Episode summary

Wall Street Week | Soft US Jobs, Swedish Defense Spending, Private Credit Woes

Wall Street Week · Mar 13, 2026 · 57 min · Hosts: Chrystia Freeland, David Westin · Guests: Steven Rattner

Summary

The episode starts with a cautious read on the U.S. labor market. Steven Rattner says job growth has been softening for a year, argues tariffs and post-COVID overhiring are pushing companies to trim staff, and says AI is having an anticipatory effect even if it is not yet the main driver. He sees a real risk that rising unemployment and inflation could tip the economy toward stagflation, which would be bad for markets and especially difficult for the Fed.

The discussion then turns to Europe’s defense buildup, with Sweden standing out as a country that kept industrial capacity intact and is now benefiting from surging demand. Saab’s management says output has risen four- to five-fold since the war began, while Sweden’s finance minister says defense spending and domestic production are helping the economy. The broader case is that Europe’s rearmament is uneven, but Sweden, Germany, Poland and parts of Scandinavia have the fiscal space and industrial base to move faster.

The final sections warn that private credit’s growth has created vulnerabilities, especially around illiquidity, crowded trades and retail access. Rattner sees pain ahead but not a 2008-style crisis; Dan Tarullo is more worried about opaque valuations and macroeconomic leverage than immediate financial instability. The episode closes by showing how Nepal’s Gen Z protests translated online anger into political change, and how Ukraine’s battlefield experience may shape future defense strategy.

Key takeaways

Steven Rattner says the U.S. job market has been softening for a year and tariffs are helping productivity while hurting employment.
Rattner warns that rising unemployment plus rising inflation could create stagflation risk and force the Fed into a difficult policy choice.
Saab says output has increased four- to five-fold since the war began, showing how Sweden has become a key beneficiary of Europe’s defense push.
Dan Tarullo says private credit deserves “yellow alert” scrutiny because opaque valuations and indirect bank exposure can hide leverage.
Tarullo argues the bigger private-credit danger is macroeconomic: if funding dries up, credit to households and businesses could be squeezed.

How the episode opens

Westin: This is "Wall Street Week." I'm David Westin, bringing you stories of capitalism. Europe is ramping up its defense spending, and we go to Sweden to see why a relatively small player is punching way above its weight. And private credit was all the rage, but we are learning the hard way that it may not be for everybody or for every situation. Plus, we return to Nepal, where voters have now gone to the polls in the aftermath of that social media-fueled uprising of last year. But we start with the state of the U.S. jobs market, where the most recent numbers point to softening. To give us the perspective of an investor, we welcome back Steven Rattner, chairman and CEO of Willett Advisors, responsible for investing the personal and philanthropic assets of Michael Bloomberg, our founder and majority shareholder. Let's talk about the U.S. labor market right now. We have had some numbers now indicating some softening over the last two or three months, actually. How concerned are you, or should we be? -Well, actually, we've had softening over even the past year. If you look at the number of jobs created on average, it was substantially lower last year than in the previous several years. How concerned should we be? We should be somewhat concerned. It's not a great thing, obviously, to have the unemployment rate going up, to have the number of jobs going down. None of that can be viewed as good. Obviously, we still have had, so far anyway, very strong GDP growth, so that is in some ways an even more important indicator. But yeah, it's definitely of concern. Westin: As you say, GDP is growing from the numbers we've seen so far for two and a half, three percent, something like…

From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →

Topics

soft us jobs
tariffs
swedish defense spending
private credit
nepal elections

Companies and tickers mentioned

Willett Advisors

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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.

Wall Street Week | Soft US Jobs, Swedish Defense Spending, Private Credit Woes

Summary

Key takeaways

How the episode opens

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