Adam Taggart | Thoughtful Money, Released on 6/30/26

The continued challenging cost of living is still at the forefront of most Americans minds, but the stock market — trading near record highs — appears it couldn’t care less. And the economy continues to chug along nicely, currently forecasted to grow at 2.5% in Q2. And even despite conusmers’ stated concerns, retail sales remain resilient and even surprised to the upside last month. Are those worried about a consumer-driven slowdown, or perhaps even recession, too pessimistic? Or, is there greater danger lying beneath the surface data than most are aware of. To find out, we have the good fortune to speak today with Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO & Chief Strategist for QI Research LLC and author of the book “Fed Up: An Insider’s Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America.”

Danielle DiMartino Booth is Founder & CEO of QI Research, a research and analytics firm. She spent nine years as an advisor to Richard W. Fisher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Danielle left the Fed in 2015 to found Money Strong, LLC, an economic consulting firm and launched a weekly economic newsletter She is the author of Fed Up: An Insider’s Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America. DiMartino Booth began her career in New York at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and Credit Suisse, where she worked fixed income and the public and private equity markets. Danielle earned her BBA as a College of Business Scholar at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She holds an MBA in Finance and International Business from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.

Adam Taggart is the Founder of Thoughtful Money. He is also Co-Founder and former President of Peak Prosperity. Adam is an experienced Silicon Valley internet executive and Stanford MBA. Prior to partnering with Chris Martenson (Adam was General Manager of our earlier site, ChrisMartenson.com), he was a Vice President at Yahoo!, a company he served for nine years. Before that, he did the ‘startup thing’ (mySimon.com, sold to CNET in 2001). As a fresh-faced graduate from Brown University in the early 1990s, Adam got a first-hand look at all that was broken with Wall Street as an investment banking analyst for Merrill Lynch. Most importantly, he’s a devoted husband and dad.

  economy, market correction, recession