After more than a decade of analyzing, writing, speaking, warning, and complaining about the Federal Reserve’s use of an “Abundant Reserve” monetary policy we are glad to finally see more focus on its impact.  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Senator Rand Paul, Senator Ted Cruz, and now Representative Thomas Massie have weighed-in during recent weeks about many serious issues.

Secretary Bessent said “If I want a new chair in my office…I have to go through the appropriations process….The way the Fed works there are no appropriations.  They just print the [money].”

Senator Paul and his staff found that the Fed was paying private banks (including many foreign banks) $100s of billions to hold reserves.  Senator Cruz argued that by losing money on its portfolio, the Fed was costing taxpayers potentially trillions of dollars over a decade.  And now Representative Massie says the Fed’s Quantitative Easing fueled excessive government spending and debt.  And don’t forget inflation.

All these political leaders are correct.  As we have written before, the Fed’s Quantitative Easing programs essentially turned the Fed into a huge hedge fund.  It created trillions of new dollars by increasing bank reserves and used them to purchase Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities.

Both the 2008-2015 and the 2020-2022 episodes of QE coincided with huge government deficit spending programs.  This wasn’t a coincidence.  If the private financial system were expected to finance the lockdown of the economy and the paying of people to stay at home, it would have charged the government more than the Fed charged.

But the Fed bought short-term government debt (T-bills) at essentially 0% rates and 10-year debt at 2% yields, or less.  Because the Fed cannot buy directly from the Treasury, it used banks as intermediaries.  The banks knew that when they bought Treasury debt at auction, they could immediately sell that debt to the Fed.  The Fed bought the debt from the banks by creating massive amounts of reserves.

Because the Fed was given the go-ahead by Congress to pay banks interest on reserves, the banks took that risk-free cash.  Banks were perfectly willing to do this because they thought bond yields alone were not compensating them for the risk.

The Fed thought it could borrow short and lend long with no inflationary consequences.  Of course, as we pointed out, and forecasted, the Fed was wrong.  And when interest rates rose with inflation, the Fed’s balance sheet turned upside down.  Now, the Fed has $856 billion in unrealized losses on its bond portfolio.

Moreover, over the past seven quarters, the Fed has paid private banks and institutions roughly $360 billion to hold reserves, but only earned $270 billion in interest from its bond holdings.  In other words, the Fed lost roughly $90 billion. 

The Fed doesn’t care if it makes a loss because it never has to mark anything to market prices and can just create money at will to pay its expenses.  In 2007, the Fed’s balance sheet was $850 billion.  Today it is $6.6 trillion.  And with this increased balance sheet leaving trillions sloshing around, the Fed’s management has become lax.  It went from 17,100 employees in 2012 to 21,000 employees today even though technology has increased productivity (for example, we now clear checks electronically and the Fed doesn’t do it with a fleet of jets).

And lax may be the wrong word.  The Fed actually went “woke.”  It used its swollen balance sheet to do “research” on climate change, and declared it a risk to banks.  It only rescinded its official guidance to banks about accounting for climate change when Donald Trump became President.  The Fed also hired people to manage DEI programs.

In other words, the Fed became political.  Two other events also took place.  It cut interest rates before the November election.  And Chairman Powell ignored all previous Fed guidance about staying out of fiscal policy and said very publicly that Trump’s tariffs would be “inflationary.”

The reason we mention all this is that Fed leadership, some lawmakers, and many in the press are complaining about recent political pressure on the Fed.  But by choosing to facilitate a larger government and not limiting its work to its statutory mandate, the Fed has been delving into politics on its own.

We’d prefer an independent Fed that pursued a monetary policy with zero to minimal inflation.  Hopefully the next leader of the Fed will bring us closer to that ideal.

Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist

Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist

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Implications:  Industrial production ended 2025 on a healthy note, rising for a second month in a row and easily beating consensus expectations.  Both overall industrial production and manufacturing output grew 2.0% in the past year despite huge shifts in trade policy and tariff uncertainty. Looking at the details for December, the manufacturing sector posted a gain of 0.2%, and when including positive revisions to prior months rose 0.5%. The volatile auto sector continued to be a source of weakness, with activity declining 1.1% in December.  However, manufacturing ex-autos (which we think of as a “core” version of industrial production) posted a gain of 0.3%. In the past year, auto production (which is also highly sensitive to President Trumps’s tariff policy) is down 2.8% while “core” manufacturing is up 2.4%. Meanwhile the typical bright spots in the “core” measure were present in today’s report as well.  Production in high-tech equipment, which has been a reliable tailwind recently due to investment in AI as well as the reshoring of semiconductor production, increased 0.7% in December.  High-tech manufacturing is up 10.9% in the past year, the fastest pace of any major category.  Meanwhile, the manufacturing of business equipment isn’t far behind, up a strong 10.0% in the past year, signaling reindustrialization in the US outside of just the high-tech industries mentioned above. Utilities output (which is volatile and largely dependent on weather), was also a tailwind in December, rising 2.6%. Finally, the mining sector was a drag on growth in December, declining 0.7%. Oil and gas production, the drilling of new wells, and the extraction of other metals and minerals all fell in December.  In other recent manufacturing news, the Empire State Index – a measure of factory sentiment in the New York region – rose to +7.7 in January from -3.7 in December. Meanwhile, its counterpart the Philadelphia Fed index jumped unexpectedly to +12.6 in January from -8.8 in December. On the labor front, initial jobless claims fell 9,000 last week to 198,000 while continuing claims declined 19,000 to 1.884 million. These figures suggest job growth continues. We also got trade data recently, with import prices up 0.1% and export prices up 3.3% in the twelve months ending in November. Finally on the housing front, the NAHB Index (a measure of homebuilder sentiment) fell to 37 in January from 39 in December.  Keep in mind a reading below 50 signals a greater number of builders view conditions as poor versus good, now the twenty first consecutive month that has been the case.

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This past week, SpaceX received federal approval to dramatically increase the size of its Starlink constellation, clearing the way for the launch of an additional 7,500 satellites into low-Earth orbit.  While this would have seemed impossible a decade ago, the space industry hardly bats an eye today, as mega-constellations like Starlink have become an increasingly familiar component of modern infrastructure. For more insights on the rapid advances in spaceflight technology, click the link below.

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Implications: Existing home sales closed out 2025 on a healthy note, rising for a fourth consecutive month and hitting the fastest pace since 2023. That said, the current sales rate of 4.350 million remains near the low since the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, and well below the roughly 5.250 million annual pace pre-COVID (let alone the 6.500 million pace during COVID).  The good news is that affordability has been improving in several notable ways. First, 30-year mortgage rates have been trending lower since May and now sit around 6.2%, near the lowest rate since 2022. Buyers also have reasons for further optimism on financing costs. The Federal Reserve is continuing to cut rates, the Trump Administration will soon appoint a new Fed chair who is likely to be even more accommodative, and there is talk of Fannie and Freddie purchasing more mortgages as well. Meanwhile, the median price of an existing home is up only 0.4% versus a year ago. Aggregate wage growth (hourly earnings plus hours worked) has also begun to consistently outpace median home price gains over the past year for the first time since 2023, which improves affordability. The biggest headwind continues to be inventories, where growth continues although at a slower pace than earlier this year. This has led to the months’ supply of homes (how long it would take to sell existing inventory at the current very slow sales pace) falling to 3.3 in December, well below the benchmark of 5.0 that the National Association of Realtors uses to denote a normal market.  Many existing homeowners also remain reluctant to sell due to a “mortgage lock-in” phenomenon, after buying or refinancing at much lower rates before 2022.  This means potential buyers will have to continue to deal with limited options.  Existing home sales also face significant competition from new homes, where in many cases developers are buying down mortgage rates to compete and move inventory. Despite these cross currents, underlying fundamentals have improved recently, which should contribute to a modest upward trend in sales in 2026.

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Implications:  Retail sales for November generated a strong headline, but softer details. Overall retail sales rose 0.6% for the month, but previous activity was revised lower, dropping the monthly gain to a 0.4% increase when factoring in revisions.  Sales are up 3.3% from a year ago but have slowed recently, up at a 2.3% annualized rate in the last three months.  While the gain in November was broad-based with ten out of the thirteen major categories rising, it was largely the result of a 1.0% rebound in the volatile autos category after an expiring tax credit for EVs temporarily held down the category in October.  Meanwhile, the 1.4% gain at gas stations was the second biggest contributor to the headline increase, which can also swing from month to month.  “Core” sales, which strip out the volatile categories for autos, building materials, and gas stations, increased by 0.4% in November, but was up 0.2% after factoring in revisions.  The core number is crucial for estimating GDP, because when it calculates GDP the government uses other sources for autos, building materials, and gas, not the retail report.  If unchanged in December, these sales will be up at a 3.7% annual rate in Q4 versus the Q3 average.  The good news is that sales at restaurants & bars – the only glimpse we get at services in the report, which make up the bulk of consumer spending – rose 0.6% in November while previous months’ activity were revised higher.  These sales are up at a 5.7% annualized rate through the first eleven months of the year versus a 2.8% annualized increase for overall sales.  We will continue to watch this category closely in the months ahead.  Finally, it’s important to remember the impact inflation has on retail sales.  Overall sales are up 3.3% on a year to year basis, but “real” inflation-adjusted sales are up just 0.6% in the past year and still down from the peak in early 2022.

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Implications:  Producer prices rose 0.2% in November, matching consensus expectations, but the rise was heavily influenced by energy prices which spiked 4.6% in November (the largest monthly increase in more than two years).  Excluding energy and food - another typically volatile category - shows “core” producer prices were unchanged in November but remain up 3.0% versus a year ago.  Yes, that’s above the 2% level targeted by the Fed, but it represents an improvement from the 3.4% reading for the twelve months ending November 2024.  Inflation readings have been muddied by the government shutdowns that stopped the normal flow of data gathering, but what has remained clear is that many of the Fed’s concerns for 2025 – most notably a resurgence of inflation pressures due to tariffs implemented earlier in the year – haven’t materialized.  This isn’t the first time that Fed forecasts have missed the mark, and until they improve their models, we don’t expect the accuracy of their forecasts to improve.   The Fed remains concerned that tariffs will push overall prices higher at some point, but the data have not fully cooperated.  It’s true that goods prices – which are most exposed to higher import costs – are up at a notable 5.1% annual rate over the past six months, but that rise has been largely offset by a moderation in services prices, up at a 2.6% rate over the same period.  For comparison, services prices were up at a 3.8% annualized rate over the same period last year.  Put simply, tariffs can raise prices for tariffed items, but they leave less money for consumers left over for other goods and services. Sustained movements in overall inflation are led by the money supply, which is up only 2.6% since April 2022.  Volatility may continue month-to-month, but we expect this monetary tightness will keep inflation relatively subdued, leaving room for rate cuts to continue at some point in 2026.  

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Implications:  We got another double-dose of monthly data this morning as Federal agencies continue to catch up on the backlog from the government shutdown, and new home sales continue to show signs of life. Buyers purchased 737,000 new homes at an annual rate in October, and sales are up 18.7% in the past year. While the October pace remains below the highs of the pandemic, sales are at roughly the fastest pace since 2023 and above pre-pandemic levels which had been a ceiling of sorts for activity the past couple of years.  Although the housing market continues to face challenges, there is reason to expect this progress to continue. First, financing costs have been trending lower, with the average 30-yr fixed mortgage rate now around 6.2%. Notably, that is the lowest since 2022, and buyers have reasons for further optimism on financing costs. The Federal Reserve is continuing to cut rates, the Trump Administration will soon appoint a new Fed chair who is likely to be even more accommodative, and there is talk of Fannie and Freddie purchasing more mortgages as well. Meanwhile, prices have been trending lower for new builds the past several years. Median sales prices are down 14.8% from the peak in October 2022.  The Census Bureau reports that from Q3 2022 to Q3 2025 (the most recent data available) the median square footage for new single-family homes built fell 6.3%. So, while part of the drop in median prices is due to smaller/lower-cost homes, there has also been a drop in the price per square foot.  This is partially the result of developers offering incentives to buyers in order to move inventory. Supply has also put more downward pressure on median prices for new homes than on existing homes.  The supply of completed single-family homes is up 300% versus the bottom in 2022 and is currently at the highest level since 2009. This contrasts with the market for existing homes which continues to struggle with convincing current homeowners to give up the low fixed-rate mortgages they locked-in during the pandemic to list their homes. It looks like a combination of lower mortgage rates, less expensive options, and an abundance of inventories may finally be giving home sales a boost.

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Implications:  Headline inflation came in as expected in December, with the Consumer Price index rising 0.3%.  “Core” inflation, which strips out food and energy, came in lower than expected, rising 0.2% in December.   At the beginning of 2025, we told investors to look past tariffs and instead focus on the M2 measure of the money supply for understanding where inflation will go.  Tariffs can raise prices for tariffed items, but they leave less money for consumers to spend on non-imported, non-tariffed goods and services. They shuffle the deckchairs on the inflation ship, not how high or low the ship sits in the water.  That’s up to the money supply – and given the slow growth over the last 3+ years – we expected inflation to continue trending lower in 2025.  Despite many other analysts warning of a surge in 2025, the CPI finished up 2.7% in 2025 (December over December) versus 2.9% in 2024.  Core prices rose 2.6% in 2025 versus 3.2% in 2024.  Looking at the details, housing rents (those for actual tenants as well as the imputed rental value of owner-occupied homes) have been the main driver of core inflation over the last few years, but that tide has turned: rents rose 0.3% in December but are up at a 2.2% annualized rate over the last three months, which lags both headline and core inflation.  Meanwhile, airline prices continue to move in large swings, rising 5.2% in December after falling a combined 6.6% in October/November.  Other notable movers were the recreation index (which includes prices for recreational goods and services such as sporting events) rising 1.2% in December, the largest monthly increase ever recorded for that category going back to 1993. Meanwhile, the communication index fell 1.9% in December, while used car prices dropped 1.1%, and new vehicles prices were unchanged.  In spite of the downward trend in inflation, the Federal Reserve is unlikely to cut short-term rates again in January unless it sees a slowdown in economic growth or greater weakness in the labor market.  However, Chairman Powell’s term ends in May, and regardless of who he is replaced by, there could be a substantive shift in the tone coming from the Fed with the changing of the guard. We, however, will be keeping our eyes on the M2 money supply, which remains our North Star on inflation. 

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We have never seen economic data as murky as they are today.  The jobs data are very soft, and yet the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model (which slowly incorporates data as they’re released) says fourth quarter real GDP growth will be 5.1%.

At face value, this suggests productivity growth is rising and, last week, third quarter productivity growth was reported as very strong.  But can we take any of this at face value?  GDP data have been hugely influenced by international trade, which has been extremely volatile given US tariff policy.

To wit, the trade deficit narrowed sharply and unexpectedly to $29.4 billion in October, the smallest for any month since 2009.  This smaller trade deficit is adding about two percentage points to real GDP growth in the fourth quarter.  Without trade, real GDP is running at about 3% in Q4.  And “Core GDP,” which excludes government purchases, inventories, and international trade, is heading for 2.5% growth.

In the meantime, the labor market looks tepid at best.  Payrolls declined 22,000 per month in the fourth quarter.  Much of that was due to a drop in federal employment, with many workers taking buyouts, but private-sector payrolls have barely grown.

In fact, total nonfarm payrolls excluding government and a category called “healthcare and social assistance” (which includes people paid by government to provide in-home services) are down 58,400 over the past six months.  In the second half of 2025, manufacturing jobs were down 44,000, while retail jobs were down 31,300.

In other words, we have real GDP growing at a solid pace, even faster than in 2024, but nonfarm payroll data says recession.

How can this possibly be explained?  One narrative says AI, robotics, and other new technologies are so amazing that we can produce more with fewer people.  We have no doubt that the adoption of these new processes will raise productivity over time, but there is not an avalanche of anecdotal evidence to back this claim up today.  Yes, data center spending is exploding, but other than that, business investment is relatively weak.

Another says that deregulation, cutting government support of solar and wind projects, and the fact the tax environment has improved are causing a Reagan-style acceleration of economic activity.  But the main strength in GDP is consumption and AI spending, not other construction or exports.

While we are not big fans of the wealth effect (especially its use in managing monetary policy), it certainly appears that consumption is being driven higher by baby boomers and others who have saved and are experiencing an appreciation in asset values.  But if the stock market (which certainly appears over-valued) stumbles, this spending could disappear quickly.

The bottom line is that the data are mixed and trying to draw definitive conclusions from it is virtually impossible.  This fog should lead everyone to maintain a cautious investment stance.  What does that mean?  Be careful concentrating too much in high priced sectors of the market.  Broaden out.  When driving in fog, drive more defensively.

Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist

Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist

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Implications:  Homebuilding was disappointing in October, with starts declining 4.6% to a 1.246 million annual rate, the lowest level since 2019 and well short of even the most pessimistic forecast for any Economics group surveyed by Bloomberg.  Looking at the big picture, homebuilders face a huge set of headwinds – 1) the largest completed single-family home inventory since 2009 2) high home prices 3) restrictive local building regulations 4) stricter immigration enforcement making it difficult to find or replace workers, and 5) the uncertainty of tariffs and how they’ll affect building costs.  All of this has translated into building rates reminiscent of 2020—no growth in over five years.  Digging into the details of the report, the drop in October was entirely due to the volatile multi-unit category (which had helped lift overall construction in recent months) retreating 22.0% to the lowest level since January.  Meanwhile, single-family starts rose 5.4% but remain 7.8% lower than a year ago. Building permits weren’t strong either, down 0.2% in October and 1.1% from a year ago, led by a 9.4% decline in single-family permits since October 2024.  The one bright spot was in multi-unit permits which ticked up 0.2% in October and are up 16.3% from a year ago.  One way homebuilders had been combatting sluggish activity is by focusing their efforts on completing projects.  New home completions were red hot in 2024 but have trended lower in 2025.  Completions rose 1.1% in October but are down 15.3% in the past year.  Despite the downward trend, they have still outpaced starts and permits in nine out of the last twelve months.  With strong completion activity and tepid growth in starts, the total number of homes under construction has fallen 10.1% in the last twelve months.  In the past, like in the early 1990s and mid-2000s, this type of decline was associated with a housing bust and falling home prices.  But with the brief exception of COVID, the US has consistently started too few homes almost every year since 2007.  So, while multiple headwinds may hold back housing starts, a lack of construction since the last housing bust should keep national average home prices elevated. The encouraging news is that affordability has shown some signs of improvement.  In October, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 6.3%, the lowest level since September 2022. Looking ahead, we anticipate mortgage rates will continue to gradually decline as the Federal Reserve makes modest cuts to short-term interest rates.

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