Odd Lots · Monday, August 31, 2026
Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin discussed the surprising resilience of consumer spending despite high prices and economic uncertainty. He noted that consumers are finding creative ways to spend, including borrowing from the future and shifting to lower-cost retailers, while also highlighting the growing impact of AI investment on the economy, particularly in construction and hiring decisions.
“So there's a lot of momentum in the economy. Jobs market seems to have stabilized. Unemployment rates low. So all that's good. And I'm not saying inflation is definitely heading in the wrong direction. It's just not in the right place. And that's how I think it's not in the right. place.”
“And I think that's what's keeping the spending going. And underneath it all is this just positive energy to keep spending. And I really do think as long as the markets are healthy and people have jobs, they're going to keep finding a way to spend.”
“The one place you see it though is on the hiring side. Because, you know, this may not be true for Bloomberg, but in everywhere else in the economy, people are saying, you know, I don't know what the future looks like. Maybe I don't need to hire as much. I wonder whether AI can do that job. And so why don't you leverage and see if you can't fill the job using AI first and then we'll hire later. That's happening, you know, at some scale.”