Welcome back to The Red Letter.
It’s already happening — just not evenly.
Gas prices have jumped. Food costs are creeping higher. Mortgage rates, which briefly dipped below 6 percent, are climbing again. And beneath it all, the job market has quietly stalled out, with no meaningful gains since last year.
For many Americans, the “war economy” isn’t some future scenario — it’s already showing up at the kitchen table.
But what comes next is where things get more uncertain and potentially more painful.
In this conversation, former UBS chairman and Obama advisor Robert Wolf lays out how a conflict thousands of miles away begins to ripple through everything from commodities to credit cards. Oil is just the start. Fertilizer, shipping costs, and global supply chains are all being squeezed and those costs don’t stay overseas. They move, slowly but inevitably, into the U.S. economy.
The real risk isn’t just higher prices. It’s the combination: rising costs, slowing growth, and a fragile job market. Economists have a word for that, “stagflation” and while it’s not here yet, the odds are rising if this war drags on.
And then there’s the question no one can answer: timing.
Some Americans are already feeling it. But how long before it spreads? Weeks? Months? By the time it’s obvious, it may already be too late to avoid the worst of it.
Thank you Vicki Whicker, Sarah E. Burr, David Nadelson, Oddwood, Judith Simmons, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.
