Marketplace All-in-One Our economic future is a black box
Oct 8, 2025
Alex Shuford, CEO of Rock House Designer Brands, shares insights from his family's 78-year-old furniture company. He discusses how recent tariffs have thrown industry planning into chaos, making budgets and product development unpredictable. Shuford emphasizes the tension between short-term demand boosts for U.S.-made goods and potential long-term harm, especially in a market facing a labor shortage. He also reflects on the nervous atmosphere among peers regarding future demand and the growing challenges in the manufacturing sector.
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Policy Changes Have Clouded Economic Models
- The Fed and forecasters are conflicted because recent policy shifts (tariffs, labor rules, deregulation) lack close historical precedents.
- That unprecedented policy mix makes econometric models less reliable and raises uncertainty about future inflation and growth.
Precedents Help But Only So Much
- Forecasters use some past episodes (earlier tariffs, immigration inflows) to infer effects, but those precedents are imperfect because current measures are larger or different.
- Economists now rely more on sector-level signals and intense assumption testing, which yields frequent forecast revisions.
A Furniture CEO Describes Tariff Chaos
- Alex Shuford described his 78-year family furniture company and how 2025 tariffs created planning chaos after expecting lower mortgage rates.
- He said near-term demand could rise but medium- and long-term rule changes and price-sensitive retail customers make the outlook negative.