S8 Ep127: Economy, Fed Rates, and the AI Productivity Boom — Liz Peek — Peek examines the U.S. economy, noting mixed retail sales data alongside recent strength in credit card spending. She anticipates the Federal Reserve will likely reduce interest rates in Decemb

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

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4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Economy, Fed Rates, and the AI Productivity Boom — Liz Peek — Peek examines the U.S. economy, noting mixed retail sales data alongside recent strength in credit card spending. She anticipates the Federal Reserve will likely reduce interest rates in December due to softening labor market conditions, despite traditional employment reporting lags. Peekemphasizes that the Fed fails to account adequately for AI's significant, though currently unmeasured, impact on productivity gains, employment displacement, and escalating electricity consumption, even as AI demonstrates substantial benefits in diagnostics and medical analysis.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is CBS Eye on the World.
0:08.5	Here's John Batchelor.
0:12.2	This is CBSI on the world.
0:14.5	I'm John Batchel,
0:15.4	welcoming my good colleague Elizabeth Peake,
0:18.0	columnist at the Hill,
0:19.4	columnist at Fox News,
0:20.5	much on Fox Business.
0:21.7	The American economy, the global economy, toward the years end.
0:26.5	But not quite.
0:27.6	There's another Federal Reserve meeting coming up, and that is influenced by numbers that were
0:32.2	delayed by the so-called shutdown, the pause button for the U.S. government giving us statistics for
0:39.7	Wall Street to trade on, worry about, and speculate what comes next. The number that I've
0:45.5	been watching, because we don't have much else, is retail sales. I also watched the reports
0:52.8	about empty storefronts or 60% off slashing sales and then the big box stores.
1:00.7	The anecdotes I hear are consistent with the economy doing okay and the stores doing okay and people spending money.
1:08.8	But, Liz, a very good evening to you.
1:12.0	The retail sales number, is it pointing in But, Liz, a very good evening to you. The retail sales number.
1:17.3	Is it pointing in a positive direction, a negative direction? What do we need to know about shopping?
1:23.3	Here comes Black Friday. Good evening. Good evening, John. Well, that is a really good question.
1:28.5	Everybody's eye is on Black Friday because there's a tremendous amount of volume that takes place then and more importantly, really, the upcoming holiday season. And the reports from the
1:35.3	Retail Federation or survey show that people will increase their spending this year,
	...

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