Biden’s Fed Pick Is ‘Imminent,’ Unequal U.S. Christmas: Eco Day

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Welcome to Tuesday, Americas. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

• Senate Banking Chairman Sherrod Brown said he was told by White House officials to expect an “imminent” announcement about President Joe Biden’s pick to chair the Federal Reserve
  • Fed Governor Lael Brainard was interviewed for the top job when she visited the White House last week
  • Chair Jerome Powell and Brainard are the only people who’ve publicly surfaced as being in the running for the top job
  • Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said the Fed shouldn’t overreact to inflationary pressures that are likely to prove temporary
• Retailers are forecasting a record holiday spending season. But for one in ten Americans, prices rising at the fastest pace in 30 years will dampen the Christmas spirit
  • Inflation is eating into recent wage increases after federal pandemic relief expired
  • Holiday season will lay bare inequalities in the economic recovery
  • Economists expect price increases to hurt consumer demand in the near term
• Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke of the need for cooperation in their first face-to-face summit, which went on longer than expected even though they announced no major breakthroughs
• Bloomberg Economics estimates middle-income households have enough additional savings to last until year-end -- suggesting labor supply may pick up more strongly in early 2022
• China’s economy is slowing to the lows seen way back in 1990 -- a price President Xi Jinping seems willing to pay to reduce its dependence on the property sector
• Chile’s presidential front-runners -- leftist Gabriel Boric and conservative Jose Antonio Kast -- said they’re open to negotiating parts of their economic programs in remarks made at the last televised debate before elections

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