How quickly we went from “No Kings” to envying the way a king adheres to the rule of law

In case you want to read the Fed study for yourself: libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/who-...

From an actual King, respect for the law: “Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”

Who is this sloppy, water-guzzling guy named Al?

Big government.

Of course, we do not completely believe in any rankings, even that of the @FT, which is the best, but still . . . www.ft.com/content/414d...

ICE secretly told its officers that any time someone has been ordered removed, ICE can break down their door. It has been accepted for generations that the only thing which can authorize agents to break into your home is a warrant signed by a judge. No wonder ICE hid this memo!

Coinbase must be concerned I'm at risk of running out of material

Beef Stew Home Stewing After Beef

Back to the usual q: incompetence or dishonesty?

Updated CBO deficit/debt forecast. Good summary from CBO Director Phil Swagel. www.cbo.gov/publication/...

Please don't think anything is back to normal in Minnesota. Nothing is normal. I know we’re strong. Don’t know if it’s enough. If you don't live here, your Minnesota friends may tell you that it's going to be okay but I think a lot of that is them being nice so you won't worry. It's bad here.

This a good article with a bad headline. This is not the wisdom of crowds. This is thousands of amateur gamblers losing money so experts who collect information and insider who have it can profit from (partly) revealing it www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/b...

Great symposium on competition and market power in labor markets! www.aeaweb.org/issues/836

Great symposium on the economic consequences of declining fertility www.aeaweb.org/issues/836

And it looks like we picked the wrong week to schedule our five fly outs if we were actually interested in hiring anyone

Thank you for your attention to this post

The Republican Party in America has abandoned rule of law.

Republicans: The problem isn’t guns. It’s mental health. Also Republicans: *slash mental health funding*

Winter New England #patriot

The federal government Friday agreed to pay $125,000 after a judge found a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent liable for civil assault for pointing a gun at a hotel maintenance man who came to the agent’s room to unclog a toilet.

The choice facing America: - Living through a Story of Fire and Ice - A Story of Firing Ice

Cartoon by @badiucao.bsky.social.

Not happy to see my MIT colleague Jonathan Ruane out there giving stock picking advice . . . This is NOT @MITFinance

The proposed Republican ban on institutional investors buying homes is a panicky and short-sighted policy that will not lower American’s cost of living. Investors buy homes to rent them to Americans.

Trumponomics — massive deficit spending and still damaging the working class

Good thing Trump effectively pulled the U.S. out of NATO, or we would be defending Greenland at the same time we attack it.

This was a great panel, and if you care about economic data, you should definitely listen to the whole thing. But for those of you who would rather get some highlights, here's what I found most interesting: 🧵

Nice paper showing the endogenous tightening of lending standards (as in my papers with Mike Fishman and @ludwigstraub.bsky.social ).

My best understanding is that AFA attendance at ASSA is not down at all relative to pre-pandemic. The AFA sessions in Loews that I attended were crowded.

Amid all the Venezuela fallout, spare a thought for the poor Barclays analyst who downgraded Venezuelan debt a mere 14 hours before Maduro was ousted, citing the low likelihood of a political transition. full alphaville here: www.ft.com/content/bbc4... with help from @robinwigglesworth.ft.com

The US will be run like Venezuela until the transition

Sometimes I leave campus and discover that MIT does not have a monopoly on creating breathtaking innovations in America

2025 sucked. And it’s going out true to form.

ASSA 2026

Denmark lost more troops per capita in the post 9/11 war on Afghanistan. Saying they “are not a good ally” because they won’t surrender their territories to the US is lunacy. We are betraying our allies to satisfy the whims of a would-be Emperor for whom the US is not enough.

Short days, but not so bleak midwinter in Belmont

In memorial, a hat tip to one of my favorite all-time papers. In intertemporal problems, the second welfare theorem is generically false. I prefer the version before it got revised for the JPE, which was not purely about revealed preference. But there is JPE www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

My colleagues think this is mostly show and fluff, not important, but I was more uncertain due to the connection to financial markets and saving and wealth-building . . .

The return of SSCI?

Early in 2025, I saw a recession as more likely than not. Three things broke so that the economy slowed but never shrank. 1) Trump cost cutting failed, huge deficit 6% of GDP 2) AI+ boom in investment & stocks 3) The Fed was loose, tolerating inflation rate 1.5 times target

Send this to every progressive and MAGA tariff-lover: www.thefreedomfrequency.org/p/the-troubl...

Here is what Trump and his enablers fail to understand: Immigrants love this country deeply. We love democracy. We cherish the rule of law, the promise of due process and the idea that our diversity is a strength, not a threat. My op-ed:

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Veteran detained by ICE: I identified myself as a US citizen and a veteran, but that didn't matter. Agents smashed my window, sprayed tear gas into my car, dragged me out. Even after I complied, I was held for 3 days without charges. No phone call, no lawyer, no medical care

From Apollo. I would’ve done five years ahead, which has a less good fit, but also less overlapping data, but the main point stands: for the longer-term investor, the stock market has a lower expected return than bonds, and more variance.

Our national debt and prospective deficits are in the “getting the gang together and choosing their weapons” scene in the movie, right before they go to work on our economy. https%3A%2F%2Fmedia1.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2F1eEv7v51FEI3L54jpr%2Fgiphy.gif

Great pre-doc positions at MIT Sloan for those interested in economic research: apply.interfolio.com/176006 apply.interfolio.com/177709