In our business, precision is power. We build predictive models for clients making some of their biggest fiscal decisions. A couple of months ago, one of our best performers, a model that had nailed inventory needs quarter after quarter, started to drift. Its forecasts weren’t wrong, exactly. Just… fuzzier. The prediction intervals widened. The signals got noisier.

When we investigated, the culprit wasn’t the math; it was the map. Our assumptions, built on decades of reliable data from America’s gold-standard statistical agencies, were suddenly out of sorts. Tariff tremors, policy-driven supply distortions, and even now a federal shutdown have all disrupted the data we depended on.

So, the model wasn’t “broken”. It’s that the longstanding rules by which our economy functions have changed.

That’s why my alarm bells go off every time I hear the Fed’s current path compared to Alan Greenspan’s “perfect soft landing” in 1995. Powell may be flying a similar aircraft, but he’s navigating different skies. Inflation isn’t tamed, trade is tangled, and parts of the dashboard are dark. The 2025 economy is not the 1995 economy, and the risks of acting as if it is could be steep.

Among colleagues who follow the U.S. economy closely, shifts in policy direction don’t usually come as a surprise. Yet, in recent weeks, a series of reports has indicated that the administration aims to select the next Federal Reserve Chair chiefly for ideological loyalty, favoring a candidate inclined to reduce interest rates regardless of macro dynamics; the prospect has given both these authors a pause.

As trained monetary and financial economists, we’ve spent years studying the delicate architecture that allows the Federal Reserve to function independently from political pressures. When that independence is threatened, so too is the foundation of macroeconomic stability.

This moment, in our view, requires more than private concern. It calls for public reflection.

They never expected to feel stuck in their dream home.

When two dear friends of mine (let’s call them Joe and Jane) bought their two-bedroom starter house in late 2020, it felt like the beginning of a promising chapter. Interest rates hovered just below 4 percent, their mortgage felt manageable, and with a baby on the way, they believed they were laying down roots. By the start of 2025, the picture had changed. Two children, hybrid jobs pulling them in opposite directions, and no third bedroom in sight. They’d outgrown the house. What they hadn’t outgrown was their 3.5 percent mortgage.

Each time they browsed listings in nearby school districts, they encountered the same arithmetic. Even a comparable home, with today’s mortgage rates approaching 7%, would push their monthly payments noticeably higher. Technically, they could afford the increase, yet they always decided against putting their house on the market. To them, the cost of moving was a direct cost to their sense of security.