Breaking in a new Chair

**Mark Zandi** (0:16)
Welcome to Inside Economics. I'm Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moodys Analytics, and I'm joined by my trusty co-host, Chris Doroudis. Hey, Chris.

**Cris deRitis** (0:23)
Hey, Mark. How are you doing?

**Mark Zandi** (0:25)
Good, good. You're still in Abruzzi?

**Cris deRitis** (0:26)
I still am. Yep, till next week.

**Mark Zandi** (0:29)
And you're a wine seller.

**Cris deRitis** (0:30)
Yes. Yeah.
Let's put it that way.

**Mark Zandi** (0:33)
Yeah. With your crypto winnings all around, somewhere around you.

**Cris deRitis** (0:38)
Oh, now it's all SpaceX, Mark.

**Mark Zandi** (0:42)
Oh, yeah. That makes that's even a better trade than Bitcoin or Ethereum. But congratulations on that.

**Cris deRitis** (0:50)
I wish it was true.

**Mark Zandi** (0:53)
So I meant to ask, G7 meeting, what's the Italian perspective on the G7 meeting? Have you been following?

**Cris deRitis** (1:02)
I have been.
What can I say? The expectation is it's just a meeting. It doesn't really lead to anything conclusive. It's a lot of chatter. Doesn't really affect the common person or business. So that's the, and then of course, there's a lot of behind the scenes gossip around the different leaders and who sat next to who. Oh, tell it.

**Mark Zandi** (1:25)
You tell, you tell, Chris.

**Cris deRitis** (1:27)
Oh, yeah. Well, one thing that came up today was that the picture was taken. They always take a picture with all the different leaders. They do this group picture.
And apparently, after the picture was taken, the leaders break off and have their own side conversations. And the president of the United States was left kind of alone in this shot. So there was a lot of chatter about what does that mean.

**Mark Zandi** (1:51)
How sad. How sad is that?

**Cris deRitis** (1:55)
So that's the kind of level of discourse that we have wrapped up, Jisa.

**Mark Zandi** (2:00)
Well, I understand the prime minister Maloney was like best buds with the president, but that's not going so well these days.

**Cris deRitis** (2:06)
I think it's OK.

**Mark Zandi** (2:07)
It's OK.

**Cris deRitis** (2:08)
It's not.

**Mark Zandi** (2:09)
Glad to hear it. We've got Claudia, Claudia Sahm. How are you, Claudia?

**Claudia Sahm** (2:13)
Hi. Good. Happy to be here.

**Mark Zandi** (2:15)
Thank you for joining us. You've been on before. Have you been on more than once before or just once before? Do you recall?

**Claudia Sahm** (2:21)
Maybe just once before. It was a lot of fun. It was a good conversation. So I enjoyed it.

**Mark Zandi** (2:25)
Really? I don't know. You actually remember the conversation?

**Claudia Sahm** (2:29)
Well, I remember that there was a lively conversation. It's nice to be on a podcast with multiple people and different perspectives. You know, it was fun.

**Mark Zandi** (2:37)
You know, I've been forecasting for a long time, and I can't remember my last time, what I said the last time I forecasted it. I mean, they said, well, did you get it right or did you get it wrong? I go, I'm not really sure.

**Cris deRitis** (2:51)
It depends on the day and the hour.

**Mark Zandi** (2:53)
Oh, yeah.

**Claudia Sahm** (2:54)
All right.

**Mark Zandi** (2:55)
But it's good to have you on.
And you're the chief economist of New Century Advisors. What is New Century Advisors? Can you just give us a sense of that?

**Claudia Sahm** (3:05)
It's an investment firm.
Many of its clients are state pension funds, non-profits, some NGOs. So very tailored to each client, like their kind of investment strategy. And historically, they've been very focused, fixed income, tips, treasuries. They really cover all asset classes now, but it makes me as a former Fed person, think a lot about monetary policy. It's a place for, it's been useful. I can kind of add something to the discussion about, you know, with interest rates, but I'm certainly learn a ton from people that come background in finance, like actually, you know, putting the money on the line. It's a different perspective.

**Mark Zandi** (3:44)
Right, right. As opposed to in theory, actual practice executing on this.
Well, it's good to have you on. And you mentioned you were at the Fed. I was noticing you were there in the middle of the crisis. That must have been an interesting time.

**Claudia Sahm** (4:00)
Yeah, no, I started out of my PhD in 2007 at the Fed. I was hired to be one of the economists that focused on consumer spending. So my first years were just like absolute birth by fire, trying to understand the economy. And that was a time, Kevin Warsh, now the chair, but he was a governor at the time. So it was quite an education at the Fed in terms of how to think about the data, the economy, monetary policy. So I appreciated that good start, but wow, it was rough those first few years.