“Freepoint’s Hebron plastic incinerator was an environmental health disaster that exemplified the reality of the so-called 'chemical recycling' industry,” BEN organizer Cat Adams said in a news release.

Despite Trump scaring paper oil prices down with vague “Iran deal” talk, there is a harsh physical reality coming as oil reserves hit bottom this summer. The price of gas has risen ~40% *with* the reserves during war. Each day the Strait of Hormuz remains closed makes the looming energy shock worse

If this is true, I’ve never been less proud to be an American. Targeting first responders with a second strike on a bridge is un-American. Becoming terrorists to fight terrorism is disgusting.

Following great work by @ohiocapitaljournal.com and Scioto Analysis, this week at ORVI I deep dive the economic report card after 15 years of JobsOhio. This is important as West Virginia legislators plan to copy the private economic development program. ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org/copying-and-...

West Virginia legislators are misguided in their latest attempt to copy Ohio by privatizing the state’s economic development. I chronicle JobsOhio’s shortcomings in great detail in this week’s post. open.substack.com/pub/ohiorive...

Trump really trying to speed run Bush’s second term.

It’s not enough just to oppose this war on Iran. We should demand major cuts to the US military budget, starting with cutting it in half.

This week, I wrote about the mismatch between President Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” supply side rhetoric and the demand side energy realities. What is driving our utility bills higher? substack.com/profile/6007...

On immigration: "I often am asked to speak as an economist. And what we should never lose sight of is that each of us is a moral being. And you, as I, have to decide how we feel about this form of rhetoric."

It’s going to be a tumultuous year. www.cnbc.com/2026/02/26/b...

Truly the best graph on AI that I’ve seen.

What shouldn’t be missed is that between the bragging and blaming, President Trump offered exactly zero new policy ideas in last night’s State of the Union. No concrete or realistic plans to help address the economic struggles normal Americans are feeling.

I cross-referenced FracTracker’s US data center dataset with whether their state offers a sales tax exemption for data centers — $100s of millions in chips & cooling equipment. Tech companies chase these tax breaks. Revenue that could support schools, police, roads, & other services for residents.

A quick summary of Friday’s jobs data, including some white collar AI and manufacturing industry trends I’m tracking. In short, it’s probably the worst year to be graduating with a college degree since 2009. DOGE deferred resignations also showing up publicgood.substack.com/p/jobs-round...

What a dumb op ed of made up facts.The kid “might have” had a gun! (he didn’t) The professor could be “protecting people in the classroom behind him” (it was an elevator). How did he get in the building?! (It’s public) Slop from The Dispatch to waste e-space on this www.dispatch.com/story/opinio...

Analysis has shown that leftover brine from oil and gas drilling, while cheaper than salt, often has high levels of radium and other heavy metals. Banning it from streets, where it seeps into ground water and local waterways, would protect millions of Ohioans abc6onyourside.com/news/local/o...

Legislature: *cuts billions from public schools in their budget* Legislature: “property taxes are too high! Why are you guys cutting so much? The schools are not being responsible!”

This professor, Luke Perez, used to teach at ASU. He was an instructor for the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, the "freedom school" that was launched with Koch money before the #azleg pumped millions into it. Background on that: azcir.org/news/2018/05...

Looking forward to digging into this new book from chrisbriem.bsky.social about the future (or lack thereof) of steel in Pittsburgh. Seems to dovetail with much of my own work— smokestack chasing & corporate welfare rather than reckoning with deindustrialization head-on has put our region behind.

U.S. job estimates for 2025 were revised down this week by more than a million jobs, to a level of low growth rarely seen outside of recessions. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/02/11/r...

Ah yes, the Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at Ohio State…where you get violently assaulted for legally asking questions about former board chair Les Wexner’s known connections to Epstein in public spaces. My alma mater continues its streak of embarassments www.wosu.org/politics-gov...

This is El Paso, where the airspace has been shut down without explanation for ten days btw

Last week it broke that DHS bought $100M+ in El Paso warehouses. Today FAA grounded ALL flights for 10 days in El Paso for “security”. Last week the 5th circuit allowed indefinite detention in Texas. We may be about to see concentration camps & mass importing of detainees to El Paso.

“Ohio has the sixth most data centers in the country according to industry tracker Data Center Map, and 102 more announced or in progress.” MORE: columbusunderground.com/new-regulati...

This week the personal & academic crossed paths. I wrote about the 350MW gas fired plant that Ohio *automatically* approved for a Meta AI data center in my hometown. The data center race is digitizing resource extraction and exploitation economics in American towns. open.substack.com/pub/publicgo...

We can’t even build enough new housing under $250k in America but sure, let’s go spend hundreds of billions to rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry for Exxon.

I see the “Venezuelan oil can pay down the national debt!” narrative spreading. If US companies 2x Venezuelan oil output to 2M barrels/day x 365 = 730M barrels/yr Even $90/barrel = $65.7B per year. Even if US gov takes 20% $13B year < 0.04% of *current* $38T (& growing) debt. Net negative.

The tariff revenue seems to play the same role in President Trump’s mental budgeting that selling my old computer plays in our household. I’ve mentally sold that computer a lot of times to justify paying for a lot of other fun gadgets. (It is still in my closet).

I love when Trump always brags that he has cut prescription drug prices by 200, 400 or 600%. By definition, a 100% price cut would be free.

A new report conducted by consultants for the Ohio Chamber makes huge claims about data centers job creation. I dug in a bit and found that even their historical data for data centers employment seem to be estimated for some reason? I laid their numbers over BLS data. Their claim is 46% higher.

Holy class solidarity. 😒

The industry faces a critical choice: lock in coal for decades more, or pivot investment to clean alternatives like hydrogen-based direct reduced iron (H2-DRI), already proven and scaling globally ⚙️🌍 3/4

Bad day to be Trump’s new head of the BLS.

Activities that teach kids morals, values, and faith aren’t bad. But disguising it as a “get out of school” opportunity that takes away science/math/language/history classroom time and indoctrinating kids with a perverted culture war version of Jesus’s teachings is *very* bad.

Where are residents of Gaza City supposed to “evacuate” to? Israel has conquered most of the strip and 40% of Gaza City. The violence should have ended months ago. Serious question: who will administer public services and food if Israel conquers the *entire* city?

This was so bizarre I had to dig into the data. Ended up writing about if $600B in 2 yrs is believable. Spoiler: it’s not. It would be over 300% of ALL major data center investments announced in the last 2 years. It’s an impressive number for an audience of 1 open.substack.com/pub/publicgo...

Ohioans have faced markedly higher bills, some above $400 a month, due to rate increases that took effect this summer.

SCOTUS thought they could ride the tiger and get what they wanted ideologically. In exchange, they would give him everything he wanted except the Fed. Just leave the Fed alone and you can ignore all federal law. But it ended the same way it has for everyone who tried to ride the tiger since 2016.

The institutions that stabilize the American economy are rapidly disintegrating. Politicians have been captured by corporate donors and corrupted and now those same donors want to capture economic policymakers. Democracy and stability is being eroded by a brutal form of capitalism before our eyes.

“The legislature wants voters to compare to 2025: 'hey look, we are giving you more money than you got last year.' But what they are not saying is school districts would have received even more money if they had just funded the plan," Messenger said. www.statenews.org/government-p...

Real wage growth hasn’t kept pace with productivity. Simply put, workers aren’t fully sharing in the technological advancement (and generous tax treatment) that businesses have benefited from. www.epi.org/blog/how-sho...

Mine safety is under threat as 29 @msha.gov offices have their leases terminated and black lung screenings for miners are shut down by federal officials. Read more in this commentary from Appalachian Voices Coal Impacts Manager Willie Dodson. www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-e...

Appalachian Ohio public school districts would lose $565.8M over the next 2 years in the state house’s proposed budget as compared to staying on the current funding plan that was enacted just 2 years ago. #econsky #edusky #Appalachia #education #Ohio ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org/ohio-house-b...

It’s a fallacy that other ways of life “threaten” theirs. Progress is a tide that lifts all boats and this piece paints an idyllic old school existence where one doesn’t exist. These folks have medicines and cell phones that their ancestors didn’t have thanks to colleges & scientists in “big cities”

Data centers aren’t major job creators but they sound flashy. Adding literally tons of pollution to the air residents breathe and creating very few permanent jobs per taxpayer dollar in tax incentives is a bad recipe for Homer City.

Folks are going to want to read up on the U.S. bond market. Quickly.

My favorite part is their haphazardly citing Cavallo 2021 from AER (which they omit from the bibliography) as evidence of low price increases. Cavallo et al actually concludes that this means that retail margins were lower, meaning MORE TAX was still paid by US businesses. ustr.gov/issue-areas/...

Trump taxes are about to hit your local stores…

A point I’ve been making over and over in interviews and in our report. To see the benefits of tariffs, businesses would need to count on them being consistent for 20+ years. They haven’t been able to count on them consistently for 20 days with this White House.