For today’s Inside Wall Street, I’m coming to you from Washington, D.C.
I came here to meet with senior congressional staffers, and to do one of my usual live interviews with TV anchor Charles Payne on Fox Business.
I’m also on tour for my seventh book, Permanent Distortion, which hit shelves earlier this month. (Catch up on the sneak previews I shared with you right here.)
So it’s busy times… But while I was there, I took a moment to film a video update for you.
In today’s video, I tell you what I found out in my latest meetings with our nation’s policymakers… including something that is very different now, compared to the many years I’ve been meeting with Congressmembers.
To watch it, click the image below. Or you can scroll down to read the transcript.
To share your thoughts on my latest video update, just drop me an email at [email protected].
Happy investing,
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Nomi Prins
Editor, Inside Wall Street with Nomi Prins
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, everyone. Nomi here. And greetings from Washington DC.
I’m back on Capitol Hill where I just wrapped up a series of meetings with senior congressional staffers.
Over the years, I’ve met with various members on both sides of the political aisle. Most of them are people that do want what’s best for the country, though they might have different routes of achieving that.
What’s different today, though, is that in the past, we would speak about preventing financial crises, building infrastructure, and just creating economic resiliency. These are topics that I have covered here over the years.
But today, this new topic has emerged in my meetings: conversations about the Fed and what it’s doing.
Policymakers are now concerned about the impact that the U.S. central bank could have – not only on the full domestic economy but on economic conditions around the world.
This week, I shared with congressional staff my analysis that ultimately inflation will come down. But that’s going to take time.
And it’s also going to take active investment in infrastructure and the real economy – that focuses on innovative manufacturing, technology, and New Energy solutions.
Supporting Main Street and not Wall Street is crucial right now, as is a Fed that’s not fighting against a strong labor market.
You see, as the Fed hikes rates, big banks are not passing along those higher interest rates to savers.
Instead, it’s bank shareholders that are pocketing the cash. And there is every reason to believe the executives this year on Wall Street is going to be rewarded with higher bonuses.
But the story goes deeper than that.
In 2022 alone, I found out here that over 120 “K Street” lobbyists with really deep financial pockets have lobbied the Fed directly on a range of topics to help Wall Street and not Main Street.
So why does all of this matter to you?
Because central banks around the world are justifying their tightening by claiming that inflation could become “unanchored.” What that means is that the belief in inflation could be what causes more inflation.
But it also means that they’re following corporate interests at the expense of Main Street.
This is a problem because central bank policies could send energy prices even higher. They could cause a major housing crisis, and they could put greater burden on supply chains and on the real economy and workers.
Ultimately, central banks could create a recession and more economic hardship.
But the numbers tell a slightly different story.
The truth is that workers are returning to jobs. And that means adding more workers – not having fewer customers – is actually potentially a good thing.
It signals that, as the Fed continues down its aggressive path, and it makes a recession nearly inevitable…
It could either continue to squeeze workers while helping Wall Street… Or it could enter Stage 1 of its pivot this year – and reduce the size of its rate hikes.
As always, we’re going to continue to pay attention to the numbers, the economic distortions, and what they all mean for investors – and for you and your money.
Happy investing, and I will talk to you soon.