Kevin Warsh and the Fed's balance sheet
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Federal Reserve has two jobs: promote job growth and control inflation. To do that, it sets interest rates. It also buys bonds and securities to influence those markets, and is now sitting on a massive $6.5 trillion pile. President Trump's nominee for Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh, wants to shrink that asset pile. We'll dig in. Also: optimism from one soon-to-be grad. Plus, how much longer can the standoff in Iran last before oil markets have to respond?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Right now we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. |
| 0:06.9 | I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening, |
| 0:12.1 | alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Walts, |
| 0:17.6 | Katanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Charlemagne the God, and so many more. |
| 0:24.6 | That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. |
| 0:31.2 | How long can this go on for? |
| 0:34.3 | From Marketplace, I'm Sabri Benishore. |
| 0:36.6 | The U.S. has seized another oil tanker connected to Iranian oil. The U.S. blockade continues, but so does the fragile ceasefire. Meanwhile, CNBC is reporting Iran's foreign minister may be headed for Pakistan, and more talks with the U.S. may be coming. With us to talk about the latest economic developments out of the war and |
| 0:54.8 | beyond is Christopher Lowe, chief economist at FHN Financial in New York. Good morning. Good morning, |
| 1:00.2 | Sabri. How long would you say we have for this standoff to continue until, you know, the pressure on |
| 1:05.8 | oil markets becomes too much and markets just have to respond? It's probably no more than another week or two before we start seeing significant impacts |
| 1:17.5 | on the global economy. And that's the first step. You know, specifically, some of the |
| 1:23.5 | airlines have warned that if the Straits of Hormuz are still closed at the end of next week, |
| 1:30.1 | they're facing potential shortages of jet fuel in the UK and continental Europe. |
| 1:37.0 | And that's sort of the first indication of, you know, really insurmountable problems for economies. |
| 1:46.0 | META announced it's cutting 8,000 jobs, 10% of its workforce. |
| 1:49.5 | Microsoft is offering buyouts to 7% of its workers. |
| 1:52.9 | Nike also, not a tech company, also announcing some layoffs. |
| 1:56.6 | Layoffs happen. |
| 1:57.7 | It's part of the economy. |
| 1:59.7 | Are we seeing the normal kind, Or is this a sign of something? |
| 2:03.4 | No, it's not normal. It is the sign of something, but it's not entirely clear what. To put it into perspective, last year, we barely had any job growth in the U.S. |
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