Hi, I'm Bill Crystal.

Welcome back to conversations.

I'm very pleased to be joined today, I guess for the fifth time.

It's hard to

believe by Jason Furman, Professor of Economics at Harvard and the economics department and the Kennedy

School. Jason teaches the X-10, Economics 10 course, I guess the largest undergraduate course

at Harvard, right? And yeah, and a very good course, I could say, and you're well known to be a very good teacher,

so we look forward to learning some economics for you today.

Also, and this is relevant to today's discussion, you served eight years in the Obama White House,

if I'm not mistaken.

That's pretty long.

You were there the whole time.

That's pretty rare in government, actually, I've got to say, on the National Economic Council,

as deputy director and then chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.

And I want you to, I'll ask you at times to draw on your experience in actual government as well as your knowledge of economics in evaluating the current moment.

The current moment is, it's, what is it, April 8th. We had a conversation six months ago, October 9th, during the campaign,

and I asked you about Trump's promises and proposals on tariffs, and you were negative

and thought it could lead to a bad combination of inflation, but maybe also a recession,

putting the Fed in a very difficult position on interest rates. It would

cost jobs for both importers and exporters. You were negative, and I guess the markets share

your judgment now that Trump has announced his tariffs here a week ago. But what strikes you about

us? Where are we? I mean, where are we with these tariffs? And what's the top line judgment to make of them?

...