Stephanie Pomboy: Economy Is A 'Slow-Motion Train Wreck' In Process

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**Stephanie Pomboy** (0:57)
What you're talking about is an environment where, let's say credit card delinquencies go up. And as we saw today, they have to cut back on running up the plastic. Well, the next thing they're going to have to do is stop spending so much because they were using the plastic because they didn't have enough cash with which to purchase those things. So spending will slow, which means corporate profits will slow, which will slow employment. And that will steadily grind on and grind on to the point that you eventually, the economy will lapse into recession.

**Adam Taggart** (1:39)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money, I'm Thoughtful Money Founder and your host, Adam Taggart, welcoming you back here for another bi-weekly macro session with the macro maven herself, Stephanie Pomboy. Steph, how you doing?

**Stephanie Pomboy** (1:51)
I'm great, how are you, Adam?

**Adam Taggart** (1:53)
I am great, and it's nice to see you again, all set up there in your abode out west, your summer abode out west. I hope you're having a good time in Vale right now.

**Stephanie Pomboy** (2:03)
Wow, it's just so magical. I absolutely soak up every single second out here in the summer. I wish it were longer, but we take what we can get. Anyway, I hope you are enjoying a beautiful summer out west as well.

**Adam Taggart** (2:18)
I am, although funnily enough, sort of Freaky Friday style, I'm heading out to your hometown in basically 24 hours, which is why we're not doing this live this week. We're having to record it a day in advance, and folks, that's on me.
I'm going to Rick Ruhl's annual symposium out there in Boca Raton, and then we're going to spend a couple of days as well in Palm Beach. So we're going to be in your old stomping grounds there, Steph, and we're going to be soaking up all that heat and all that humidity that you're out west avoiding right now.

**Stephanie Pomboy** (2:54)
Well, I feel sorry for you. I'm also a little unnerved by the fact that you're going to be in my hometown when I'm not there because I don't want to miss the opportunity. But on the other hand, I wonder, what possesses anyone to host a conference in the summer, in July, in Boca Raton?

**Adam Taggart** (3:12)
I don't know. I will ask Rick that himself when I see him. So I'll hopefully have the answer when we do this next time, Rod.

**Stephanie Pomboy** (3:18)
Good deal. Well, I'm guessing the hotel rates are substantially lower.

**Adam Taggart** (3:23)
They're pretty cheap, I got to say. But I think I understand why. Anyway, Steph, well, hopefully, we can engineer an in-person meeting in Vail because that would be fun, period, but also a lot easier from where I normally spend my time out here in California. But anyway, if we can make it happen, we will this summer.

**Stephanie Pomboy** (3:42)
That's true. We'll go for a ruck together.

**Adam Taggart** (3:45)
That would be great. All right. Well, look, we got a lot to ruck through in today's discussion. And why don't we start with a topic that I know is near and dear to your heart, Steph, which is the state of the consumer. I've seen two stats today that I'd love to get your reaction to. One is, I think, what might be actually a really clean data point. You know, a lot of times there's a lot of adjustments and things that go on with the the official government data. But apparently, the reporting so far on Amazon Prime Day this year is that it's down 14% from where it was last year, the spending.