YouSaid · the spoken record

Mary Daly

lines on the record: 78
first: 2025-08-08
most recent: 2025-08-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“There's always going to be this discontinuity, put in a time economist term, but there's always going to be this discontinuity where you're waiting for the proceeds of a technology you're investing in. Those take time and the needs of that technology, especially something as power intensive as AI. At a time when we're also trying to modernize the power grid because some of it just hasn't been maintained across the United States. So we have a number of power companies, CEOs on our boards and councils, and they're always telling us it takes so long to get a transformer because there's bottlenecks. Now they're worrying about tariffs on transformers and are the components of transformers. Then they're competing with data center needs and companies that say, I'll just build my own power to support this. And so that's just a marketplace that was developed for a much smaller footprint in power and now has to ramp up. That's going to take time. And the proceeds from AI technology are just nascent.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That tells you something's changing. One of the things that I asked somebody why, and they said, it's just a lot easier to do it than you think. And we can discipline the models ourselves. We can prevent hallucination by checking. So now they feel more comfortable.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were doing these CEO roundtables as part of our emerging tech economic research network. So we do a lot of these across all business types. And they were saying, we're not doing it in front office operations. We're not doing it in our main product lines. We're only going to do back office. Now it's moving to the front.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Competing as much as we have to manage in monetary policy the cyclical dynamics and it's very good in many ways that there's something coming down the pipe that could be useful. The question I have right now is are companies deploying the technology and diffusing it in a more rapid rate that offsets some of the concerns they had about tight labor market and I am seeing a little bit of that but mostly what I'm seeing is how are we going to go forward faster, better cheaper how are we going to up our game and not raise our costs. In fact, how are we going to get costs down? And AI becomes something they can try. And a year ago when we talked or whenever maybe it was only six months ago when we talked.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What's very true that the AI investment boom doesn't look like the, just look at stock market prices and valuations, right? If you look at the companies that are invested in AI development, they look different or AI support. They look different than the companies that are doing mainline manufacturing. I mean, this is a fact. But I don't see that as a competing interest. I see that as that's a structural development that's just going to keep going. And then on the other side, you have the cyclical aspects of the economy. And people do feel stressed. They've been dealing with high inflation and it's coming down, of course, which is great news, but still the price level's higher. They're dealing now with job security issues, like whether maybe even if they're not, it's not true that they'll lose their job or layoffs around the corner. They're nervous. And they say they're nervous. I'm not sure about the future kind of component. I don't see those two things as.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You want to use AI just like any other company in the nation to make sure you're not falling behind and get a competitive edge, right? These tools are helpful and it's not just about reading your emails faster or writing a draft of something. It's about really thinking about your core business. What can I do with AI that helps me save time and helps me augment my existing workforce when we have often a workforce shortage?”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they turn to AI to do things that augment their output because they're augmenting their skills. So they can save time. They can do, you can write a marketing plan by asking one of the AI models, here's my inputs. Can you write a marketing plan? And already you're ahead. Can you write me a pitch deck? Can you write me, can you tell me the five best marketplaces in the United States for the products I want to sell? All of this makes it better. And it's not limited to just that kind of marketing and growth sales. It's actually also about can I do things differently. So we were talking to a small manufacturing firm, not in Alaska, but I'm seeing hearing the same things here that said we're able to use AI to do first drafts of plans based on the 30-year history of all plans we've ever made to create this one small part that someone asked me to machine. So those are the kinds of things that I'm starting to see spread. Then if you're a larger business here in Alaska,”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. Let me start with the most interesting thing I picked up, and I'll expand it to the other things. I want to give a shout out to the small businesses. So small businesses that can be remote across Alaska. It's hard for them physically to reach marketplaces that are not in their immediate area. They often have limited workforce availability in some of these places or just small businesses in general. You're dealing with rising costs. And so you want to keep your portfolio of labor small.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everybody wants the same thing. They want inflation to be at target. They want to have economy that's sustainably thriving, that's sustainably available. They want to be rationally inattentive to inflation and whether the economy is going to be pushed into a recession. They just don't want to think about it. And that's a universal truth. It doesn't matter if I'm in Alaska, Hawaii, or Nevada. It doesn't matter. Idaho feels the same way as California in that goal, in that sense. And so I can go and see to that point, are people nervous? Are they optimistic? Are they cautiously optimistic? Today I see concerns, but when you really push them, and this is true across the 12th district, people are cautiously optimistic. Some cities have more cranes than others, but everybody's got a crane.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Performance of the country and or any economic changes. So you know your states and your economy as well enough, and all my colleagues know their states and economies well enough, that they know where we are in the business cycle or the sequencing of things to know which states are leading, what states are following, and then what states are being most impacted or less impacted so that we can make better policy. The other way I put it together is an interesting thing about having a very diverse district is you start to learn how similar people are.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a great question. And I'll say it this way representing the economies and the voices of the people doesn't mean we're transactionally balancing the interest rates hurts you. It helps you because we can't make national policy for any particular region. Not the 12th district, not the first district, not a state. And that's just part of the constraints of our job, right? We have a dual mandate for the nation. So you're aggregating up the data. But then it's a mistake to think that if you have the aggregate statistics, you know how the economy is faring. There are many places where, let's take tariffs in federal spending cuts and oil and gas drilling deregulation. That's happening all in Alaska. So Alaska becomes the leading indicator in many ways for how this is affecting the economy. And so if I see it here, I can then expect to see at other places in some time periods that would not be true. Alaska would not be a leading indicator. It would lag the economic”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think underappreciate it is the Federal Reserve Act created 12 reserve banks and a board of governors and did so. If you go back and look at the original document, to recognize that you can't make policy that serves a nation if you only are in DC. But that gives us a responsibility as reserve bank presidents to represent the people who were serving in terms of learning about them and bringing their collected information to help us make national policy. So that's what we do. And when we come, people feel like we are doing the work on their behalf and trust goes up. And when trust goes up, as I've said many times and many of my colleagues have, trust is one of our most important tools because if people believe we can achieve price stability and full employment, then they behave as if we can achieve price stability and full employment. And that's a virtuous cycle that actually delivers it faster.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When they face a shock. It's not all about the price of oil. It's about how many workers do they have, what's the drilling, where are the bits, what are you working on? Where do you get your things? So that's piece one. Piece two is data are almost entirely backward looking. They tell you about what happened last week, last month, last year, but you can't make policy on backward-looking data. So it tells you where we are in level terms, but it doesn't tell you where you're going. And so getting to talk with people and actually ask them questions like this. I ask this question all the time now. So you feel really uncertain. I'm sure that's worrisome. Are you changing your behavior because of it? And the first question is always, yes, we're very uncertain. And the second one has been. We're not changing our behavior entirely. So I'm continuing to invest, but I'm not necessarily taking on riskier projects. I want a good ROI if I'm going to keep going. So I think that's another reason to come. And then the third reason to come, and this is really important.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure, absolutely. So the most important thing is that I learn about how the economy actually works. It's very difficult to know how tariffs will affect an economy if you don't know how it works. It's very difficult to know Inflation will affect the economy or if the housing crisis that they talk about is really larger than the housing challenges you see in other places or it's the same. And importantly, it's not just a trip to Alaska that informs that. It's a trip to a variety of places that.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, all I can do is ask Alaskans that question, and I haven't seen anything different than the published data for the nation, which is short-term arising, medium, and longer run. They still believe that we can get inflation down to 2%. That suggests to me they think it's a one-off. Tariffs go up, you pay for them, and it's all about managing the increased costs rather than thinking this is just another run of inflation.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there's not a lot of good data on statewide inflation expectations, so we have to rely on talking with people. And when I talk with people, they worry more, but they don't, there's a difference. Inflation expectations, the way you can measure it is, am I asking for a higher wage? Am I going in and saying, I can't keep up, I need a higher wage. And we don't really see a difference here in Alaska than we do in the lower 48. We just see that when inflation gets to rising fast and the labor market's tight, then individuals say I'm going to go ask my firm and the firms are more willing to give it. But now that the labor market has softened, people aren't that interested in going in and saying, I want more money. It also is consistent with them thinking that the tariffs are a one-off. The best way I know to think about inflation expectations and kind of gather that type of information is look at short-term inflation expectations versus medium and longer run inflation expectations.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's what construction people and engineers are good about. They say, here's my box of things, I'm going to make a house that's durable, can last the cold climate, can be built on the permafrost, I'm going to figure it out. And I don't count them out because they're very good at this. And it ultimately leads to the innovation that's needed to deal with the higher cost. The problem is it's happening all at once and it makes it really hard to innovate fast enough to offset the cost. So I'm hearing pass-through, but I'm not seeing a lot of it. You saw this in the published data spreading it out past Alaska. Published data is coming out. Goods price inflation is going up. It's not spilling over into services inflation, either in housing or in services, you know, what I think of as supercore services ex-housing. That's good news. And the best sense from history and from what's happening right now is that there won't be much of an impetus so far to spill over that would get into a persistent inflation problem. You can't count it out, of course, but I don't think there's”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, what's remarkable, and this is remarkable, and I think Alaska does this in ways that are even more innovative than other places I've seen is construction and engineers, they know how to build things and they know how to make them durable. So you give them a set of materials. It's almost like when you do those cooking shows and they give you a box of things and they say to the people, make something delicious.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're hearing things like, well, we move from steel framing to lumber framing, wood framing, because steel was tariffed and now we're looking for alternatives that we can make here or have lower import costs.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll start with Alaska since we're here and I've been meeting with businesses since I came, but I'll go broaden it if you don't mind. So on the Alaska, we're hearing very similar things to what we hear in the lower 48. We're hearing that they want to pass it along to consumers because it's challenging to deal with, but that consumers are exhausted. That's a phrase I hear a lot. Consumers are exhausted. I just don't know how much they can do. They're already trading down. If they used to go to one retailer, they're moving to the next level down, showing up in the dollar stores to try to find ways to make ends meet. Or they're just foregoing things that they might do in the past. Those things put pressure on firms to say, well, if I raise my prices, I'm going to lose my sales. And I have to pencil that equation out. So I see more of them eating it into their profits and then just hoping that they can either collectively go to Washington and get an exception for whatever they're trying to import or use, or they can weather the one-off tariff increase and then move to a more normal things. You know, in construction,”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're dealing with. It's just more expensive. It's harder. It's cold here. It's remote in many places. And all of those put challenges that ultimately raise costs.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The greater Alaskan region is very challenging. There's transportation costs that if you only take that alone, really drive up the prices. That's already a higher price level, and then you add to it a higher inflation rate. Well, then the pain that anyone might feel in the lower 48, that's just magnified in Alaska. With that, the fact that in the 20 years ago, wages in Alaska used to be higher than wages in the lower 48, but that gap is shrunk over the last 20 years. And so now the wage levels are roughly the same, and the prices are a lot higher, and inflation is driving those up more, and things aren't getting cheaper to import into Alaska. And I think that's why people say, you know, it's just when I try to build a property, I'm a builder, and now I have to pay higher costs to ship things in. And if I get tariffs on top of that on the basic inputs, that just doesn't pencil out anymore. And that's the equation.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. You start with just the recognition that almost everything costs more in Alaska. Why? Well, you have to import a lot of the things that we take for granted, you know, whether it's healthcare products or things that you can use for your buildings or simple groceries and shoes and other things. Now we import a lot of that stuff to the broader US, but the shipping costs to come all the way up to Alaska.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fewer schools are available, so then the equation starts to break down, what really has to happen is they have to believe that they can stay because something more prosperous will occur or that they really like the outdoors and being part of this beauty. And I think that equation is not penciling it out like it was because ultimately if people don't have jobs or a place to live or see a bright future for their career and their family, then they will feel forced to go elsewhere. And I think that's where the state leadership and the Anchorage leadership and all the business leaders I meet with, that's their fundamental concern. One person put it this way, how do we attract people? That's important, but how do we maintain them? How do we retain the interest in us when our economy is not doing as well as some competing economies in the lower 48?”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very difficult. Alaska is not unique there. You can look outside of my district at North Dakota and other places and go to these rural communities and they'll say we want to keep our people and it's hard to do it, right? But what is particularly true in Alaska is there's several things going on all at once. And ultimately, when people decide to stay in place or come to a place, they want an ecosystem of things that are important to their ability to thrive. They want to have work. And not just work, they start when they're 22, but work that they can grow into and maybe change into as they age. They want to have housing opportunities so that if they want to raise a family or if they just want to own a home, they have that. At this point, there's even trouble getting property even if you're just leasing it. So there's those types of pressure. So that's taking that risk. And then if you're trying to build a family, there's the schooling issues of population outflows mean that”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you know, think about Alaska as right now a leading indicator. They're sitting in the perfect storm, if you will, of all the things going on in our economy. They have a higher price level and they've suffered even more from rising inflation. They are thinking hard about how do they import and how do they do this given the tariffs. They are a recipient of tremendous amount of federal spending related to strategic defense and the military capacity and even things like satellites. So they are right there. And so coming here and seeing how they're dealing with it, one, it tells me how resilient our economy is more generally to these different changes. And two, it provides me a leading indication of how businesses in communities, they're right there on the forefront are going to respond to this. And I can use that information to look on the lower 48, especially my states, and ask, what are we seeing there? So it gives me early insight into the changes and how they're likely to affect the economy.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let me tell you something I learned the first time I came to Alaska. It isn't an economy. It's a series of economies, right? If you go to the more remote areas that you can only say access by airplane, you can't either know roads. They live in a cashless economy with subsistence. That looks very different than Anchorich where you're using your digital wallet to pay for things locally that more familiar to the lower 48. And so really when you think of Alaska, you have to think of economies, communities, and you have to imagine that the leaders here and the population here has to come together to ensure that all the decisions they make serve the variety of needs they have. I think that's what makes it so rich. It really is at the forefront of so many things that can affect the national economy that it's a really great place to learn.”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I come regularly, but it's not just me, members of my team, economists, our engagement officers, our public engagement officers. They come too. Ultimately, we're trying to source information from all of our states. So we go to all the states in our district. There's nine of them. And we ask questions of all of them about how they're living in the economy. What are the things that concern them? What are the opportunities? What are the challenges?”
2025-08-08 · Odd Lots · Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source