Episode 65: Lazard Chief Market Strategist Ronald Temple

Описание: “A Global Macroeconomic and Market Outlook” Ronald Temple, Chief Market Strategist for Lazard’s Financial Advisory and Asset Management businesses, talks inflation, tariffs, and labor supply - and their impact on GDP - together with the latest developments in Europe, China, and Japan, and where the U.S. fits in going forward, before a September 15, 2025 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida. 



Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://www.economic-club.com/2025-ro...  



Mr. Temple took the Club on a world tour of geopolitical issues covering the Eurozone, China, Japan, and the United States.  He discussed two areas of concern – inflation and tariffs – and focused on three primary themes:



1.  The convergence of GDP growth across developed economies- “US growth rates are likely to slow in the years ahead,” he said.  “If we go back in 2023 and 2024, real GDP growth in the United States was 2.8 to 2.9% each year.  That's well above what most economists would say is a sustainable growth rate.”  He predicted U.S. growth will slow to 1.5%, while sustainable growth is 1.7-2%.  He predicted European growth to narrow the gap by increasing to about 1.2%.


2.
Impact of Tariffs on Inflation - “What you're going to see is higher inflation in the United States this year and next because of our trade policies and the tariffs.  This is a short-term issue, because tariffs, once you raise the price, you don't get another increase the next year.  This would be a one-year inflation divergence.”


3.
The beginning of the end of American exceptionalism in the markets - Mr. Temple said that in the last 15 years, U.S. equities have gone up 10-11% a year, Euro and Japanese stocks up by 2-3%, and emerging markets about 2%.  “I think the U.S. will continue to outperform non-U.S. countries, but the gap between us is likely to narrow, and we're likely to see improving economic conditions in some of the non-U.S. countries that are finally being forced to reform their economies and try to improve productivity.”



Mr. Temple pointed out that most U.S. consumer spending is on services – housing, shelter, doctors, financial advisors, lawyers, etc.  Only about 24% is on physical goods.



He said that while U.S. job creation is basically at full employment, the year-to-date job creation is the slowest since 2010.  This year, there is a significant decline in the number of people who were born in another country, so there are fewer people in the workplace.



“I think for the Federal Reserve there's a real challenge,” he said.  “Inflation is still grinding higher as tariffs work their way through to prices.  Unemployment has ticked up a little bit, but job growth is much weaker.  And if we look at the number of open jobs in the United States per unemployed person, for the first time in years, we're now below 1.0 − meaning there are more unemployed people than open jobs.”



“I think what you're going to see over the next year is the Fed will be cutting rates.  But it's not a slam dunk.  It's not a clear-cut case that the Fed should be hitting the alarm bells about unemployment, because there's a chance that we will see unemployment at or below four and a half percent by year end, but inflation looking much more worrisome, and it's going to be very hard for economists in the Fed... (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://www.economic-club.com/2025-ro... A TeleDirections (https://www.teledirections.com/) podcast