This is the kind of debate around Fed policy that is normal and healthy.
24.02.2026 20:34
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This is the kind of debate around Fed policy that is normal and healthy.
Three predictions for tonight: Trump will
(1)claim more are working even though the percent employed is lower
(2) claim he solved inflation even though the rate remains too high and people continue to be frustrated at price levels
(3) lean heavily into hate to remind people who "the real enemy is"
I hear the President plans to announce a tax cut for American businesses and people that he's doing without Congress. Some argue he can't cut taxes without Congress, but he can: Ending all of his tariffs would be a big tax cut for American companies and workers. Fingers crossed!
It’s either laugh or cry.
Tariffs are taxes and that means without the tariffs there is a revenue problem, but that doesn't mean we should give the President broad authority to tax whoever he wants whoever much he wants. Congress needs to act.
Traditionally the GOP was the anti-tax, free-trade party, the is the first GOP President to be anti-competition, pro-tax, at least on consumers and small businesses.
The only certainty we got today is only that IEEPA does not give the president sweeping powers to levy tariffs. We are not done in the tariff battle. And refunds? I'm not going to hold my breath.
ICYMI: How should society respond to shifting demands for human workers? What does the rise of artificial intelligence mean for the labor market? @betseystevenson.bsky.social has been providing insights into these questions. Read her thoughts here: https://myumi.ch/A1PDQ
I love this so much. Thank you @riacton.bsky.social
Honestly, I thought this was the kind of insult reserved for women—diminutive first naming or misspelled first naming—so the silver lining is that it is nice to see that it is not a completely gendered form of insult!
The markets are only down 1-2% but don't let that lull you into thinking that what Trump is doing in Europe isn't that bad. They've priced in a high probablility that he'll back down.
We are bleeding manufacturing and goods producing jobs, not *despite* the tariffs, but probably *because* of them given the ham-fisted approach to tariffs.
Employment data is continuing to paint a picture of a labor market in which few are losing jobs, but few are finding jobs. And job growth is only really occurring in private sector health & education and leisure and hospitality which added 88K. Every other sector together lost 38K jobs in December.
I don’t control the volume the control room does. And I can assure you that I was not yelling at the top of my lungs. Learn to move along when you don’t like something rather than complaining.
The decline of democracy in the US means you can’t visit the US if you commented on the decline of democracy in the US
The findings on the cost of Brexit--a loss of 6-8% of GDP and it's not over--can be thought of as the cost of not redistributing in a way that ensures widespread benefits from growth. Instead of an equity-efficiency trade-off, equity might have helped foster more efficiency in this case.
Is it too soon to be done with winter?
Millions of food insecure Americans are being treated like bargaining chips in a political showdown. They have no political power, no lobbyists, and no way to influence whether the government reopens. Using them as leverage is cruel.
People aren't happy with the state of the economy and the real weakness for the GOP is that independents are less happy about it than they were a year ago. You can't just lie to people about energy prices, they will open their heating bill and see the difference pretty clearly.
Don’t believe anyone who tells you that intelligence shows anything “without a doubt,” but even if the intelligence was water-tight, this strike was still murder. No law permits the deliberate, premeditated killing of civilians.
Cities with violent crime rates higher than DC:
Memphis, Tennessee
Houston, Texas
Nashville, Tennessee
Evansville, Indiana
Peoria, Illinois
Toleda, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
St Louis, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Springfield, Missouri
Little Rock, Arkansas
for more:
usafacts.org/articles/how...
I understand why Trump wants a command and control economy with him at the center. What is confusing to me is why the entire Republican party is so willing to walk so far from a competitive, market-based economy.
If the concern was really around accuracy why did the Trump administration dismiss the **uncompensated** Technical Advisory Committee and the Data Users Advisory Committee, which gave guidance on statistical methodology and specialized economic expertise?
There were 159,539,000 jobs in July. The fears about accuracy refer to the possibility that it was actually 159,439,000 or 159,639,000. Don't get me wrong, I like accurate numbers more than most people, but still: the data is pretty darn good and suspending the data is corrupt.
One easy way to hide rising unemployment, slowing job growth, and rising prices would be to pause the data release for a few months in the name of "accuracy" and then release it with new definitions a few months later that make it incomparable to the past.
The Fed can't be dovish or hawkish right now, they have to be doggish--data doggish that is. nytimes.com/2025/07/02/b...
And I am puzzled why, at the dawn of artificial general intelligence, we are knee-capping ourselves, giving our international competitors a fighting chance at beating us in the AI game.
What I worry about is whether these tariffs cost us American service jobs--all of the workers involved in business and professional services that support companies that import goods. Fewer goods sold mean fewer business services needed.
American is a service-based economy: Let's take a look at job growth in private sector goods and services over the past 75 years. Spoiler: it's almost all in services. We are not going to even make a dent in this trend. In fact, we may push it further.
Tariffs are not going to mean that we have more goods-producing jobs in the US. What they will do is change the relative price of goods versus services, pushing Americans to buy fewer goods relative to services. If you are worried about American overconsumption of stuff, then hooray! 🧵
