Just read today's news and am starting to second guess this choice. Please fix everything before I land in the U.S.

first

New Years resolutions: 1. Swear less. 2. Try not to dismantle the institutions that are the foundation of prosperity.

A lot of people are saying Trump's trade war is ineffective, but in reality it keeps delivering for Aussie beef farmers.

People ask, “If the economy is growing, why doesn’t it feel like it?” Because our individual economic realities are driven less by the national average and more by the policy choices—tariffs, taxes, and cuts—that decide who actually gets the gains from growth.

“The president finds the one sparkle in there and that’s all he wants to talk about.” —on cherry-picking one quarterly measure of GDP while ignoring jobs, wages & affordability. youtu.be/U_GVwBvHG54

“the early readings of GDP have been very noisy. There's an alternative measure of GDP called GDI. It's measured using different data. It's a lot weaker at 2.4%. GDP data are often revised.” First drafts of data rarely tell the whole story.

Imagine running a capital-intensive firm when the White House can suddenly threaten to shut your industry down. Wind farms today, something else tomorrow. That risk changes what gets built, where, and whether it gets built at all.

Context you rarely hear: global stocks are up about 30% over the past year. U.S. stocks? Around 18%. That means American investors underperformed the world by about 12 percentage points, even while headlines called it a “fantastic year.”

When a tariff is announced, firms often front-load imports—stock up before the price hike—then cut back later. That makes net exports jump around. Those wiggles are about timing, not necessarily about whether the policy “worked” in some deeper sense.

Current data leave room for both stories: the optimist’s “doing okay” economy and the pessimist’s “are we in a recession?” worry. The latest GDP numbers don’t really move us out of that gray zone—they just remind us uncertainty is still there.

A smarter model for paying for college: income-based repayment. You start paying your student loans only once you earn enough to comfortably get by. That turns higher ed debt into something more like a tax surcharge on success, not a choke collar on people who are struggling.

Economic data is a noisy group chat: jobs, GDP, income, prices all talking at once. Each message can mislead if you take it literally. The real task is finding the common story they’re telling together, not falling in love with one statistic.

“Look around you. Read a newspaper. Watch TV. It’s chaos over here.” My guess is that sentence is more relevant to our economic future than a single GDP print. youtu.be/HdgUPqNumDs?...

My son asked his grandmother for Magic cards. You can probably guess what happened next.

"We have a split economy." New data is offering mixed messages on the state of the U.S. economy. Ron Insana and @justinwolfers.bsky.social discuss on the #11thHour.

"The president spent the last few months talking about the past. Now all they can do is talk about the future. What aren't they talking about? What's happening right now." ...Sometimes you learn the most by noticing what politicians don't say.

Think of your biggest financial risk: it's not your stock portfolio, it's losing your paycheck. That's why unemployment is the single best measure of economic health—when people can't earn a living, everything else in the data is just background noise. And unemployment is rising.

Campaigns toss out wage numbers like $1,300 here, $1,800 there, $3,300 for someone else. If independent economists and official data can’t reproduce them, treat them like a bad check: sounds nice, but it doesn’t clear. Evidence beats applause lines.

Moods about “the economy” often bundle three things: your own finances, the broader data, and whether you trust policymakers. Right now, that third piece is dragging the other two down. Fixing policy credibility matters as much as any single rate cut.

Just incredible how underwater Trump is on tariffs.

“This is just a greatest hits of his favorite lies... So he hasn't stopped inflation... That's 2.7%... He hasn't caused grocery prices to fall... Grocery prices are rising 2.5% to 3% as everyone at home knows...” And don't get me started on drug prices falling 400%.

Spent an hour talking about AI, the labor market, the medium run threats to the U.S. economy, our long run prospects, and the art of the perfect hug, with my pals @edels and @profgalloway.com youtu.be/xA9nRaI71dw

"So the president's claims that prices are falling is nonsense. The president's claim that he stopped inflation is also nonsense." Clear, testable economics beats wishful talking points.

October's jobs report looked awful because about 150,000 govt jobs vanished after that Musk 'fork in the road' email. That's a one-time shock. The bigger concern is that even outside October, job growth has slowed across both public and private sectors -- and may even be going backward.

"If I'm sounding more worried to you than I've sounded in months, it's because I am."

"It's chaos. It's incompetence. It's tariffs. It's all of the above."

"Wage growth is weak. That tells you that the labor market is weak. People aren't finding it easy to go out and find themselves a better job when things aren't looking good."

“Look, we are at a point where it's totally legitimate for people to ask and to wonder… are we in a recession? That's a moment where the Fed wants to move from being in neutral to maybe tapping its foot on the accelerator a bit, seeing if we can get the economy going.”

There’s a big difference between an economy that’s growing more slowly and one that’s stalled. A stall means job creation barely keeps up with population growth—or not even that. That’s why unemployment is drifting up and folks can feel the ground shifting under them.

The President said some words last night about the economy. I'll help you figure out which ones were true. youtu.be/xtHjvS9yv5g

Following the latest employment numbers: "It is time to start asking whether we're in a recession. I'm not going to chime in on that debate, but I am going to give it a name. I'm going to call it an economic slump."

This winter's economic news, summarized: 1. It looks like the labor market has frozen 2. It looks like inflation is cooling We can't be sure of either trend given shutdown-related distortions to data collection. But... it surely pushes the Fed toward cutting rates again.

Inflation report for November just came out. Headline rate: 2.7% over the year, down from 3%. Core inflation: 2.6%. Inflation is both slowing (this was an unexpectedly good report), yet still above the Fed's 2% target.

Notice that the parts of Trump's economic program that help working and middle class Americans — DOGE checks, tariff rebates, and warrior dividends — are popular, progressive, and non-existent. Tax cuts for the rich are unpopular, regressive and very very real.

Cool, cool.

The Sahm Rule is flashing red, and the unemployment rate is rising. What does this mean? - For sure the economy is in a MALAISE. (Close to no job growth since Liberation Day.) - I reckon it's in a jobless SLUMP. - It may be in or on the cusp of a RECESSION. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBTN...

"Things aren't going well." @justinwolfers.bsky.social reality check after the November jobs report threw up some potential economic warning signs.

Employment growth since April ("Liberation Day"): United States: +119,000* Canada: +166,200 * The U.S. number is expected to be revised down.

"If I'm sounding more worried to you than I've sounded in months, it's because I am." youtu.be/Ah2xMufLbS8

It's bad.

Are we in a recession? Perhaps. Maybe. Hard to tell. The Sahm Rule focuses on the 3-month average unemployment rate, and asking if it's risen half a point above its year-long low. The low was 4.0% in January. The latest (average of Sept & Nov, with Oct missing): 4.5%. That's +0.5%.

Payrolls fell -105k in October and rose +64k in November. August and September payrolls were also revised down a total of 33k. These data suggest VIRTUALLY NO EMPLOYMENT GROWTH since April ("Liberation day"). Unemployment is now up to 4.6%. This is a tricky report, so stay tuned.

Word for the day: Rotation group bias. = Labor market survey responses differ when folks are re-surveyed. It matters because the government shutdown means there are more inexperienced respondents in November's survey. Will likely push the *measured* unemployment rate up a tad.

Stories of Aussie heroes. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/w...

Just want to share with my American friends how the Australians respond to a shooting tragedy. Action, rather than thoughts and prayers.

My son watched his mom in an interview/conversation with Bill O'Reilly, and just commented "he's trying to mansplain capitalism to an economist." www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi6H...

Join me for a chat about economic uncertainty, institutional change, and -- perhaps most interestingly, recent moves to Trump-proof the Fed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKvi...

Powell looks deeply worried. And so I conclude that "either something's going wrong with the economy or something's going wrong with his Botox."