If this scenario happens, this would drive national average gas prices well above $5.00/gallon—likely close to $5.25-$5.50. It would shatter the record set in the summer of 2022. What’s extraordinary is unlike then, this would be entirely out of the President’s own choosing.
Interesting observation , Matt.
Thank you for such a kind note, Sed! And very much agree with you On the benefits of EVs—the more we can get folks to adopt, the less salient the issue becomes!
3/3 But right now, we're seeing crude increase over the past 5 days by $7.48/bbl and gasoline prices increase by $0.22/gal. That means we're seeing magnitudes ~20% greater than what we would expect from historical relationships in 1/6 the time.
2/3: The academic literature typically finds that when crude oil increases by $10/barrel, it 4 weeks for the full effect to show up at the pump, with half of the effect showing up after 2 weeks. Historical relationships estimate that the full effect is around ~$0.25/gallon.
1/3: Here's what wild about gas prices right now. The past two days have seen the largest increase in gas prices ($0.22/gallon) since 2005, making it one of the fastest increases ever. What's suprising about this is not only the magnitude, but the speed of the passthrough.
The cost of the war in concrete terms: in March, avg daily U.S. gasoline consumption is ~368M gallons. This means for every $10/bbl increase in crude, Americans pay an extra $90M at the pump *every day* that prices are elevated (once the increase is transmitted to retail prices).
not with that attitude Jake
The fundamental issue with crypto is that the Blockchain is a solution in search of a problem. The Trump Admin has gone out of its way to help the industry write it's own rulebook, but this isn't enough. Crypto is out of excuses and may be out of time.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/o...
I'm in the NYT today w/ @jaredb-econ.bsky.social We expand upon a point raised by @weisenthal.bsky.social previously made--part of crypto's decline is because the industry has been using the Biden Regulatory Boogeyman as an excuse for lack of adoption. With Trump in office, that excuse doesn't hold.
smdh when #NoCoiners like you dismiss crypto’s real fundamentals, Graham (the real fundamentals are things like giving Hamas funds for Oct 7, financing the North Korean nuclear weapons program, and performing money laundering for drug cartels).
If you "hold your nose and vote for the thing" when that thing is something that explicitly allows unimagineable levels of corruption (not to mention risk to the financial system), you should be primaried and never be in public service, anywhere, at any time. Pathetic.
If the Democratic Party folds on its demand that members of Congress and the Administration cannot profit off of crypto (especially right after we've learned the current President has taken billions in bribes through crypto) b/c the crypto lobby has a lot of money, it should cease existing entirely.
I hope they sue you Jake
A huge congrats to the Harvard Endowment, who in Q3 2025 bought at the top of the market to nearly quadruple its Bitcoin holdings, only to watch that position get absolutely destroyed, losing over $200 million in less than 6 months.
Another big win for active management!
Line graph showing both revenues and spending falling behind old projections.
The most important thing to understand about the debt:
Yes, spending is rising – due to demographics & health care cost growth
But taxes used to be on pace to match that rising spending
Then we cut taxes and now it isn't
Spending is rising slower than expected, so tax cuts bear 100% of the blame
The correct way to view universities+government-sponsored research is that it is a magic machine where taxpayers put $1 in and get $5 back (in addition to the utility from new inventions such as life-saving drugs). The gutting of this research is one of the dumbest own-goals in our history.
There are kids entering college this year who weren't alive before Bitcoin. The industry has had that much time to demonstrate a single (legal) use case for blockchain, and has failed miserably.
With no more regulatory boogeyman, crypto has been exposed for what it is: useless.
🧵New SIEPR Policy Brief looks at the U.S. #economy's biggest risks and opportunities to shed light on what could go right or wrong in 2026, from SIEPR's Jared Bernstein @jaredb-econ.bsky.social, Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social, @nealemahoney.bsky.social and Erika McEntarfer. Read in link 👇
The people of Minnesota have executed one of the most impressive civil resistance campaigns I can remember:
- Organized a city wide general strike
- Maintained nonviolent discipline amidst violence
- Mobilized 10,000s in subzero temps to protest and watch ICE
- Flipped public opinion against ICE
As usual, the current Administration is laser-focused on pressing issues, both at home and abroad, that keep Americans up at night.
Very glad to see this important policy process elevated to the level where the highest ranking cabinet official personally weights in on it 👏👏👏
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.
🚀 I'm on the #EconSky Job Market!
My JMP asks a classic question:
Do large, dominant firms foster or hinder innovation?
To study this, I turn to the Great Merger Wave (1895–1904), when >2,600 U.S. firms combined into corporate giants like U.S. Steel and DuPont.
A JMP 🧵👇 (1/13)
Total federal spending is up +7% in 2025 over 2024 year-to-date to Oct 20.
The story that the fed govt is tightening its belt is contradicted by its own real-time expenditure data. Admin spectacularly hammering some things but raising spending elsewhere.
Was -7% just after Inauguration Day.
The more-or-less consensus view (among researchers looking at the impact of AI on labor demand) is that AI is unlikely impacting economic aggregates.
Demand for young workers is very cyclical so we would expect given the no-hire, no-fire economy that youth unemployment would be rising.
Important evidence 👇 in the debate over how best to address homelessness. Study by Mark Duggan, SIEPR senior fellow, and Derek Christopher, SIEPR research scholar, finds that investments in homeless shelters pay off, not just for unhoused individuals but adjacent and regional communities.
DISTURBING: I went out in Palo Alto to perform a tactical threat analysis on behalf of the Supreme Intergalactic Commander of Warfare Hegseth, and found the median antifa member is 67 and drives a luxury German car.
Is #AI the century's third speculative bubble? Yes, say SIEPR's @jaredb-econ.bsky.social and @weakinstrument.bsky.social in a @nytimes.com op-ed. They lay out the reasons and examine whether the fallout could be better or worse than the internet, housing bursts. Free link 👇
tinyurl.com/nhjcm62v
End/ While we can say what isn’t causing the gap, we don’t have a good answer for what is causing it. For a more informed take, we asked our friend @draliceevans.bsky.social
what she thought. We think examining this more deeply is a ripe area for future research.
4/ We then use individual-level data to see if demographic factors can help explain the gap. Surprisingly, we find that controls such as education, income, age, and political party explain little (<20%) of the gap.
