So before we go into the kind of substance of the conversation, why don't you summarize for us your outlook for the economy and rates through this year and next year?

I think the most important thing is this relationship between growth and employment and how it's changed.

And when you think about the way the Fed views the economy, that they run policy to try to target growth.

And the reason they're doing that is they're trying to control the labor market, keep it at full employment, but not such a low unemployment rate that there's a shortage of workers, because they then think the most likely cause of inflation is low unemployment, companies competing for workers, wages start to accelerate, And that wage acceleration produces two things, right? It produces costs for the businesses, and they want to raise prices to try to recoup those costs.

But it also produces income for the workers.

which enables households to pay higher prices, and you get a wage price spiral.

The last time that happened in the US was arguably maybe in the 1970s, but it is still the guiding principle of the Fed.

So is it possible that the Fed is going to see this rise in unemployment and say, well, this is just the structure of the new economy?

Do you think that's playing into this or is it really just the view of the current data that explains the divergence?

The divergence has been evident for a long time, and you can see it in the Fed's dot plot.

The longer-run estimates of Fed funds are the various members, the participants' estimates of what our star is.

We've also heard it in speeches recently.

Jay Powell has said, like Beth Hammock, he said that he thinks we're close to neutral.

John Williams just gave a speech recently where he insisted R-Star is still very low.

The fundamental difference seems to be why do they think R-Star fell in the first place? And Williams has done extensive analysis on R-Star over the years.

All that being said, do you think the concept of our star, Chris, and the associated models are actually helpful? Or are there so many unknowable and fast-changing variables that it's all a distraction? Neutral policy may exist as a concept, but it's so difficult to pin down, it's not even worth modeling, and we should just know it by its works and take baby steps, as you said.