This week on the MacroVoices podcast, host Erik Townsend welcomed Eric Peters, the CEO and CIO of One River Asset Management, for a discussion about the long-term future of the US economy, and how demographics, the expanding US debt, and the waning influence of central banks will impact growth, inflation and – most importantly – markets.

After a brief discussion about the future of USD hegemony, and the factors that could lead to the dethroning – so to speak – of the dollar, the two plunged into a discussion about one of the most vexing issues of the modern US economy: Why sub-4% unemployment hasn’t driven a runup in inflation back toward levels witnessed before the financial crisis.

We’ve all looked at the stats, and we’re now at an unemployment rate in the US of sub-4% – 3.8%–3.7%. I think what a lot of people focus on is if the participation rate were back where it was pre-2008 you’d end up with an unemployment rate that had an 8 handle or something like that. So that’s what people are referring to. But making comparisons like that is difficult because a lot of things are changing. The US labor force is shrinking because people are getting older. There is the opioid issue. And this disability issue. Which are difficult to really handicap in terms of how big an impact that’s having on the US labor force.

Up until recently, the actions of central bankers have been much more important to markets in a general sense than the behavior of politicians. But that’s about to change…

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