What about the regional Feds? What do they do?
Marketplace
American Public Media
4.6 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors has gotten a lot of attention lately — President Trump is attempting to remove one member and has nominated another. But there’s more under the central bank umbrella than president-appointed officials. In this episode, we break down why regional Fed banks and Fed presidents matter. Plus: The latest Beige book shows an uptick in lending, shipping costs are down and an economist walks us through her process for reading a CPI report.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, let's see now. Trade and tariffs, the regional Federal Reserve banks, and economic data as an economist sees it. |
| 0:11.8 | Sounds like a show to me, huh? From American Public Media. This is Marketplace. |
| 0:30.8 | In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzol. It is Thursday today for September. It is always to have you along, everybody. From the Bureau of Economic Analysis today came news of imports into |
| 0:37.2 | this economy. |
| 0:38.0 | Technically, the report is called International Trade and Goods and Services for the month |
| 0:42.6 | July 2025. |
| 0:45.0 | They were up, actually, about 6%, which if you think about the timing does kind of make |
| 0:50.5 | sense. |
| 0:51.3 | Importers in July trying to load up on inventory before most of the |
| 0:55.8 | president's tariffs actually hit in August. But, but one data point does not sufficient |
| 1:04.6 | analysis make, as we all know, and there is other more recent data that suggests imports have been slowing down. |
| 1:11.6 | Among them, Exhibit A, shipping costs. |
| 1:15.0 | Container rates have been falling for 12 weeks straight now. |
| 1:19.0 | That's according to the Drury World Container Index. |
| 1:21.9 | Supplied demand, of course, being the operative economic model there. |
| 1:25.6 | Marketplace's Justin Ho gets us going and explains what it all means. |
| 1:29.8 | One reason shipping costs are down is because there are just a lot of ships out there floating around. |
| 1:34.9 | Simon Heaney, with Drury's shipping consultant, says a couple years ago, when attacks in the |
| 1:39.3 | Red Sea clogged up shipping routes, shipping companies ordered new vessels to add more capacity. |
| 1:45.0 | We're getting a very steady flow of new ships at a time when demand growth is slower. |
| 1:51.3 | Heaney says demand for shipping is slowing because importers aren't bringing in as many products from |
| 1:56.0 | overseas. |
... |
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