Tom Barkin on Why Central Banking Is on Hard Mode Now

Odd Lots

Bloomberg

News, Investing, Business, News Commentary, Business News

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

According to Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Tom Barkin, much of the time central banking is straightforward. Sometimes it's clear that rate cuts are needed. Sometimes it's clear that rate hikes are needed. Other times everything is going great, and central bankers don't have much to worry about. Right now though, things are not straightforward. There are signs of labor market softening. But also there are reasons to be concerned that inflation pressure is building yet again. In times like this, the playbook is less obvious. On this episode, recorded at the Jackson Hole Economic
Symposium, Barkin walks us through how he's thinking about the economy right now.

More: Fed’s Jackson Hole Points to a Hard Road Ahead for Powell

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm Lisa Mateo, introducing you to the new Stockmovers report from Bloomberg.
0:08.6	These are short audio reports, five minutes or less, delivered right to your podcast feed throughout the day.
0:15.2	Stockmovers fills you in on the day's winners and losers on Wall Street and tells you about the news and data that's
0:21.0	driving those gains and losses. If you want to stay plugged into the stock market, but don't
0:25.9	want to spend all day watching tickers scroll across your screen, then Stock Movers is a place for you
0:32.0	to get informed. Listen a couple times throughout the day to find out what's moving equities and why.
0:39.0	Search for stock movers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen.
0:44.4	Get the latest stock news and data backed by reporting from Bloomberg's 3,000 journalists and analysts across the globe.
0:53.0	Subscribe to Stockmovers, wherever you get your podcasts.
1:02.0	Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts Radio News.
1:07.2	Music News.
1:21.0	Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts podcast.
1:22.0	I'm Tracy Alloway.
1:23.3	And I'm Joe Wisenthall.
1:25.0	Joe, we're still at Jackson Hole.
1:25.6	Yes.
1:31.5	By the time this episode comes out, the dust will have settled over the entire event.
1:36.9	And we will have gotten, well, we already had the speech from Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
1:37.3	Right, right.
1:41.6	And this afternoon, as we're recording, we're seeing market surging.
1:42.2	That's right.
1:46.1	Everyone, it seems, has interpreted this as pretty dovish.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bloomberg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Bloomberg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.