Why Alternative Economic Data Matters for Real Estate Investors
Alternative Economic Data is becoming one of the most important tools for investors trying to understand where the economy is truly headed. In this episode of Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing, Danielle DiMartino Booth shares why she believes many traditional government economic reports fail to accurately reflect today’s economy. Drawing on her experience at the Federal Reserve and decades in financial markets, she explains how outdated inflation measurements, employment data, and monetary policy can distort investment decisions.
For multifamily and commercial real estate investors, understanding economic trends before they become headlines can create significant advantages. Danielle discusses how alternative data sources provide a more real time picture of inflation, labor markets, and consumer purchasing power, allowing investors to better prepare for market shifts.
Why Multifamily Real Estate Is Facing New Challenges
One of the biggest topics discussed is the growing distress in the multifamily sector. Danielle explains that while office properties have already experienced widespread distress, multifamily is now entering a similar phase as developers face declining valuations, oversupply in certain markets, and increasing concessions.
Rod Khleif shares real world examples of apartment communities selling at steep discounts after lenders repossessed distressed assets. Rather than viewing these conditions negatively, he highlights the opportunities available for experienced investors who understand how to acquire quality assets below replacement cost.
Some of the major challenges affecting multifamily include:
- Higher financing costs
- Excess new apartment supply in many markets
- Weak rent growth caused by affordability issues
- Reduced purchasing power among renters
- Increasing delinquencies and concessions
The conversation illustrates how macroeconomic conditions directly impact apartment investing and why investors should closely monitor changing market dynamics.
Housing Bubble 2.0 and the Future of Residential Real Estate
Danielle introduces the concept of what she calls Housing Bubble 2.0. Unlike the 2008 housing crisis, she argues today’s market is being driven by demographic shifts, years of quantitative easing, and significant distortions in home prices created by Federal Reserve policy.
She believes demographics are now becoming a larger driver of housing demand than many investors realize. Lower birth rates, delayed family formation, and growing multigenerational households are changing what buyers and renters actually need. Rather than a nationwide housing shortage, Danielle argues the real issue is a mismatch between available housing inventory and the types of homes today’s buyers can afford.
This demographic perspective offers valuable insight for investors evaluating both single family and multifamily opportunities over the coming years.
The Federal Reserve, Inflation, and Interest Rates
A major portion of the discussion focuses on Federal Reserve policy and its impact on financial markets. Danielle explains why she believes current inflation measurements fail to accurately capture real world purchasing power and why policymakers need better data to make interest rate decisions.
She discusses:
- How quantitative easing inflated asset prices
- Why traditional inflation measurements can be misleading
- The importance of real time alternative data
- The relationship between monetary policy and real estate values
- Why future policy decisions could reshape investment markets
For investors who rely on economic forecasts, these insights provide valuable context for understanding future interest rate movements.
AI, Employment, and the Economy
The conversation also explores how artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape the labor market. Danielle believes AI will first have its greatest impact on entry level knowledge workers, potentially reducing opportunities for recent graduates while increasing productivity across many industries.
Rod shares how AI is already transforming his own business operations, automating much of his company’s marketing while expanding into operational efficiencies. Together they discuss how AI may permanently change employment, corporate productivity, and long term economic growth.
About Danielle DiMartino Booth
Danielle DiMartino Booth is the CEO and Chief Strategist of QI Research and a former advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. After nearly a decade working alongside former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, she founded her own research firm focused on macroeconomic analysis, monetary policy, and financial markets. She is also the bestselling author of Fed Up: An Insider’s Take on Why the Federal Reserve Is Bad for America and is widely recognized for her expertise in alternative economic data, inflation analysis, and Federal Reserve policy.
If you want to hear the full conversation and detailed insights, watch the podcast video or read the complete transcript below.
Frequently Asked Questions About Alternative Economic Data
What Is Alternative Economic Data?
Alternative Economic Data refers to real time and nontraditional data sources that provide a more current view of economic conditions than standard government reports. These data sets can include private sector pricing information, consumer spending trends, employment activity, and market indicators that help investors identify changes in the economy before official statistics are released.
Why Is Alternative Economic Data Important for Real Estate Investors?
Alternative Economic Data helps real estate investors make better decisions by providing earlier insights into inflation, employment, consumer demand, and economic growth. Investors can use this information to evaluate market conditions, identify risks, and uncover opportunities before they become widely recognized.
How Does Alternative Economic Data Measure Inflation More Accurately?
Many Alternative Economic Data providers collect millions of real time price points across products and services, allowing them to measure inflation much faster than traditional government reports. This can provide investors with a clearer understanding of purchasing power and changing market conditions.
How Does Alternative Economic Data Affect Multifamily Real Estate Investing?
Alternative Economic Data can reveal shifts in renter affordability, wage growth, employment trends, and housing demand that directly impact apartment occupancy, rental rates, and property values. Investors who monitor these indicators may be better positioned to identify distressed buying opportunities and changing market cycles.
Can Alternative Economic Data Predict Economic Downturns?
While no data source can predict the future with certainty, Alternative Economic Data often detects changes in consumer behavior, hiring activity, and economic momentum earlier than traditional reports. These early signals can help investors prepare for potential recessions or market slowdowns.
How Does Alternative Economic Data Improve Investment Decisions?
Investors use Alternative Economic Data to gain a more complete picture of the economy. Combining traditional financial analysis with real time economic indicators can improve decisions involving acquisitions, financing, portfolio management, and long term investment strategy.
What Types of Alternative Economic Data Are Most Useful?
Some of the most valuable Alternative Economic Data includes real time inflation tracking, private employment data, consumer spending patterns, housing market activity, credit trends, rental demand, supply chain information, and business sentiment surveys. Together, these indicators provide a broader understanding of economic conditions.
Can Alternative Economic Data Help Identify Distressed Real Estate Opportunities?
Yes. Alternative Economic Data can help investors identify weakening markets by highlighting declining consumer purchasing power, slowing employment, rising vacancies, and reduced demand. These indicators often appear before distressed properties become widely available, giving investors additional time to prepare acquisition strategies.
Why Are More Investors Using Alternative Economic Data?
As financial markets become more complex and economic conditions change more rapidly, investors increasingly rely on Alternative Economic Data for timely insights. Access to faster and more detailed information helps investors respond to market changes with greater confidence and make more informed real estate investment decisions.
How Can Investors Start Using Alternative Economic Data?
Investors can begin by following reputable economic research firms, monitoring real time inflation and employment data, and incorporating alternative indicators into their market analysis. Using both traditional economic reports and Alternative Economic Data provides a more balanced view of market conditions and investment opportunities.
00;00;11;20 – 00;00;31;12
Rod Khleif
Welcome back to lifetime cash Flow through real estate investing. I’m Rod Cleef and I am thrilled you’re here. Fascinating woman we have on the show today. His name is. Her name is Danielle DiMartino Booth, and she’s the CEO and chief strategist for Key Research, which is an which is what what would you call yourself, Danielle. Welcome to the show.
00;00;31;14 – 00;00;33;21
Rod Khleif
I’m going to let you take it from there.
00;00;33;23 – 00;00;58;19
Danielle DiMartino
No, I’m happy to. So I, I had a career on Wall Street. I ended up moving to Dallas. I signed a non-compete. I worked at a firm where private equity and junk bond investing were big, big, big things before private equity was really a thing. And private credit was really a thing for the rest of the world. But I ended up working, surprisingly enough to me.
00;00;58;19 – 00;01;17;15
Danielle DiMartino
I ended up working at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas for about nine years, for a gentleman by the name of Richard Fisher. He was the kind of the nonacademic central banker. He had his start on Wall Street. I did as well were both MBAs in finance. So he looked at the world through kind of a nonacademic lens, which thank you.
00;01;17;15 – 00;01;44;05
Danielle DiMartino
The fed needs more of that. And I think we’re realizing that. And as soon as Richard retired, I found it research and I track kind of every aspect of the financial market, every aspect of the macro economy and how that’s going to influence monetary policy, because I see through the lens of a central banker. So that’s kind of the value out I give to my, my clients and my, my my readers.
00;01;44;07 – 00;02;02;08
Rod Khleif
Very cool, very cool. Well, I know you’re the author of a book called Fed Up, a subtitle, An Insider’s Take on Why the Federal Reserve Is Bad for America. I would love to hear all about that. So please, let’s let’s start there.
00;02;02;10 – 00;02;29;02
Danielle DiMartino
So, you know, during the heyday of what I call housing bubble 1.0, because I, because right now housing bubble 2.0 is bigger. During the, during the heyday of housing bubble 1.0, when I was at the Federal Reserve, they kind of determined that their inflation metrics weren’t picking up on asset price inflation, which has to be incorporated somehow into monetary policy making.
00;02;29;04 – 00;02;49;24
Danielle DiMartino
And once they determined that if they changed the way they viewed inflation, that they wouldn’t be able to break all the rules, print all the money keeping, keep interest rates at artificially low levels, they kind of said, well, that was an interesting thought experiment. We’re going to go back to using the wrong metrics. We’re just going to stick with them.
00;02;49;25 – 00;03;15;22
Danielle DiMartino
And then I got fed up and I wrote a book about it. So there’s way too much academia inside of policymaking. I think that that is something that Jay Powell began to explore and then backed off on, drank the Kool-Aid. I was I kind of had high hopes for him when he first testified to Congress that it wasn’t the Fed’s job to backstop the stock market, but that didn’t last for long.
00;03;15;23 – 00;03;51;03
Danielle DiMartino
So now we turn to his successor, Kevin Warsh, who apparently has a task force for that. So I’m fingers crossed because the fed communicates too much. It distorts markets too much for guidance, I think needs to be banished along with the Dot plot. Federal reserve forecasters are no better, certainly than any others. And I think there needs to be more mystery for the markets in what the central bank is going to do, as opposed to the central bank spoon feeding speculators.
00;03;51;04 – 00;04;10;22
Rod Khleif
Interesting. Now, this last time, he didn’t do any of the forward business. Correct. He held back on that, which is great. I, I have high hopes as well. But he did make a comment, if I recall, that they want to get to that 2% inflation number. Is that accurate or did I misread that. And what’s the what’s the likelihood of that.
00;04;10;25 – 00;04;26;26
Rod Khleif
In fact, let me add one more thing. Is it true because I had an economist here on my couch say that 80% of the US currency was created in the Biden administration in 2020, about 20% was in circulation. They created another 80% in those four years. Is that an accurate assessment?
00;04;27;01 – 00;04;45;17
Danielle DiMartino
It’s a bit of a stretch, but okay, you think about the $19 trillion or so of debt that we had kind of a December 31st, 2019. And where we are now, I mean, we’re on we’re on pace to double that here in the next few years.
00;04;45;20 – 00;04;50;02
Rod Khleif
Okay. Okay. So it was it was big. It was a lot. So maybe not 80 but.
00;04;50;02 – 00;04;50;20
A lot.
00;04;50;27 – 00;04;54;12
Danielle DiMartino
It was time. But by the way that really hasn’t slowed down.
00;04;54;12 – 00;04;57;08
Rod Khleif
So hasn’t it. Okay. Okay.
00;04;57;09 – 00;04;58;15
Danielle DiMartino
Not enough.
00;04;58;17 – 00;05;06;09
Rod Khleif
Fair enough. So. So if it hasn’t slowed down, how are they going to get inflation under 2%?
00;05;06;12 – 00;05;28;17
Danielle DiMartino
Well, now you’re asking me a different question. Now you’re asking about purchasing power and pricing power right. And measurement of jobs, which I think we can all agree that in the last 40 months that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has, has revised the the monthly numbers 30 times.
00;05;28;18 – 00;05;29;05
Rod Khleif
Wow.
00;05;29;10 – 00;05;31;15
Danielle DiMartino
To the downside. So I think.
00;05;31;17 – 00;05;34;12
Rod Khleif
Like massaging them is that is that is that a.
00;05;34;14 – 00;05;57;17
Danielle DiMartino
Well, that gets us back to your first question. You know, why am I fed up? There’s a lot of modeling that goes on. There’s a lot of imputation that goes on. And, you know, one of the things that the labor market does not capture today is kind of the gig worker people who are working two and three jobs just to get my that’s not being measured appropriately.
00;05;57;17 – 00;06;21;01
Danielle DiMartino
And that gets us back to the idea of inflation, because you can only raise prices to the extent that people can afford to pay for them. And that gets you to the dilemma, because if you’re just talking about money printing, that’s going to feed speculators, but it’s still not going to improve purchasing power, right?
00;06;21;03 – 00;06;41;23
Rod Khleif
Yeah. I’m, you know, I’ll be I’ll be full disclosure. My my eyes cross and my head spins in some of these conversations around monetary policy and economics. But, you know, I’m recently single. I go to the grocery store and I look at the clerk and I say, $150 for that. Are you freaking kidding me? And I just wonder how people do it.
00;06;41;24 – 00;07;01;04
Rod Khleif
I know before we started recording, you know, you you were concerned because you know that I teach people how to buy a complex just like I’m bearish on multifamily. And I get it, so am I. I’m bearish on the condition of multifamily, but I’m but I’m absolutely a bull on the opportunity right now because there’s so many distressed assets hitting the market.
00;07;01;06 – 00;07;17;27
Rod Khleif
You know I’ll give you I’ll give you an example. I’ve got a 200 unit asset in San Antonio right next door, 300 units sold in late 21 for 43 million. Bank got it back, offered it for 28 million. I wasn’t interested in it. Went down to 24. Somebody bought it. I wish I could have got it, but. But that’s what’s out there right now.
00;07;17;27 – 00;07;26;20
Rod Khleif
And, you know, my SEC attorney got six foreclosures of apartment complexes in one day. I mean, it’s just a, you know, a lot of distress, but there.
00;07;26;20 – 00;07;37;06
Danielle DiMartino
Is a distress. There’s a there’s a huge headline that’s been wandering around because a multifamily developer just completely wrote down, I mean, the.
00;07;37;09 – 00;07;43;12
Rod Khleif
400 million. Steve. Steve, you’re talking about Steve, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 400 million.
00;07;43;15 – 00;07;45;12
And to me.
00;07;45;14 – 00;08;05;22
Danielle DiMartino
To me at least, that’s when you’re starting to. I mean, it’s been a few years now that we’ve been saying office is distressed. Actually, last year of 2025, we saw a ten year high in the sale of distressed office properties. But we’re not there yet with multifamily. But when you start to see headlines like that, you know what’s coming down the pipeline.
00;08;05;23 – 00;08;06;19
And yeah.
00;08;06;22 – 00;08;31;12
Danielle DiMartino
You know, everybody, there were all these predictions that rents were going to bottom in 2026 with, you know, not a lot of supply coming along. But I’m like, but you still have to absorb yester years new supply that’s sitting out there and yet gets us back to purchasing power and concessions and what you can charge for rent. And, you know, a record percentage of adult males living at home with their parents.
00;08;31;13 – 00;08;39;04
Danielle DiMartino
I mean, these are not they’re not flowing into the rental pool. If they’re in Mom and dad’s basement. It’s just reality.
00;08;39;06 – 00;08;58;23
Rod Khleif
I, I haven’t heard it describe that well before. That’s that’s absolutely dead on accurate. And we’re we’re having to make tons of concessions because we bought in Nashville, we bought in San Antonio. And there’s tons of absorption. And so, you know, we’ve been hammered by that ourselves. I mean literally on assets that I own. And so you’re absolutely dead on.
00;08;58;23 – 00;09;12;28
Rod Khleif
And I mean, at some point there’ll be an equilibrium at some point because we’re still a renter nation. Would you agree with that statement? And there’s a there is a shortage of housing, at least supposedly there’s a big shortage of housing. Would you agree with that.
00;09;12;28 – 00;09;14;09
Statement as well?
00;09;14;11 – 00;09;37;13
Danielle DiMartino
See, I pushed back really hard on the idea of there being a shortage of housing. I think there’s a massive disconnect. Because of the collapsing birthrate. So you have large homes out there that are completely irrelevant properties for a first time homebuyer. They don’t need a McMansion.
00;09;37;15 – 00;09;38;04
They don’t need.
00;09;38;04 – 00;10;00;16
Danielle DiMartino
Anything near the size of I mean, some multifamily developers are like, I got too many two bedrooms on my hands. I mean, who knew that I would need more one bedroom apartments? But again, we’ve seen the collapse in the birth rate. People understand that it is very expensive to have have a kid, and so they’re waiting longer. And this is just hard demographic data.
00;10;00;17 – 00;10;23;14
Danielle DiMartino
You know, you’ve got more women who are 38 having kids than their their women who are 28 having kids, people. And when people wait longer a they’re going to have fewer children, and B, they’re going to wait longer to get into that. But we know that baby boomers are sitting on a ton of McMansions we used to call them.
00;10;23;19 – 00;10;24;20
But who is going.
00;10;24;20 – 00;10;37;03
Danielle DiMartino
To buy them? And that’s what I think. I think. That really needs to be why there is a shortage of homes for entry level buyers, but there’s not a shortage of properties.
00;10;37;05 – 00;10;57;27
Rod Khleif
Gotcha. Okay. I was I was actually alluding to a shortage of rentals, period. I wasn’t talking, but but you’re on housing. But that’s okay because I want to talk about housing. You made a comment about housing 2.0 happening right now. Could you elaborate on that? And your version I’m assuming 1.0 was 809.
00;10;58;00 – 00;11;19;21
Danielle DiMartino
1.0 was 0809. The build up, I mean, you know, home prices peaked at six. And it took a long time after that for the market to be normalized. I think it will take a longer time this time, because home prices have increased to a greater extent. If you look at if you look at any home price metric, they went off the rails.
00;11;19;21 – 00;11;41;28
Danielle DiMartino
When my former employer decided to hoover up 40% of the mortgage backed securities market as part of its quantitative easing campaign, and that distorted home prices to an even greater extent. There are very few markets right now where you can say that home prices are truly back to where they were in 2019, so there’s a lot of downside left to go.
00;11;41;28 – 00;11;53;15
Danielle DiMartino
And of course, you can’t talk about multifamily without talking about single family residential because the two markets play off of one another. But for now, it’s still way cheaper to rent.
00;11;53;18 – 00;12;20;21
Rod Khleif
Yeah. Compared to you know, I saw an article that that home builder inventory is at the highest level. It’s been since like 080 9 or 0 nine, I think it was so. And my son’s buying a house right now and, and been some issues with the debt and, and they’ve extended it like four times which indicates to me like we’re talking for we’re 4 to 5 months in indicates to me they’re very pliable right now.
00;12;20;24 – 00;12;24;13
So what do you what do you.
00;12;24;13 – 00;12;35;09
Rod Khleif
Anticipate is going to happen with residential houses? You know, you’re talking about this 2.0. What do you think’s going to happen. You think there’s going to be a big reset in pricing. Is that what needs to happen?
00;12;35;14 – 00;13;00;25
Danielle DiMartino
I think that there has to be a reset in pricing because you cannot reverse what’s happened demographically. I just it’s impossible to do. And, you know, that’s why homebuilders like Lennar have found a niche market where they are constructing new build multigenerational homes. So they’re putting two kitchens in the same home.
00;13;00;27 – 00;13;04;01
Rod Khleif
Oh, kidding. Oh wow I didn’t know that. That’s cool.
00;13;04;02 – 00;13;34;21
Danielle DiMartino
Well look the the pandemic destroyed the working base, childcare workers, nursing home workers. I mean, they’re like, I can go to Chipotle and work for 18 bucks an hour and get full benefits. Why am I changing bedpans? Why am I wiping runny noses and changing diapers of little kids? So this generation is determined that either mom and dad are going to help me in terms of my child care, or I’m not going to be able to have kids.
00;13;34;24 – 00;13;43;20
Danielle DiMartino
So there is a I mean, according to the census, we have record numbers of multifamily, multigenerational household formation going on right now.
00;13;43;22 – 00;13;45;13
Rod Khleif
Wow. Wow.
00;13;45;19 – 00;14;17;05
Danielle DiMartino
That’s that’s that’s a change. That’s huge. I don’t think it’s going to be reversed anytime soon unless we in the last 12 months, you know, the sheer number of full time job losses is incredible as opposed to part time job creation. Again, that gets us back to talking about the gig economy, talking about the gig worker, talking about people who are holding down more than one job and you’re $150 shock moment at the grocery store, right?
00;14;17;06 – 00;14;18;16
Danielle DiMartino
But this is real.
00;14;18;18 – 00;14;39;12
Rod Khleif
Yeah, I don’t know how they do it. I fill up my car and it’s like, are you? It’s just crazy what things cost now. And you know, and we’re seeing it in the C class assets in the apartment industry. You know, these people, you know they can’t make ends meet in their their delinquencies are way up. You know, evictions are up.
00;14;39;13 – 00;14;57;04
Rod Khleif
Yeah. And so and and so let me ask you this. I mean, just your crystal ball. I’d love to ask you some crystal ball questions. Do you think we’re headed for a recession in this country? Like, like something significant? Let’s talk about it. I’m just curious what your thoughts are.
00;14;57;06 – 00;15;21;10
Danielle DiMartino
Well, we know from revisions, and Kevin Warsh alluded to what I’m about to say because he said that nonfarm payrolls were only as good as what they were when they were reported. With the third revision, that that comes 18 months after we actually see that first print. And what we know from those revisions is that in the first, second and third quarter of 2025 that we have net job losses.
00;15;21;10 – 00;15;30;23
Danielle DiMartino
So I think the question you should be asking me is, are we going back into recession? And because you’ve never had three quarters in a row in the United States in history.
00;15;30;24 – 00;15;32;13
Rod Khleif
That’s it. That’s a recession. Yeah.
00;15;32;15 – 00;15;58;01
Danielle DiMartino
Well, I mean, forget about GDP because employment a lagging indicator. But we know that in the first and second and third quarter of 2025 that the US economy shed jobs. Are we going to go back into a recession? It’s interesting because what we look at when we see the ADP data reported on a weekly basis is that job creation kind of we had a big spurt around the World Cup.
00;15;58;03 – 00;16;23;15
Danielle DiMartino
There were a lot of leisure and hospitality, concession type of jobs that were created, and we’ve just seen this cliff since then. So the question is, are we going to go back into recession? And I think that there is a decent chance that that happens, but none of it will be relevant if the stock market hangs in there, because that’s where the money is.
00;16;23;17 – 00;16;41;18
Rod Khleif
Okay. So so I’m sure you’ve been asked this before. What are your what’s your opinion on the impact of AI and job loss in that arena? Because I just saw Microsoft laid off 5000 people yesterday, you know, and that’s been an ongoing thing with the big tech companies, you know, tens of thousands of jobs. I’m just curious what your thoughts there are.
00;16;41;20 – 00;16;43;13
Danielle DiMartino
And their high paying jobs.
00;16;43;14 – 00;16;44;19
Rod Khleif
Yeah, yeah they are.
00;16;44;20 – 00;16;46;03
Danielle DiMartino
We have to pay attention to that.
00;16;46;06 – 00;16;49;11
Rod Khleif
Because that impacts the economy. They’re not spending money.
00;16;49;13 – 00;17;15;18
Danielle DiMartino
Yeah I mean I think we’re AI is having the greatest impact. In fact, my my oldest started college were four plus years ago when AI wasn’t even really a thing. And he’ll be studying up on AI before flowing into the workforce because you have to understand it. Yeah, it in your life some way, shape or form. But it’s the reason I bring up college graduates is because I think that that’s where AI is.
00;17;15;18 – 00;17;24;10
Danielle DiMartino
Having the biggest impact is kind of carving out entry level job positions that can now be done by a computer.
00;17;24;12 – 00;17;26;26
Rod Khleif
So many. There’s so many of those as well.
00;17;27;02 – 00;17;46;00
Danielle DiMartino
I or some combination thereof. Yeah. So I think that I think that AI there’s a lot of pushback in corporate America, because I think a lot of CEOs and CFOs wanted to wave their magic wand and say, execute AI, but, right, unless you know how to do it, you know.
00;17;46;01 – 00;18;02;02
Rod Khleif
That’s it’s the implementation. I was actually thinking about starting AI implementation company because we’re on the forefront of it. We’re in the 1% or 1%, right? I’m actually getting cloned tomorrow. We’re doing the whole cloning process for me tomorrow. You won’t even know if it’s me or not. You know, talking my talk at my talk. But yeah, we’re doing that tomorrow.
00;18;02;02 – 00;18;22;00
Rod Khleif
But, you know, we’ve got a open laptop that’s literally handing handling 95% of our marketing. Now, my, my, the guy that set it all up is just watching it. So yeah, we’re seeing some incredible. And now we’re now we’re going into the operational side of my coaching business and seeing what we can maximize there. But but yeah, I think you’re right.
00;18;22;01 – 00;18;23;19
Rod Khleif
I mean, because I mean even things.
00;18;23;19 – 00;18;26;04
Like medical, medical, legal.
00;18;26;06 – 00;18;47;15
Rod Khleif
Accounting, engineering, architecture, these are all things that AI can do better than a human or will be able to do better than a human in short order. Hell, I had robotic surgery myself like almost 15, 16 years ago. And now they’re, you know, they’re saying the robots will be better than surgeons, the best surgeons. And what do you know, what are your thoughts on.
00;18;47;17 – 00;19;01;21
Rod Khleif
And we’re kind of on a tangent here, but you’re obviously really in the know. What are your thoughts on this whole robotic thing with Elon building all these Optimus robots? And what what do you what is your crystal ball say there? I’m just curious.
00;19;01;22 – 00;19;15;29
Danielle DiMartino
I mean, so I think that there’s obviously a place in the future for everything that we’re talking about, what I don’t think can be displaced in the future’s judgment.
00;19;16;01 – 00;19;26;13
Rod Khleif
Really, you don’t think an AI, an AI judge can evaluate? There was just a movie on about this with Chris Pratt where an AI he’s it’s. Anyway, I digress, but but.
00;19;26;19 – 00;19;48;27
Danielle DiMartino
I mean, I think AI can definitely become a huge influence on individuals, on individual thought patterns. But again, I think that there will I think that there will always be a place for discernment and judgment, because we have to remember that it was a human being, after all that created AI.
00;19;48;29 – 00;20;07;26
Rod Khleif
Yeah, yeah. I just listened to a fascinating interview with Marc Andreessen and Joe Rogan about AI and just all the it was just really about, guys, if you haven’t heard that one, go listen to it. It’s really good. But yeah, I know we kind of went off on a tangent here, but you know, I like to have interesting conversations.
00;20;07;27 – 00;20;25;27
Rod Khleif
So yeah, we could go back into a recession, you know. What do you think again crystal ball based on on washes comment around 2%. It’s my opinion that we’re not going to see interest rate changes. But what do you think. I’m just curious.
00;20;25;29 – 00;20;28;05
Danielle DiMartino
So
00;20;28;08 – 00;20;31;14
Rod Khleif
Or interest rate reductions. Let me be very more precise.
00;20;31;16 – 00;21;02;24
Danielle DiMartino
Yeah. Rate cuts. Right. You know, I’m a big proponent of truth and true because speaking of technological advances, that’s that’s an area where one entity can scrape 30 million prices every day. And there’s there’s a place in the world for that. There’s a place in the world for real time gauges of inflation. And that tells a much different story than the official data do.
00;21;02;25 – 00;21;06;18
Danielle DiMartino
In fact, it’s much closer to 2%. So the question should be I think.
00;21;06;20 – 00;21;08;13
Rod Khleif
It is. Oh, interesting. Okay.
00;21;08;16 – 00;21;24;01
Danielle DiMartino
Yeah. So I mean and again, Kevin Warsh has a task force for that. He’s looking into alternative data sources. And because he knows that the fed has been making monetary policy through a rear view mirror when there’s.
00;21;24;02 – 00;21;28;09
Rod Khleif
And would you say they haven’t included everything either. Right. They haven’t.
00;21;28;10 – 00;21;29;07
Danielle DiMartino
Seen everything.
00;21;29;08 – 00;21;35;28
Rod Khleif
Right. I mean, they pick and choose what they’re going to gauge it on. And you know that’s not accurate. No.
00;21;36;00 – 00;21;47;13
Danielle DiMartino
So I think if he’s able to really implement the changes that he’s talking about, that it would revolutionize monetary policy making. I really do, and I wish him the very best because.
00;21;47;14 – 00;21;50;06
Rod Khleif
That’s exciting. Yeah.
00;21;50;08 – 00;22;09;19
Danielle DiMartino
I mean, when you consider how poorly measured inflation and employment are by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I mean, come on, we just had a conversation about AI, right? And how AI can do so many things, so much. Why can’t we measure data?
00;22;09;21 – 00;22;18;28
Rod Khleif
Hello? Hello. God. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Yeah. Dead on. So.
00;22;19;00 – 00;22;31;25
Rod Khleif
You know, I tell people it’s interesting. You know, they’re all crying about the interest rates right now. When I was 18, they were 18%. I remember I remember being ecstatic when they hit 7%. So, you know, just for context.
00;22;31;28 – 00;22;38;16
Danielle DiMartino
I mean that that’s relevant, but not to somebody who’s spent most of their lives at the zero bound.
00;22;38;20 – 00;22;39;16
Rod Khleif
Right. Yeah.
00;22;39;18 – 00;22;51;12
Danielle DiMartino
Cause it’s all about the delta. It’s all about, you know, if it’s still, you know, if they knew 1% and now it’s 4%, it’s still, you know, multiple.
00;22;51;15 – 00;23;00;19
Rod Khleif
Fair enough. But don’t things have to kind of reach an equilibrium when the rates stay where there are the prices have to come down. I mean, otherwise nothing sells, right?
00;23;00;20 – 00;23;25;14
Danielle DiMartino
And that’s what that’s what one firm after another is saying. They’re saying yes. Higher input cuts. Yes. Higher energy costs. But we’re eating that in our margins because we can’t pass through the higher prices to end users. And I’m like, well, then we should maybe incorporate gig workers into the BLS employment figures so that you understand that these people are not making that much money.
00;23;25;17 – 00;23;48;10
Danielle DiMartino
Or, you know, everybody gets excited about initial jobless claims every single Thursday morning when they hit the wires and oh, they’re so low and and like, yeah, only 1 in 4 Americans who are classified as unemployed is collecting unemployment benefits, which is absolutely melt it down. It used to not be that case. And it’s just because what the states pay doesn’t cover.
00;23;48;12 – 00;23;48;22
Rod Khleif
You can’t.
00;23;48;22 – 00;24;02;03
Danielle DiMartino
Live like effect at the grocery store. They can’t do it. So they worked for Uber instead they they drive for DoorDash. Instead, they do what they have to do to make ends meet. But they’re not captured as unemployed or underemployed.
00;24;02;06 – 00;24;14;06
Rod Khleif
Maybe that’s the operative word, really is underemployed. Well, so. So where do you see this heading? Where do you see this heading? I mean, Danielle, I mean, do you do you.
00;24;14;09 – 00;24;54;16
Danielle DiMartino
I think I think that the time is right for corporate America to appreciate that they have a part to play in making the labor force more dynamic. If AI is going to have, you know, produce some productivity miracle, we can educate our kids better with AI. But I think we need to have some adult conversations about opportunities in the economy, not just companies buying back their shares or, you know, M&A bankers putting companies together one day, and then they split them apart and they collect fees on both sides.
00;24;54;21 – 00;25;24;20
Danielle DiMartino
It’s there has to be more than financialization. And, you know, I look often at the state of Indiana as an example, because the state economy never did completely disassociate itself from the manufacturing sector from making things, its state economy the most reliant on manufacturing the nation. But it’s a very nicely balanced economy because of that. So I think we can’t just be a services nation, and I don’t think that we can be just a manufacturing nation.
00;25;24;20 – 00;25;30;07
Danielle DiMartino
I think we need to be a better balanced economy than we are.
00;25;30;10 – 00;25;45;24
Rod Khleif
Interesting. That’s above my pay grade. So so your company talk about talk about you’ve got a newsletter that you put out there. Right. Kind of a retail newsletter I think you described it as it’s not very much money.
00;25;45;26 – 00;26;10;07
Danielle DiMartino
Every trading, every trading day of the year, without fail we publish The Daily Feather and it’s got four great charts. We look at the data in a different way than any major bank would look at the because there’s no value at if we don’t see, we see things through the prisms of alternative data sources. We try and be in front of other research houses.
00;26;10;07 – 00;26;18;02
Danielle DiMartino
And we’ve certainly garnered reputation for for being that way. So yeah, it’s it’s pretty incredible the Daily feather.
00;26;18;03 – 00;26;20;19
Rod Khleif
And and where do they go to to to look into that.
00;26;20;26 – 00;26;43;17
Danielle DiMartino
So I’m on Substack like a whole bunch of people in the rest of the world. DiMartino booth.com. And if you don’t already follow me on social media, I mean, I’m not as active as I once was, but I’m certainly much more thoughtful when I do post to social media for my 357,000 followers. But if you don’t already follow me at DiMartino Booth, you should.
00;26;43;19 – 00;27;02;25
Rod Khleif
Okay, DiMartino Booth, there you go. Well, listen, Danielle, this has been a very stimulating, mostly over my head conversation, but I’ve really enjoyed it regardless. And I really appreciate you taking the time out of your very busy day to pop on my show for a few minutes and and. Yeah. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.
00;27;02;27 – 00;27;03;16
Danielle DiMartino
Oh, my.
00;27;03;19 – 00;27;04;28
Rod Khleif
Likewise. Thank you.
