Morning us now is Dr. Jonathan Newman. He is a Henry Haslett Research Fellow at the Mezes Institute. He's earned his PhD at Auburn University while he was a research fellow at the Mezes Institute. He's got a couple of children's books on economics.

You know, it's a way to make the dismal science less dismal and make it accessible to children.

The Broken Window and Lugwig the Builder.

And so we're going to talk to him about that.

But I want to begin by talking about tariffs, stagflation, and things like that.

Thank you for joining us, Dr. Newman.

Hey, thanks for having me on.

It's good to have you.

Let's talk a little bit about the tariffs, and a lot of people are talking about stagflation, and are we seeing signs of stagflation starting to raise its head in the U.S. economy?

Is it stagflation is starting to raise its head in the U.S. economy? Is it stagflation? Tell us a little bit

about stagflation and what you think about how the economy is reacting to the Trump tariffs.

Sure. So stagflation is it's certainly possible. It's a rare sort of thing. Usually what happens

is the Federal Reserve will print money and

this will stimulate business activity. It will get the employment numbers up. Makes it easier

for the government to borrow and spend. And usually that's their reaction to a recession or

an impending recession. So usually what happens is they put the money and that causes prices to rise and for business

activity to increase, at least in the short run.

Of course, anybody who's familiar with Austin Business Cycle will know that this will eventually

turn into a bust.

Eventually, all of the new projects that are started while interest rates are artificially

low, they can't be completed because the real savings aren't there.

And so we get a recession.

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