The Fed’s Next Punch in the Mouth | Protect the Pile Episode 21 w/ Danielle DiMartino Booth

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00:00 Welcome to Protect the Pile with Danielle DiMartino Booth
02:01 The Fed’s “Punched in the Mouth” Moment
04:34 Kevin Warsh, Fed Independence & the Next Market Test
06:12 Commercial Real Estate, Credit Risk & 2026–2027 Maturities
08:03 The Fed’s Ambiguous Mandate
10:21 Is the Fed Fighting the Wrong Inflation War?
14:29 Can Kevin Warsh Actually Change the Fed?
18:15 The New “Too Big to Fail” Problem
23:25 Fixing the Fed’s Broken Data Problem
31:35 Real-Time Inflation Data & the Fed’s Framework
40:18 AI, Accounting Games & the Integrity of Earnings
47:06 The Fed Chair Who Got It Right

On this episode of Protect the Pile, R. Patrick Kent, Sam Rahman and Brooks Cutright break down a summer market that keeps defying the noise. With the S&P 500 up double digits, small caps suddenly outperforming and the Mag 7 barely positive on the year, the group debates whether the market’s leadership is truly broadening or just rotating through crowded trades.

They dig into early earnings season signals from banks, healthcare, semiconductors and AI infrastructure, including the warning sign of stocks failing to rally on strong numbers. The conversation also tackles global dollar liquidity, Korea’s leverage unwind, Meta’s AI strategy, hyperscaler spending, model commoditization and whether AI’s real value will show up in applications rather than raw compute. It’s a timely check-in on what’s working, what’s crowded and what could crack next.

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