Workers see it very differently. Job security would be nice if they keep this place open. We dont really have a car. Its scheduled to close. I just need a future. I dont mind working hard to get it, either, but give us something. A lot of news to get to that hour including that important strike, but we begin with uncertainty after this weekends attack on Oil Facilities inside saudi arabia. We, of course, are watching oil prices. Crude oil prices spiking after they effectively were slashed in price. Heating oil, natural gas all up as well. Top Administration Officials are meeting today at the white house amid ongoing discussions about the attack and irans possible role in it. Theyre also discussing options for u. S. Response. President trump this morning suggesting iran might be responsible for the attacks, tweeting in part, quote, now they, meaning iran, say they had nothing to do with the attack on saudi arabia. Well see. This comes after his secretary of state was very quick to pin r
view. it s what he s seeing that is right behind the corner. consumer spending has held up but it is slowing. business investment is slowing. inflation has just started to ease, but not nearly enough for the fed to feel confident that inflation is significantly moving in the right direction. to your point, we did get new inflation data today that showed that inflation is easing up. monthly inflation actually declined 0.1 of a percent. core inflation rose 0.1 of a percent so we are dealing with the very early stages of what could perhaps be the peak of inflation. and so we re just not there yet. so the pain that he s talking about is for certain people, we re going to be dealing with high inflation and high borrowing costs. that s going to hurt on both sides. but also as greg pointed out, the likelihood the demand for workers is going to change. you re not going to have as many options as we have had and we could see some job loss. so that 3.5% may not stay where it is ride now. i
greg, it s clear the fed chair does not want to understate the economic environment. last year he mistakenly, he admitted himself, calling inflation transitory. that having been said, we all understand this is a very unusual economy right now. i guess the question is does he have the right tools at his disposal to deal with it? well, he made the point that not all this inflation is a result of excess demand, and excess demand is the only thing the fed can deal with by raising interest rates. as we ve all heard many times there have been all sorts of supply chain bottlenecks, container ships that are tied up offshore, shortage of semi conductors and so on. but powell confronted that argument head on. he said just because some things are causing inflation that aren t caused by demand does not absolve us, the fed, of getting inflation down. look at the labor market, for example. we are used to saying 3.5% unemployment, that s great. half a million jobs created per month, that s great.
yachts, and this is a nearly 300-foot ship seized in the south of france, and it s valued at $120 million. right now the administration is debating whether to block russian energy imports. joining me now is greg ipp, chief economics commentator for the wall street journal. greg, a big question here not just about whether sanctions can work against putin, but really do they work at all? this is probably the most significant effort to curtail a major nation, a major economy. do you think this will have an effect on putin s decision making? it s got to have some kind of effect. it s true that in the past sanctions do not have a great track record. we put them on north korea, no effect. pe put them on svenezuela, no effect. we put them on iran, no effect. putin clearly knew there would be economic punishment for invading ukraine, so he was in some sense prepared for this.
john. nic robertson in saudi arabia. great to have you at the capital in this sensitive time. callie at wood, michael bender and greg ipp. the president says, i want to hear from the kingdom. what do they believe? the saudis are coming up with the same thing mike pompeo said, iran did this. if iran did this, what will the response be? that s what they re talking about at the white house today. it is interesting to see there are a number of principals meetings happening at the white house. it s different to see when there have been incidents like this. the question here is what are the options on the table and what is president trump willing to do when iran shot down a million $11 million u.s.