The Jenga Economy 1/15/26

with a CNBC, your money minute. I'm Jessica Edinger. The US is currently in a Jenga economy. You know, like the game with wooden pieces, a tower. You pull them out and hope it doesn't fall. The Jenga tower could keep getting taller before it topples. We know economic cycles eventually at topples. That's Bridgewater's former chief investment strategist, Rebecca Patterson. She wrote about the Jenga economy in the New York Times. What spurred me to write this is when you think about the supports for the economy right now, AI and the high end consumer, it's kind of it. Patterson tells CNBC that pieces are coming out of this economic tower. Small businesses have gotten hurt. They've gotten hit by tariffs. They're cutting headcount. All companies are cutting back on labor, generally. So you're seeing more of the supports for the economy, just getting wobbly or being pulled out, which means that we're writing on a very narrow support, which at the end of the day is AI, directly and indirectly. If it holds up next year, we're going to have another OK year. But if it doesn't, we'll see. There's a lot more on the economy at CNBC.com. I'm Jessica Edinger, CNBC.