency terms, not in dollar terms. This is in local currency terms. Oh gosh. Since the beginning of 2025 is that six six. You're the date. 20 to 20. Okay. This year, right. It's got to be less than, it's got to be less than, can I pick a range somewhere between 17 and 20 percent? 37 percent. 37. No way. No way. In local currency terms. Yeah. Okay. And what do you think France is indeed the weakest and, and what do you think is going on there? What do you think the, what's happened with prices there? So I think France is probably in the 5 percent region. Positive or negative. Positive. It's down 5 percent. It's down 5 percent. Okay. So that's

7:33okay. Why do I think it's plus 5 percent? I don't know. I'm going to take a look. Well, okay. I take it. That was that was pretty darn good. Now, let me, here's the real question. Why is the Japanese stock market up so much and why is the French stock market down? So the Japanese one, it feels like this is a really tied up with the Japanese currency. And of course, and I guess to some extent, export boom and AI. AI. Yeah. Right. It's AI. There are, you know, the AI boom, here's lifting boats all over the world, right? Japan is one of those countries. Quite a few East Asian economies really benefiting from plugging into the US build out boom. And they're, and these East Asian economies, obviously supplying all the equipment, the chips and the kit. Right. Right. You know, why do you think France, I think, is probably obvious. Why that's not? No growth. It's really struggled with growth this year. It's a more abundant economy. It's in political paralysis. That's going to continue. It's just completely struggled with growth. It's

8:37just basically recorded flat growth over the first half of this year. It might improve slightly in the second half of this year. So if you're thinking about expectations and prices stock, asset prices reflecting expectations, then it's not just what happened this year. So far, but also what lies ahead and what lies ahead doesn't look that great. So finding growth, the France is really difficult. Yeah. And I guess all the business made headlines here in the United States, the kind of social turmoil there in France in the last week or so. That's been pretty hard to watch. And I guess the upcoming election, that seems to be a bit of a mess too. That's definitely, definitely a mess. And you know, the right-wing party, National Rally, leaders, Marine Le Pen, she's she's tipped to win. Two to a tease come out on front in the presidential race. And they have two rounds. So they'll have a round one where various candidates will line up and then there'll be a runoff if there isn't a clear winner. So Marine Le Pen is tipped to win the first round and then go into a runoff and probably also win the second round and we actually be installed

9:42as an ex-president of France. But that doesn't automatically, of course, mean that she controls the parliament because there's a separate parliamentary process. So you could just get into a pretty messy situation with a number of different scenarios. Yeah. Here's one country whose dog markets weigh up that really shotgun, curiously, shotgun for Zill. For Zill's up 28% here today. That's surprising to you. Yeah, pretty surprising to me. I've also noticed that with Lula winning, I'm sorry, not Lula, but Bolsonaro winning the first round. That's had a pretty steep impact, pretty positive impact on stock markets as well. Right. Right. Well, we'll come back to kind of what's going on politically because there's does feel like there's a move towards right-wing, I think that's the right way to call it. Maybe there's a better way to call it, but kind of right-wing kind of parties. You mentioned Marine Le Pen, same kind of dynamics playing out in Germany, UK, different parts of Latin America, I think Chile and Peru and on and on and on. So we'll

10:46come back to that as a thing. But here, I want to ask next about the global economy, large. And this is kind of my take on it. So maybe I don't have this quite right. So feel free to adjust. But the global economy, and I want to say that, I mean outside of the US, but the US is kind of similarly situated, has shown amazing resilience in the sense that it's getting nailed by all these global shocks. The tariffs, the US tariffs, they of course began in early 2025 with liberation day in April of 2025. Of course, we've had the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, which there's just going at it and it's disrupting refining markets and agricultural markets, just ongoing. He got the Iran war kind of playing out now and that obviously doesn't feel like that's going in the right direction going all over the place. The tensions between the US and China,

11:52eased up a little bit more recently, but obviously a lot of tension there that's not going to go away. I mean, I can go on and on and on. Those feel like pretty substantive shocks to the economy. But yet global growth, GDP growth, I think on a kind of a market, excuse me, on a PPP basis, purchasing power parity basis, about 2.5 percent on a market-based value basis, about three. That's, I think, close to the global economy's potential rate of growth. That rate of growth to produce enough jobs to maintain stable unemployment. And unemployment is pretty stable and pretty close to full employment. Of course, I'm generalizing. It varies place to place, but broadly speaking. Do I have that right, Grab? And if I do, what the heck is going on? Why do you think we're seeing that kind of resilience? I think it's a fact characterization of the global economy. And I'm pretty surprised. In fact, I'm at the loss for words sometimes as to how well the global economy is holding up. You might be surprised to hear that because you continually say that this guy's never

12:53at the loss for words, but I, but I am. And not that to that, you know, things like the pandemic, the scrambling of supply chains back in 21, 22, and all of that, the geopolitical changes that have been occurring and all of that and the global economy keeps powering forward. And I'd say on the one side, the process of innovation continues to amaze me. So AI has kicked in at the right time. Right. So you've got a massive boost to the global economy from AI. You've seen that yourself in the US, but we've just talked about it. It's also really boosting growth in some East Asian economies and keeping the crude story alive there while problems are, while problems are manifest in other parts of the economy. So that's that's part one of the story certainly in the last. Can I stop you there just for a second? So the number one on your list is the AI boom, which is obviously centered in the US. China is also having a bit of one, but it's kind of small in comparison, at least so far. That's my sense of it. But you're saying because of all of the

13:54imported products coming into the US, electronics and everything else is coming into the US to finance or to to help with the build out of the AI infrastructure, data centers and everything that goes into the data centers. That's lifting growth. And that that goes to Japan. We just talked about it. It goes to I guess Korea goes to Taiwan. I think Taiwan's booming, isn't it? It's like one certainly booming. It's totally booming. We keep raising our growth forecast for Taiwan. Right. I guess Mexico too. I mean, I we have HVACs. We had Wayne best on from Visa. And he was talking about all the HVAC products that are coming into the US from Mexico. They go into the data centers to help cool other data centers. And of course, the servers coming across the border. They're booming as well. Do I have that right? Are there any other parts of the world that you would call out that are also experiencing? It's not Europe, right? I mean, Europe is not. You're right. You've got that right. It's not Europe. Europe's really not participating in either the AI build out boom. Nor in a major way in the export boom. Of course, Europe has ASML its own

14:57champion, which manufactures all these very fine laser machines that are used to cover chips. Dutch. Dutch company. Exactly. And that's got a very big supplier, you know, but 5,000 suppliers to ASML. So that supports a bit of European growth there. But that's not big enough to really talk about materially lifting European growth. So it's got that, but not very much else. So I think on the AI side, you've characterized that very well. I'm not looking to say that it's number one on my list. It's the one at the top of my mind when I think of near to what's been happening recently, you see, over the past 20 years. So it's hard to put that list into an ordinal, in an ordinal sense, because the next one is you go back to that term resilience, is the way in which policymakers have also adapted their stance in the light of several shocks. Now, I'll come back to Europe here because I think Europe did a fair bit of nimble policymaking back in 2022 when Russia, Ukraine, war started out and Europe was facing a big energy crisis.

15:58And Europe started to come together on energy policy and build regastification terminals at amazing speed. You wouldn't think it possible, given Europe's environment laws, but it actually did that. That facilitated receiving a huge amount of energy from the US. That kind of change in infrastructure, such rapid base is helping it now. It's resilience built up over the last decade in terms of fiscal policy and in terms of monetary instruments is also helping and should continue to help with what's going on in bond markets right now. So there's all of that. And then if I look at what's happening in the Middle East, similar kinds of moves, there's a sovereign backstop in place in various countries that's keeping Middle Eastern countries afloat, and at least stopping them from going into freefall, which could be expected given the conflict in the Gulf. But these countries are still managing to see afloat. They even managing to get it a fair bit of oil out. We know that oil exports have recovered in the last couple of months and not back up to where they were pre-conflict, but they're certainly up in a material way. So all of these

17:02policy moves have also helped a lot in keeping the global economy going. And finally, I think let's not underpin. When you said, Savvour, just back one step back just to make sure I understand, when you say sovereign backstop, what are you talking about? Are you talking about the sovereign wealth funds? Is that what you mean? I guess it's the broad-based insurance policy that a state provides in times of trouble in keeping businesses afloat keeping households afloat keeping liquidity going in financial markets, investing in the economy. So that whole raft of policy measures, we saw bits of that happen during the pandemic. We saw bits of it happen in a more concerted manner in 22 when Russia invaded Ukraine in Europe. And we're seeing some of that happen in the Middle East right now in China. So you're saying a fiscal policy, many of these countries Saudi, UAE, Kuwait, all the countries that are under pressure, they've been able to use their own financial resources to help support their economies to kind of navigate through. Exactly.

18:04Oh god. Okay, that helps. So, so, okay. Yep, so I'd say the dryness of policy and the fact that there are buffers in place to enable this to happen, that's helped. Right, right. On that front, a number of these currencies in the Middle East are tied to the dollar, like the Saudi currencies tied to the dollar. Does it matter that interest rates are now rising in the US? Is that working in the opposite direction in these economies? Or not so much? It usually does. It usually creates a bit of a drift, but probably not all that much. Not all that much, okay. Okay, so you got AI, you got this policy, anything else on the list? And firms have been market leaders, alliance consumers have been market leaders, alliance particularly in these non AI sector firms. If I look at firms in Europe, for instance, I was really worried about them a year ago thinking what with what with the trade war starting up and Europe actually exporting a fair bit to the US

19:08that European firms would collapse. And certainly it's not a pretty picture when it comes to the automotive sector in Europe. But firms are holding out, they actually benefited somewhat inadvertently from front looting. And even now default rates are relatively low, firms are managing to cope, they're managing to change their strategies, their business revenue strategies, they're searching for new markets, they're going to take a while, but they're continuing. And the European consumers have been pretty okay too. Nothing spectacular, nothing stellar, but over the last few months we've upgraded our growth expectations for Europe. And a lot of that is to do with the fact that consumer is actually doing a bit of the lifting. In Asia, I think export story has really helped. That's been quite key to success in Asia. We do have some concerns around weaknesses in the domestic economy outside of the export sector. But again, I guess the point is that consumers have held up and policy buffers have been in place and they've helped. Sometimes these policy buffers are not very well placed in Asia Pacific. You might get a

20:12bit of inefficient policy, take Malaysia and subsidizing diesel for instance. It kind of helped right now in the version. These put pressure on public finances, but it's helped. Certainly keep the domestic economy going. So that's been part of the story. Okay. Anything else on your list? Why don't you policy has been doing okay? I guess you want to talk about that separately. So, but no, not necessarily. I mean, when you say my entire policy is okay, I mean, there's not like central banks are cutting rates. Are they? It's not the no exactly. It's not the central banks are cutting rates, but we came into another supply shock in not too uncomfortable position. Just think of what would have happened if we'd have supply shock on top of the supply shock. At least we didn't do that. So that that helped. Right. Right. Okay. Got it. I mean, Chris, to some degree, this sounds sort of familiar, doesn't it? I mean, in the US, I mean, of course, we're getting a much larger boost from AI. We got a little bit of a boost from fiscal policy, the one big, beautiful bill act, although that's not going to be repeated. Monetary policy,

21:20that not so much, but I mean, it's been modest for a so far. Would you add anything to the list? Chris, might be explained some of the resilience across the globe? Nothing to add to a list, I would say that, you know, deficits in debt can buy a lot of GDP, buy a lot of GDP. Right. For a while. For a while. Right. So this resilience is great. Right. And certainly there is resilience. There were some lessons learned from the great recession or even the pandemic. So some of those things certainly, I think, are still playing out. But I worry that a lot of this is the debt and deficits. Not only the fiscal debts, but also the AI build out. We're making pretty substantial bets here that these things are going to pay off. Right. If they do great, if they don't, then this could just be delaying some pain to come. Right. Right. Merced anything that you would add to the list of reasons for the

22:23resilience? Or would you agree with that characterization? Yeah. No, I agree with the characterization. I do think a lot of it is fueled by AI. Echo Chris' concerns about rising bond yields, it's not just in the US, right? It's all over the world. And a lot of that is reflective of the debt loads of a lot of these countries. So yeah, no, nothing to add. Okay. Okay. Well, let's turn to some of the threats to that resilience. And one, we've just brought up is long-term interest rates. Central banks in response to the higher inflation generated by the war in Iran have been starting to tighten policy more quickly in Europe, ECB, most notably the European Central Bank. Obviously because they're one man-data is to keep inflation down. They don't have a dual mandate like we do here in the US. And they've been much more hawkish historically for various reasons. But long-term rates are up everywhere. I mean,

23:27here in the US, there are up a lot, I think a lot very significantly in France for obvious reasons. The only place where they're not up, I think, is like Canada and Switzerland because they get more to say even better. But they're up everywhere. So I'm going to grab back to you. And we've been having a great debate here in the US about what's behind the run-up in long-term interest rates. What's the reason for the higher long-term rates overseas? Is it simply that they reflect the higher US rates or is there something else going on? There's not, I don't think it's simply that it reflects higher US rates. Certainly there's a part of that. That's part of the explanation rate that what perhaps started out as a rise in US interest rate spread out across the world helps explain partially what's been going on in, say, in Europe, for instance, or in even in Asia. But there are country-specific, region-specific issues. You mentioned France. There's a great example where we've got very specific concerns around the political process. And it's kind of interesting.

24:31Interesting what Chris Annmer has said. There's a lot of debt out there in rising yields, obviously, affect the stability of that debt. But absent, absent, I guess, the kind of political, the political vacuum that we have in some of these countries, and the growing political disquiet in these countries, that disquiet over the political process, we may not even have seen much of a movement, a country-specific movement in these rates. So if you take France as an example, it's got a very high debt to GDP ratio. It's got this political vacuum for several years. It's not been able to get its public finances under control. Deficits are really stubborn, and even this year, it's unlikely that the budget to be passed for next year will actually manage to bring deficits in. Now, if it had a different government, say it had the Spanish government, and it had managed to make some slight progress with its deficits, and if that government had been stable, probably wouldn't see quite a lot of this happen. So I think there's a huge story here around the political process and the dissatisfaction with current political parties that did lock we see in certain

25:35countries. You mentioned the right, the rise of the right, and possibly the lack of agenda when it comes to fiscal discipline that's causing some of these issues to surface and create some countries-specific circumstances. We've had, I'll bring up Spain again because I talked about France and mentioned Spain. Spain's also going to have elections. France is due to have elections next year. Spain's due to have elections at the end of this year. And there was some, you know, a problem with a housing bill and that got thrown out and that led to snap elections being called. But that's not a country that's experiencing much in the way of a discontentment in bond markets. Because actually, public finances are in reasonable condition and fiscal discipline is okay, despite having a pretty high debt load. So it really comes down to, right now, it looks like it's really coming down to what's happening in the political process, the turmoil that's causing, and I guess investors starting to feel good. Let me push back. Let me push back. Okay. Well, I'm going to give you the- this is- help with Clawed. So I asked Clawed to tell me what the increase in long-term interest rates are by countries since the beginning of the year.

26:38France up 132 basis points, 1.32 percentage points. Italy won 108 basis points, US 107. This is from the end of last year. It's not since the low point in 2026. South Korea up 101 basis points, Japan up 97, Spain up 84, India up 69, Germany up 63, Australia up- you get my drift. They're up everywhere. So we know that the political problems have been around forever. Why now? Or maybe something deeper going on here, something else is going on other than, yes, I mean, a necessary condition for rising long-term rates, sovereign yields is you've got fiscal issues, but it's not a sufficient condition because they weren't going up last year and we still had a significant fiscal issue. So what do you think is driving that train, or maybe I've got this all wrong? No, I think maybe we're seeing the same thing just using slightly different language. You've had raising long-term yields, which seems to be started out by the US, and also,

27:43I guess now we've got all this AI build out in a huge amount of AI funding going on, and that's putting pressure on other countries. But there are some countries' specific circumstances that mustn't be ignored and they seem to be rising up now. And that's the point I'm trying to make that I would say that the premium for French political system, the French political processes, is not outweighed by what's happening in, is being outpaid by what's happening in the US, but it shouldn't be ignored either. And markets are giving a country like France benefit of doubt right now. But they asked outing to get a bit jittery. And there's a lot of faith, I guess, in the European process and in European mechanisms to curb any turmoil in bond markets, but I think increasingly people are starting to take notice of what's going on. Chris, what do you think? I mean, you get my drift, right? I mean, it's going to be a little different. I mean, yes, you're some distinction. Reason why France has the strongest, highest increases, because France is a basket case. I get that. And why Canada and Switzerland are the lowest,

28:45because they're well governed and they've got the best fiscal situation. So, okay, I stipulate that that's the case, but they're up everywhere. So there's some other thing going on here, I think. Maybe it's simply that the US is the benchmark yield of the US goes up. Everybody goes up and that that's, you know, we're just driving the train. But is that it or is there something else going on in your mind? That's part of it. But we've got two hot wars, got inflation globally, we got deficits, we got all the shocks, right? There's just a lot to worry about. And uncertainty, that's going to a nature that's across the board. That's across the board, right? And what is energy going to look like? Is the war in Iran going to be resolved quickly or not? Right? There are a lot of factors here that are reflecting inflation globally. It's not just a US problem. It's it's global. You got diesel prices through the roof with the war in Ukraine, right? I can go on and on and on. I think that's what's driving the bond investor to put additional premiums

29:48kind of on all that, right? They're kind of worried. There's no real safe haven here, right? So they're taking the whole stack up to account for the uncertainties. That's my take. You just have a lot of uncertainties. And then you don't have the fiscal space or the, you don't even have the monetary policy certainty in the US that maybe you had in the past are still questions about independence. Maybe they're being somewhat reduced now, but still kind of in the back in the mind of investors, what's going to happen with the debt ceiling, right? You have a lot of things that can certainly make investors nervous. Let me ask you another question. And, and Merce, I'm going to ask you the same question. I'll ask you to grab because you kind of brought it up in the context of AI bond issuance. If yields are everywhere across the planet, can the argument be that they're up in the US because of growth expectations? I mean, growth expectations vary all over the map globally. So can, when I look at the increase in yields

30:52across the world, it makes it feel less likely to me that the explanation is growth expectations in the United States. Am I wrong? Or does that make sense to you, Chris? Yeah, no, that, that makes sense. So you don't see the growth. Growth story as the driver of the, yeah, of the bond yields. Yeah. Grab you want to push back on that? No, I don't want to push back on that. Oh, darn. I don't see. Maybe Merissa will Merissa will you push back on that? No, we had this discussion last week, I think too. I mean, I think it's all, yeah, I think it's all the bad stuff. I don't think it's, I don't think it's expectations of higher growth. I agree with Chris. I mean, I would, I don't know because I'm not looking at this data like you are right now, but I would venture to say that I would venture to guess that this increase in bond yields globally. We know the story very well in the US, the, the three of us, but I'd venture to say this rise in yields has been particularly acute since the war in Iran started everywhere, right? So that tells me that it is

31:57these geopolitical concerns, concerns broadly about inflation, energy prices, supply chains. I think that's what it is primarily. Yeah, I've gotten, you, I've been using the term Occam's razor. You heard me say that at the conference. Grav, do you know Occam's razor? Does that ring a bell? Yeah, I've come across it. I'm very angry again, but it is. What's, oh, the simplest explanation is likely the correct explanation. Oh, yeah, that one. Yeah, that one. Yeah. And it seems like the oil, you know, the conflict in Iran is the simplest explanation, not the only explanation and things have taken on a life of their own, but that feels, it feels like it is. I don't think we're, I'm being dissuaded by what's going on, you know, here globally. Here's one more question about this, this, uh, Grav, I'm curious. You know, bond yields are up a lot, right? I mean, French, uh, uh, 10 years are almost five. Italy's almost at five. US is over five. UK is well over five. You know, South Korea is over four. Even Japan,

33:03you know, it's the 10 year JGB is three, which is kind of extraordinary, you know, for Japan, given what's been going on there. You know, Australia is at five. Canada is at four. They're up, well, these higher yields, you know, bite, I mean, are they going to have an impact on growth? Are they going to slow things down? I mean, if we're growing up potential now, what does that imply about things, you know, six, 12 months from now? Yeah, it will bite in some countries, I think more than in others. So we come back to countries that have the ability to their some fiscal space or not. So if you take my favorite country France, um, it's got to bite, they're so limited or even the UK for that matter, the ability to actually use fiscal policy, to grow the economy, that's incredibly limited. And I guess we then look at the Spillovers from higher interest rates generally from higher long term and short term rates, how does that affect financing conditions across these countries? Does it lead to tightening of consumer finance or business finance? Um, I think it does have the potential to bite. Okay, so that means

34:08below potential growth. Yeah, I get the sense that this could shape a bit of growth in several concept economies of the world. Well, we'll come back to the global economy, but we've got a lot of ground to cover here. Uh, we want to play the stats game. We want to take a listener question or two and we have a new feature that we're unveiling based on listener requests. And that is, you know, what is it that we're looking at that we think is important for the coming week? It could be a statistic. It could be an event, you know, whatever it is. But let's play the game, the stats game. We just put forward a stat. The rest of the group tries to figure that out with clues, questions to Dr. Reasoning, the best stats one that's not so easy to get it right away. One that's not so hard. We get it. We never get it. If it's apropos to the topic at hand, doesn't have to be, topic is global economy, all the better. Uh, Marissa, tradition has it that you go first. What's your stat? My stat is 24. 24 hours in a day. No. That's correct, but that's not what I had in mind.

35:15You're going to give us, you're going to give us units or that you can't really do that. That give it away. It's something I calculated out of a release of the past week. Oh, doesn't came out this past week. Could Chris have any ideas what that could be? What could that be? I was thinking of the TV series 24. Oh, that was a good series. I mean, it was good and then it wasn't good, right? I mean, that's one of those shows that you never watched it. Uh, because it was post 9-11, right? It was all about the terrorism and, right? It's like the potential ceasens of that. I think each hour they did for an hour, right? Didn't they, Chris? Yes. 24. Was there 24 episodes? I don't recall, but it was a president Obama's favorite show. I do recall that, really. Yeah, according to the president, yeah, that's the case. I don't think it ages well. I wouldn't go

36:17back and look at it, Merissa. Probably not. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, all right. So that's not that. All right. What came out? That's not the answer. Not the answer. Very little came out. The Fed minutes came out. Fed, Fed minutes. Is it in the Fed minutes? Merissa. Yeah. And that's something to do with the Fed minutes. So 24 times, it was mentioned 24 times in the F. Something was mentioned 24 times in the Fed. Inflation. Yeah. It's got to be inflation. No. Are you sure? Actually, no, I'm not sure. Interest rates. I don't know how many times inflation was mentioned, but that's not what I had in mind. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Tankers. Grave, you have any ideas? Uncertainty. Oh, that's a good one. 24 times the word's uncertainty. No. All right. We give up. Merissa. What is it? AI. AI. Yeah. 24 times. And what context? I should have read the minute. In the context of it fueling growth

37:24in the context of it, contributing to inflation because of all the catbacks and investment. In the context of it, making up a large portion of recent GDP growth so far in 2026 in the US. So they're providing a basis for rate hikes. Why are we raising interest rates? And they talk about a lot of other stuff, right? But I was curious to see how many times AI was mentioned. And this is one of the in the last two Fed meeting minutes in the July meeting minutes. They mentioned it 26 times, which was an all time high. This time, they mentioned it 24 times. If you go back a year, they only mentioned it twice a year ago. So I graphed it. And well, I had clawed graph it, to be honest. And it is like hovering near zero until you get to the end of 2025. And then it just explodes. How many times they're talking about AI in the context

38:25of growth and inflation? So it sounds like, and I should have read the minutes. I didn't. I'll go back and read them. But they're using it as a basis for raising rates in two ways. One is it's lifting demand. And therefore demand through the wealth effects and consumer spending and demand through the infrastructure build out. It's juicing up inflation, you know, obviously for electronics and prices generally. And then the other is AI's lifting longer term growth, productivity growth. And that would raise the so-called neutral rate. Is that sound about right? And what's interesting is like, if you go back to the first few times it was mentioned, like a year, a year and a half ago, the first time they mentioned AI, they talked about it in terms of its contribution to productivity growth, speculating that maybe it was contributing to productivity growth. Now they're really just talking about it in terms of inflation. It's

39:25inflationary impact. And it's impact on GDP growth through CAPEX. Yeah. So it's not in the context of a higher neutral rate, a higher trend. Not really. No. Wow. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Because by our calculations, AI's lifting inflation, because it's lifting the demand side more than the supply side, you know, so that's happening. But it's two, three, tens of a percent on inflation. That doesn't feel like that will put you on the warpath. But that's interesting. Yeah. That's interesting. That was a great one. Grabe, you want to go next? Do you have a stat? Yeah. I've got a couple of stats. We just want one. Grabe. Yeah. That's just back to that. Perfect. Perfect. Three points eight. Three points eight. Three point eight. Interest rate. And not an interest rate. No. Inflation rate. That isn't overall inflation in Neurosone. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. When?

40:27Oh, it passed year, year of year. Is this indeed year of a year? This is so boring. What the heck? So is that the answer? That's is that what you guys do on global economy unwrapped? No, we don't play. We don't play a stats game. Yeah. Oh, we have we move. We move fun. You got to put more energy into this graph. That doesn't cut it, my friend. Yeah. So is that the answer, Gareth? It's the zero-overgare inflation. That was it. Yeah. It's a time. I mean, I'll take credit for you. You were very non-surrent about, you know, yes. Yes. Yeah. You like to make a big deal of it right here. And I was so hopeful when he said, I said, interest rate and he kind of hesitated. You know, it felt like a head fake, but not so much. Okay. Well, why did you pick that stat, Gareth? We'll be worried about inflation in Neurosone. We're worried about ECB retikes and how many we get and what DCB's up to right now. So we're watching it. I'm also thinking about it in terms of whether

41:29it's actually spilling across into non-energy goods and services. We know it's concentrated in energy, but is it really affecting non-energy goods and services? Why hasn't the bank, I don't think the Bank of England's raised rates yet. Have they? I've lost my mind. No, they haven't raised rates yet, but they were they had finished cutting rates either. So when they paused, step was still a bit of monetary tightening. Oh, I see. They were in an easing mode and then exactly. So the hold is kind of a hawkish step. I see. That's right. Is there any do you expect any increase by the BOE in rates or not? Yeah, we do actually. We think the way things are going right now and November increases and November retikes looking like to you. Really? Yes. Okay. Because inflation grows. You've been patient once again, the inflation growth story and I guess the need tools to be more credible and make sure that inflation expectations don't run away. Right. Okay. Because their bond yields are up a lot. Okay. They're bond deals. Do you think this is, put your suppose you were

42:35on the ECB? What would you would you be voting for rate increases here? Yeah. I mean, this point I'd be voting for you. Why? Why? Why would you be voting for a rate increase? I'd want to make sure. I'd be a bit worried about the possibility that this spills over into wages. And I think I'll keep that anchor hasn't yet. So why raise if you don't want any. Yes, you could you could wait until it happens, but it might be a bit too late. Really? So I think the idea that you can get started early on the ECB is enough space to do that. Would would make sensible to actually start to raise now. I was asking afterwards any evidence of expectations inflation expectations rising. No, not not really, but I think it's also because ECB has been so alert and raising rates. I mean, they've raised rates how many times twice? The times of the times of the years and that's how it runs pretty much on the done deal. Okay. Huh. That's the same attitude here in the US. I mean, what the Fed saying and I find is so perplexing. I mean, I see no evidence of any pass through to wages where I would be

43:40most concerned and wage growth continues to decelerate and wages sit in Europe as well or continue to decelerate. Yeah, it's fair. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So there's no sign of a bus through to wages yet. Yeah. And then real wages must be declining because if you have inflation of 3.8, I presumably, right? Real wages are a different questioner. And we had real wages picking up as the previous shock faded, but now they're starting to decline again. I feel the German roots kind of sort of here. Yeah, it could be. Could be. Yeah. Do you remember 2011? Do you remember 2011? I remember 2011. Yes. When the ECB raised rates and that was a catastrophic error coming out of the financial crisis, GFC. Yeah, it was. Yeah. That was pretty bad. But then 2022 came around and that was also really bad. And I think, you know, the rate still went up and justifiably. And we didn't get the kind of catastrophe that fell back in 2011. 2011 was also quite special because of course, we were going into, we had us backtropper week sovereigns and they were really weak. We had

44:45agreed default that had occurred. So we have a much better situation now in sovereign space. But yeah, I can see the parallels between 2011, 2022 and now. Okay. All right. Well, that wasn't a good one, but it was doing it in a good conversation. That was good. That's why I did it. Hey, Chris, you want to do yours? What's your stat? Sure. 6.2%. 6.2%. An interest rate? No. An inflation rate? No. The stat that came out this week came out today. Oh, you're receiving Michigan came out today. That's not it. Oh, what else came out today? It's not government. Oh, it's a trade group. Is it your housing? Housing related? No. Oh, is it a, it's not a group. It's one institute. Oh, what is it? ISM?

45:47Nope. Is it a sink tank? You're saying? No, no. So private, private, oh, private company. Well, it's not government. Okay. Publicly traded company. Let me verify that. Oh, really? Okay. Is it a moody? I keep you keep going back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You can't know. No, you consider those government institutions, wouldn't you? Dispoint. Yeah, I would. Yeah, right. So it's a, it's not a trade group. No. It's a, it's a report that I've referenced. Some of you are not usually make fun of me. I make fun of you. We always make fun of you. Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. I'll clarify. That's not helpful at all. All right. What is it? Give us a bank. Large bank America institute. It's this is consumer spending. It's the spending. Okay. Is it up 6.2%? Yes. Over the month,

46:51according to their report, consumer spending per household is up 6.2% year-over-year. That's looking at their credit cards and their debit cards, right? They, it's a large bank. So you think that, you know, should be fairly represented. It's not going to be completely represented, but it's a big number relative to what we're seeing elsewhere. And they also report a lot of breadth, right? So according to their report, it's not just the upper end of the K. It's they're seeing growth, actually even faster growth at the lower end of the curve. And not just on essentials, but on discretionary spending as well. So it paints a very different picture for the US consumer than what we're seeing elsewhere. Of course, some of that's inflation. No doubt, right? No doubt. I mean, the CPI is 3. I'm making this up. 3.4%, 3.5. But even if you do it 6.8 minus 3.5, you're still left with a pretty big increase. Yeah, they report excluding

47:54gasoline, which is 5.1%, still. 5.1%. Right. That's still quite solid. So yeah, interesting. They're still expanding data a week ago, you know, from the, yeah. No doubt, no doubt. But they also show wages. So they contradict the Atlanta Fed a bit. They show wage growth at the bottom, actually being quite strong. So they're pointing at a picture of a consumer that's in good shape and in relative. We could shape across the board, not just at the top. What am I missing? Boy, that's just interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, their wage measure is after tax, right? So some of the tax cuts. And if you're looking year over year, there could be some of that going on. But still, even with it, they show quite a breadth of strength. So interesting. What did they show for jobs though last month? Probably. Do you recall? I think I think they showed some deceleration, but yeah, certainly stronger than what they

48:58what we actually got. Okay, well, we got it. We got it. We get a point. We get retail sales, don't we? I think next week. So maybe that's a presaging our, where we're going to go in a few minutes what's happening next week. Okay, well, that's great. I had a bunch of good stats, but let's move on. Well, let's do a listener question. We're already getting a little long in the tooth. And Marissa, do you have a question for us? Yeah, this is an interesting one that I think actually came to Chris. So, okay, the question is, if you had an economic genie that granted you the ability to get an email with one data point exactly correct, no restatements or ambiguity once a month, what would it be and why? You can't change the data point once you select it. The wish only lasts 12 months. And you can only look at previous months reading. No crystal balls looking into the future. Great question. Hey, Rob, you want to take that one first? What would that statistic be for you?

50:01Well, right now it would be the inflation rates, but I'm boring. Oh, but no, no, not right now. This is like, you know, your go to stat. Oh, my goodness, I'm with the course of the next year, right? Yeah, of course, the next year. Yeah. Yeah, what would you, would it be the inflation rate? I'm toss up then. I'm at Go for the 10 year bond deal. 10 year bond. Why? Because I'm concerned because I'm concerned about what's happening in Eurasian subrened bond markets. Actually, maybe not even the 10 year bond deal that go for the spread, the 10 year spread between the bond and the French bond. I see. Because if that spread between the French interest rates are rising relative to German interest rates, that spread is widening. As a sign that there might be some fracturing going on in the EU. That's right. The facturing going on that's specific stress on French markets and that's greater concern. Got it. Got it. Okay, that's an interesting one. So should we put, I should put the French bond yield and German bond yield on my

51:03dashboard to watch? So what's your say? What I bet it on mine. You got it on yours. Do you have any sense of how, I guess right now they're pretty wide, aren't they? And I think French yield are going above Italian yields at this point, aren't they? That's right. Exactly right. And the French spread is widened quite a lot this year. Yeah. Good. Okay. All right. Chris, what's your go-to stat? Yeah. So I was thinking from the standpoint of the revision's piece. Like what information would you want that is actual truth and doesn't get revised later on? And so in that context, I thought of consumer sentiment. I don't like consumer sentiment because we don't actually measure it well. But if you told me what it actually was with certainty and was measuring yield time, that would that would be helpful. I just think that I'm not against consumer sentiment as a concept. Although I've talked ill about it in the past,

52:04but I just don't think that we measure it properly or can measure it properly. But if we could, it would be a great stat to have. Yeah. So you're saying we, the University of Michigan consumer confident conference board survey, they got all kinds of measurement issues. So therefore, they're not quite as useful. But if I'm the genie, if you're, I have a genie, and the genie says, okay, I can give you a really good, a perfect read on what people are, how people are feeling, you take that one. That's what you would take. Yeah. I think that would be a good one. Okay. All right. That makes a lot of sense. Versa, what about you? GDP. You would pick GDP because you want that because it's the most comprehensive measure of what's going on in the economy. I mean, yeah, there's, it can mask things just like any statistic can, but recently we've seen big revisions to GDP, right, for the first half of 2026. And I think particularly over the course of the next year, given that AI is juicing GDP so much, I think we're poised to

53:10have bigger revisions. And I think that would be the most useful stat to get a good read on what's going on in the economy. Got it. Got it. Okay. I picked the unemployment rate. Yeah. Because the unemployment rate not only gives you a sense of how the economy is doing in terms of, you know, grows, but how is it doing relative to full employment? You know, are we operating? Because GDP doesn't tell you, you know, are you operating well below full output? Are you operating above full output? Right. You don't, that doesn't help you with that. But with, with unemployment, you know, you have a pretty good sense of where the full employment unemployment rate is. So, you have a very good sense of where the economy is. But, but that's already pretty accurate. I don't know that, you know, but it doesn't get revised, Mark. Well, this, but the point is I get one data point is exactly correct. Right? I want, oh, you're saying I interpreted it at the way

54:13trusted. I see. I see that there's big revisions every month to all these data points. So, if I could get one that wasn't revised a lot, what would that be? Right, right, right. Okay, that you make you right. Yeah, you're right. Because the unemployment rate doesn't get revised. It gets, well, seasonally adjusted revised, I guess, but yeah, but it never really changes the overall unemployment rate. Well, employment rate. Like in my change it for different demographic groups, but it's a total unemployment rate really doesn't get revised ever. Right, right. Okay. I think you want jobs or hours or you want jobs or I don't think you want, I think you want, feels like jobs, doesn't it mean, I guess I was going for market, market statistic. Yeah, I'd want payroll employment because that just is getting revised all over the place, right? I guess if you look at it from the prison of you want to make money betting on it, it would probably be jobs, right? Right.

55:14Right. Probably would be jobs because that moves markets, right? If it's higher or low relative to expectation. Yeah. Okay, I'll have to think about that some more. I got to read that question more carefully, but that you're right. The unemployment rate doesn't get revised. You're right. Okay. Well, why don't we come back to Garab and end the conversation on the global economy this way? You know, the political environment globally feels pretty vexed. You've got a lot of right-wing kind of parties and movements popping up everywhere. You've got that here in the United States. You've got, we talked about Brazil, Bolsonaro. Of course, what's going on in France, mentioned Spain. You've got a reform party in the UK. There's a bunch of Latin American countries beyond Brazil. I mean, it just feels like the pendulum is swinging here to the right side

56:14of the political spectrum. I guess the question to you, Garab is, do I have that right? Am I getting that right? And if so, what do you think is going on? What's driving the movement that pendulum? You've got a right. pendulum swinging to the right in that these right-wing parties are gaining in popularity across any number of countries across the world. But I'm kind of wondering if that itself is just characteristic of a deeper phenomenon. Because if you look at France, for instance, you've got Marine Le Pen, who is tipped to win the presidential election, but right behind her is the far left candidate. You look at what happened in Germany and the far right party alternative for Germany won recent state elections in the state of Saxony Unheld, but in Berlin, it was the far left that came to power. So what I'm thinking here is that it's actually dissatisfaction with the status quo, dissatisfaction with the centre left and centre right parties that have

57:16presided over, whether they have or not is not so important to the voters, just that they've been in power all the while that voter discontentment has grown and disenchantment has grown over the state of the economy, over the state of politics, the state of policies. And voters are kind of turning to an alternative and perhaps the right parties have a stronger narrative that's more appealing in more countries than the left has. But you are seeing kind of a shift towards the right. In one or two cases, you're also seeing some support for the far left and it's that support for the far left that makes me really think perhaps it's just dissatisfaction with the centre that's driving it. Right. Right. Does that make sense to you, Chris? It does. It does, I think, the time of turmoil uncertainty, right? Typically that does favor a rightward move. Right. Right. So what does it mean, Grav? What is the implications of that for the global economy?

58:19Depends on where you look, I guess. It could spell a bit of chaos. It could mean not very much. I'll give Meloni as an example of the not very much that we had a ostensibly right wing party coming to power in Italy. And we were what it at that time around debt sustainability in Italy and public finances in Italy, but actually not very much has happened and Meloni's pursued fairly orthodox policies and her relationship with the European Commission is actually pretty good. That's despite her statements prior to her, her Euroscepticism, very clear Euroscepticism prior to the election. Now, if we get the same kind of behavior in, let's say France, then it could be not very much. I doubt we'll get that. We're more likely to seize some turmoil at France also because of the process, the electoral process and the fact that there's a presidential election that might then result in a parliamentary election. So we could get a bit more turmoil, but it may not be all that bad. Take the UK, you mentioned the UK in the reform party. Right. Again, it may not be

59:21all that bad because it feels unlikely that the reform party will actually come to power. It's more likely that there'll be some sort of coalition, which would mean some further erosion of policy making or power to make policy, but doesn't necessarily mean a huge amount of fiscal intercepting. So it's more like I struggle to see how reform that can growth enabling reform can come about. That seems clear. That's the greater threat. Less of a threat perhaps to fiscal sustainability fiscal discipline. One thing I do worry about is that the move towards the right also implies greater nationalism and less interest in globalization. You know, obviously that manifests itself most obviously in terms of immigration flows, right? Because one of the major planks of most of the right wing kind of leaders here is less or no immigration. You can see that here in the US. You can see that in Europe. And I think that's just symptomatic of a kind of a broader interest in becoming more insular, less engaged with the rest of the world. It doesn't

1:00:28that may not be a cliff event, but that feels like a real corrosive on the global economy. Does that resonate with you? Yeah, that resonates with me. I could see that happening across parts of Europe. That big of a risk. Well, Penn really hates you. What is she think of the European EU? I don't think she thinks too highly of it, right? No, but this goes back to my previous point. What people say what these candidates say prior to getting elected doesn't necessarily translate into the policy actions once they get elected. Right. She thinks she has actually distanced herself a bit from the German far-right party and her tone towards the European Commission, towards Europe has changed quite a bit recently. So we have to wait and see what that means. But I think you're right about this general move away from globalization of movement-free movement of capital of goods services and also people. So not that we had free movement of people, but there was a general move over the last couple of decades or three decades or so to create a movement of people. That's going backwards and that can be quite corrosive. You're right.

1:01:29You can also lead to a drying up of movement of talent, for instance. Right. Right. In this right, the move to the right, I haven't observed it, maybe because I just haven't been following it's carefully in Asia. Is that the case? I don't sense the same kind of move there. There's not a lot of that kind of all those trends in immigration across a lot of Asia. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Right. They don't allow the immigration to occur. They don't allow. Well, they do have a bit of immigration, but it's not nearly as big a force as it is in the US, for instance, or even as in some other incontrary. Right. Of course, Europe has this other problem, which is an authorized immigration. The legal immigration is happening because of the economic forces and climate change in Africa. That's yet another problem. Right. We've got a good immigration between legal and illegal. I guess the other thing that makes me a little nervous going back to immigration is if you really do not have immigration in your country, you really shut that off,

1:02:32that feels like the recipe for a much weaker economy going forward. You know, given the demographics and also just given the dynamism that immigrants tend to bring to an economy, because the risk takers, they start companies at a higher rate, they're more innovative, that kind of thing. So again, it doesn't, that's not, may not be a cliff event, but that does feel like a longer-term corrosive on growth. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's very, very clear in Europe, but Europe's think it's in demographics. Right. I mean, very, the demographics are getting bad everywhere, really. Right. I mean, in Asia, so immigration is going to be, my own sense is, immigration is going to be critical to a strong economy going forward over the next two, three, four decades, given the demographic trends here. But the cycle is really working against it right now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, thanks, Grava. I really appreciate you coming on, even though you gave us a bump stat, I mean, you know, but we'll definitely, we'd love to have you back and

1:03:33weighed the global economy down the road here, a lot going on. Anything else other guys, I have a few other announcements before we call it a podcast, but Chris, Merce, anything else you want to bring up in the context of our conversation with Grav? Maybe a quick word on one thing that you're watching for the week ahead. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I threatened that. Okay. Everyone real quick. Grava, what are you watching in the week ahead? Well, you know, the bank fund meetings are going to take place in Bangkok next week, but I'm not watching that as closely as I'm going to be watching out for European Council discussions next week, because that's going to be much more meaningful in terms of Ukrainian defense, fiscal sustainability and general spending, the EU budget. So I think I'll be watching that more closely. Got it. Got it. Chris, I believe next week is CPI week. It is CPI. I think it's Wednesday, isn't it? Yeah. PPI CPI. So definitely right definitely the inflation stats. Yeah. And Merce, where are you looking at? I was going to say CPI, but also as we were speaking,

1:04:34a headline popped up that the administration is putting together an investigative committee to investigate Lisa Cook on the Fed. So and we have a Fed meeting coming up at the end of the month, right? So we'll see how this plays out. I mean, you were just talking about how Fed independence, you know, the threat of that may be abating, but here it is back front and center again. So we'll see, we'll see if the like bond market reacts to this at all or looking at that next week. Boy, just one thing after the next. I'd say always on the straight of her moves. You know, that's shut down again. The Ronians are hitting tankers and, you know, oil prices feel like they're going to go north here. And, you know, obviously that's not a good thing. So I'd watch that. It's certainly going to lead up to the US elections. I would think there's going to be a lot more turmoil there, but maybe we'll get a read on that next week. Okay, good. We covered all

1:05:36the ground. I do want to say we have a happy announcement or colleague Matt Collier has had another baby. Lucille, Lucille, I love Lucille. I love that name, Lucille. I'm not sure if you're sure about Collier, but you know, I love Lucille. Great name. And I also want to say we're going to be in New York. We have a conference on October. When is it? 22nd? October 22nd in New York City. If you have an interest, please feel free to contact us at inside economics at moody's.com. We'd love to see you there. Good to see you. Anything else guys before we call this a podcast? Garage? We're going to do a live inside economics at that conference. Oh, did we nail that down? I think so. Okay. Cool. Live podcast. That's the end of the day. Yeah. We did that in San Diego at Moody's function. And that was a lot of fun. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Very engaged group. Chris anything before we call it, we call it quits. No, what do you think about Lucille?

1:06:39Do you like Lucille? You just saying? I love Lucille. Yeah. What's your middle name? Does anyone know? Jane. Oh, that's. Oh, Jane. Oh, I like Jane better. I like Jane. Okay. We'll let Matt know. Are you on my opinion, right? No. That'll be great when she listens to this. Yeah. She'll enjoy it. 15 years. Really? You think we'll be doing this for 15 years? It'll be in the archives. Nobody saying it's an inside economics age is better than 24. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. All right. Well, with that dear listener, we are going to call this a podcast. Talk to you next week. Take care now.