Macroeconomic Analysis

Wait, Shelter drives a third of inflation. So why aren’t rents falling fast? Wait, shelter drives a third of inflation. So why aren’t rents falling fast? It’s the question I keep getting over coffee (and yes, sometimes over a stressed landlord’s spreadsheet). Rate cuts are on the table, unemployment has nudged up this year, and yet, rents don’t just drop on command. They rarely do. Here’s the counterintuitive bit: rent inflation inside the CPI isn’t your leasing office’s price sheet, it’s a slow-moving average of what millions of people are already paying. Surprising stat: The Bureau of Labor Statistics weighted…

No, one hot CPI print doesn’t handcuff the Fed No, one hot CPI print doesn’t handcuff the Fed. It grabs headlines, sure, and it definitely rattles the front end of the curve for a few sessions. But the FOMC doesn’t rewrite its rate-cut path off a single month’s data. That’s not how policy worked when I was cutting my teeth on a rates desk, and it’s not how it works in Q4 2025. One data point is a signal; a trend is policy. There’s a difference. And, small confession, I’m oversimplifying already because even “trend” isn’t just inflation. It’s inflation,…

How the pros actually prep for rate cuts when jobs get shaky Here’s the quiet difference I see in the folks who survive these cycles with their P&L intact: they don’t try to be the cleverest forecaster in the room when the Fed hints at easing and unemployment starts drifting higher. They prioritize playbooks over predictions and cash flow over headlines. Sounds boring. Works anyway. When the “what-happens-if-fed-cuts-amid-rising-unemployment” question pops up (and it always does around this point in the cycle ) pros split the problem into parts they can actually manage: Policy rate path (what the Fed does, and…