Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Friday, June 2nd, and today we are asking whether a Fed pause is coming.

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come join us on the breakers discord. Well, today we are taking a turn on the macro side, and there is no doubt

just how tumultuous the last couple years have been for the U.S. economy. We, of course, first had

high inflation, which led the Federal Reserve to conduct its most aggressive rate hiking cycle

and living memory, and because of that, the pain points have cycled through an overly strong

dollar crippling energy and fuel prices, and out- that, the pain points have cycled through an overly strong dollar,

crippling energy and fuel prices, and out-of-control food inflation. Now, one of the biggest

narratives around this time last year was that the U.S. was on the brink of a recession. All the

indicators were lining up, manufacturing indices were collapsing alongside consumer spending,

and we even saw two consecutive quarters of GDP

contraction in the first half of 2022, which is, of course, a technical definition of a recession.

Still, through it all, labor markets data held up. In other words, people were not being laid off

of jobs. In fact, there weren't enough people who wanted to work to go around. Now, fast forward to

this year, during the first half of the year, we found ourselves with many of the same

indicators flashing recessionary signals. Manufacturing data has again rolled over and is showing

multiple months of contraction in a row. Consumer spending remains robust in nominal terms, but credit card

debt has skyrocketed, recently breaching

$1 trillion for the first time, indicating that household balance sheets are being stretched to keep

...