Inflation, The Fed and What Comes Next.
Unf*cking The Republic
UNFTR Media
4.8 • 758 Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Inflation figures came out this week and they were absolutely brutal. April CPI was startling enough, but the Producer Price Index (PPI), which is an indicator of inflation in the pipeline was shocking. Oil reserves are running down to dangerously low levels and it’s clear now that there’s no immediate resolution to the oil crisis, so we’re about to realize our worst economic fears. We take a look back at our predictions from nine months ago to see how accurate they are and to build on them for what comes next. Against the backdrop of this horrible inflation data, we have a new sheriff in town at the Federal Reserve. The man whose job it is to theoretically tame inflation has no tools in the box to deal with this level of crisis. The real question is whether he ever intended to.
Resources
Bloomberg Podcasts: Senate Confirms Warsh to Lead Fed as Trump Tests Its Autonomy
CNBC Television: Wholesale inflation jumps 6% in April on annual basis, biggest increase since 2022
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Producer Price Index News Release summary - 2026 M04 Results
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index Summary - 2026 M04 Results
WSJ: Kevin Warsh’s Full Fed Chair Confirmation Hearing
Manhattan Institute: Reform the Federal Reserve’s Governance to Deliver Better Monetary Outcomes
Hudson Bay Capital: A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System
EPI: Profits and price inflation are indeed linked
Groundwork Collaborative: Inflation Revelation: How Outsized Corporate Profits Drive Rising Costs
IEA: Oil Stocks of IEA Countries – Data Tools
CNBC: Analysis: Warsh emerges from a difficult hearing with his Fed ‘regime-change’ plan intact’
UNFTR Resources
Essay: Inflation, The Fed and What Comes Next.
Video: Stephen Miran Is Going To Be Fed Chair.
Video: The Warsh Man for the Job. Max for MTN.
Episode: 10 Economic Terms To Know in This Economy.
Episode: The End of the American Experiment.
Episode. Stupid Is As Stupid Does.
Episode: Labor Unions: From Pullman to Kellogg’s.
Episode: Stephen Miran Is Going To Be Fed Chair.
Episode: Project 2025.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So this is like a genuine emergency UNFTR session because we are cooked. |
| 0:06.2 | So I'm going to show you two clips. |
| 0:08.2 | Then we're going to have a philosophical discussion about interest rates, Kevin Warsh, |
| 0:13.7 | and what I think is really actually going on with the U.S. economy. |
| 0:17.3 | So we have a new Fed chair, at least we will have, as soon as he's sworn in. Kevin Warsh now has |
| 0:21.8 | 51 votes for confirmation. The vote's still open. It's 5140, so there are some Democrats and some |
| 0:27.5 | Republicans who haven't voted. We know that John Fetterman, the Democrat from Pennsylvania, |
| 0:32.3 | did vote in favor of Kevin Warsh. So it doesn't really matter how many he ends up with. He has 51. |
| 0:38.6 | That's what he needed. Yeah, and numbers are coming in on the warm side. Our April producer |
| 0:43.4 | price index for the month of April. Headline number, almost triple expectations, up a whopping 1.4%. Wow. You have to go back to March of 22 to find a bigger number, and that number |
| 0:57.7 | was 1.7. Now, if we strip out the all-important food and energy, we're also at a triple header here. |
| 1:03.7 | We're expecting up three-tenths. We end up with up 1%. Up 1% would be the warmest since. Wow. Also, March of 22. So first off, the direction that |
| 1:15.2 | Kevin Warsh, now officially the Fed chair, says that he wants to take interest rates, doesn't match |
| 1:21.0 | the standard inflation playbook. And I think that much is pretty obvious. I also don't think it's |
| 1:25.6 | an accident. I don't think rates are why he's here. |
| 1:29.5 | And I want to explain why, because I think it matters a lot more than the interest rate debate |
| 1:34.6 | itself. Meanwhile, inflation data is off the charts. So we got CPI earlier this week and PPI came out |
| 1:43.0 | this morning, and both are literally out of |
| 1:45.4 | control. But the horrifying aspect of them is that these numbers only capture the first fraction |
| 1:51.8 | of the Iran conflict. A third of the world's oil reserves have already been released from |
| 1:57.7 | strategic stockpiles. Tankers aren't moving through the Strait of Hormuz. |
| 2:03.2 | So the supply chain shock that's driving all of this isn't stabilizing. It's deepening every minute |
... |
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