Top recent posts by Economists and Policy Experts on Bluesky

Online right wingers can't tell if someone is hot without breaking out a large set of calipers and a calculator

A huge story for a specific sector of the stock market (and that I've posted about a fair bit) that hasn't gotten a lot of mainstream traction is the collapse in health insurance markets. UNH earnings this morning were *a disaster*. Not shedding a tear for them but this will have big ramifications.

They’re making JPOW fancams on TikTok again

we've tried tariffs, tariffs, and also tariffs. But maybe if we tried more tariffs...

If you live in any of America's like ~4 biggest cities the concept of positive-sum growth is so totally foreign it seems impossible because of the refusal to build housing, the end result is people morally pit groups against each other for the existing apartment stock

Trump's "make everyone's life worse" agenda does not seem to be paying off in public opinion.

Tons of my colleagues at @americanprogress.bsky.social undertook the Herculean task of creating a timeline for when various parts of the "big beautiful bill" begin and when various temporary provisions end. You can read it here: www.americanprogress.org/article/the-...

A man was able to illegally park in a no standing zone one (1) block away from a precinct and casually walk through Midtown Manhattan in broad daylight with an assault rifle For more on the challenges of getting US police to do work, see my paper w/ @robmickey.bsky.social & @dziblatt.bsky.social

The deal is always just two months away

I miss the coughing baby of 2018 and I don't like the Hydrogen Bomb of 2025

This is an illegal deferral under the Impoundment Control Act. It will also lead to deaths that could have otherwise been prevented with cures that would otherwise have been invented.

The Trump Administration's efforts to raise electricity prices as much as possible continue. DoT reinstating rules restricting wind turbine construction near roads and rail. www.transportation.gov/briefing-roo...

Okay I’m going to come clean: Deb Haaland’s fundraising staffer absolutely got my ass with this one.

Texas has had higher GDP growth and a lower unemployment rate than most states since the pandemic. But it is also the state with “the most people in financial distress.” This ranking came as a surprise to a lot of people — but not to Texas native @kedseconomist.com 🎥

Forgot to post these yesterday. www.dallasfed.org/research/sur...

I am increasingly convinced that the economic impact of tariffs is most likely to show up as a fall in business profits, a collapse investment spending, and a recession - deflation, not inflation.

I know the whole thing is "AI replacing workers" etc but uh, not what's happening in the labor market near as I can tell

this is really good reporting

"Epstein stole the teenage girls that were rightfully mine." That was Trump's problem with Epstein.

Its only surprising that Mamdani has a plurality of the Jewish vote and 2/3rds of 18-44 Jewish voters to people who spend very little time among (a variety of) NYC Jews but a lot of time absorbing unadulterated propaganda.

A quick JOLTS 📈🧵, starting with openings, which seem to have stabilized at more or less their prepandemic rate. #NumbersDay

I'm writing an piece on pocket rescissions - Trump's new upcoming illegal attempt to impound, ironically via the Impoundment Control Act Vought claims he found a way to legally stop spending & run out the clock on funds, after which the money disappears (It's illegal) Paper will be out by the 5th

Another month (May) of falling national home prices with prices falling in most of the South and West metros:

In the service of tax cuts for billionaires.

Out of the many horrible and ominous signs for US democracy over the last six months, this is one of the most alarming.

Pretty wild that house prices in Dallas, Charlotte, Denver, and Seattle have all appreciated ~2% per year in *real* terms since the pre-GFC *peak* in home prices.

Gucci is such a disaster, holy cow *KERING 2Q GUCCI COMP REV. -25%, EST. -25.1%

Internet traders are really high on Talarico for Texas Senate Dem nominee odds, pretty noteworthy since you have to be a pretty big sicko (or I guess a Rogan listener) to know who he is:

Really interesting from Joel. I'm a little skeptical for a bunch of reasons, including relative home ownership propensity potential confounding factors, but there's likely *something* here.

Market dynamics we've seen over the past several years: -Everything is a V-bottom, you don't really get retests or building bases/digesting the move -Relentless momentum on the way up -Strong/boring markets can fall apart quickly when there's a catalyst

Got a Facebook reminder about laying down on the street in front of the Israeli embassy for operation Protective Edge. This has all been going on for so, so long. Glad 22 year old me did that though (though not enough).

"The need to find some extra benefit to cash assistance, something beyond just helping people afford the necessities to life, strikes me as another example of the “economic style of thinking.” Not everything needs to be about the return on investment or the ratio of benefits to costs."

Looking forward to the new right wing talking point that the cash is simply unnecessary because the safety net is already so strong. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

Let’s say you live in Phoenix. Home prices are falling 0.7-0.8%/month. They’re going to be lower next spring than they are today. Why would you buy a house now vs any other risk asset that at least has the potential of going up?

Ooof *NOVO SEES FY SALES AT CONSTANT FX +8% TO +14%, SAW +13% TO +21% *NOVO SAYS FY SALES FORECAST CUT LINKED TO LOWER US WEGOVY SALES *NOVO: WEGOVY PENETRATION IN CASH CHANNEL LOWER-THAN-EXPECTED *NOVO: OZEMPIC OUTLOOK IMPACTED BY COMPETITION IN THE US *NOVO NORDISK SHARES DROP 12%

*STARBUCKS 3Q ADJ EPS 50C, EST. 65C *STARBUCKS 3Q COMP SALES -2%, EST. -1.5%

Good reporting on how AI is making the job market more challenging for young people looking to enter the workforce: www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ca...

If the Dem view is you can’t raise taxes on people earning under $400k that’s going to make revenue-raising somewhat limited.

Here’s the professional/business services hires and quits rate. I’m not sure if it’s conclusive proof of AI but you definitely can’t rule it out:

June JOLTS shows labor demand stabilization thesis remains intact for now though slower hires in the last couple months is a pebble in the shoe.

“[Tipped] workers, who are disproportionately women, people of color, & immigrants, who are often living below the poverty line, are forced to rely on the kindness of strangers to pay their wages," said EPI's Nina Mast on @vox.com podcast Explain It to Me. Listen here: www.vox.com/explain-it-t...

1.96 American employee quit their job for each employee fired by their boss in June. This #LaborLeverageRatio proxies for employee bargaining power in jobs because workers increase quits when their outside options improve & bosses increase firings when theirs do. Stability over recent months.

The old party is dying. The new party struggles to be born. Now is the time of Schumers.

Folks they still don’t have the pinche agua fresca jamaica but I just discovered they have huitlacoche…huge dub guey.

I'm so excited to see this paper coming out in RESTUD. Fun facts about this paper: 1) My amazing co-author Bruno and I had never met in person until after we completed the first draft. 2) It's my first and only paper that was never rejected by a journal. 3) I can now claim to understand macro.

The GDP number shouldn’t matter for markets but it’ll help the people whose job it is to tell stories about what the economy did in the first half of the year.

Oh that’s totally fine… From my experience in Brazil, we might soon be hearing speculation on whether Gen. X is a “legalist” or might support the president in a coup.

June JOLTS data shows labor market continuing to cool, but gradually. Openings down (reversing weird May jump), hires down, quits and layoffs basically flat. Consistent with the "no hire, no fire" labor market we've been in for a while now. #NumbersDay #Econ Data: www.bls.gov/news.release...

Me: I should be careful not to overcommit myself moving forward Also me: Why not say “yes” to this, that, and also that?

It's "migrants" now. Not immigrants. And the mainstream media has adopted the term too. And of course "migrant" is transient and temporary. So they have bought into the MAGA framing knowingly or not.

*NOVO NORDISK SHARES DROP 12% AFTER CUTTING FY GUIDANCE

How can tariffs improve welfare? Your country needs market power. A quick explainer below 👇🏻

People have made the argument that a VAT would be better than tariffs. And people have also argued against tariffs with the view that consumers are the ones who pay them. And I’m trying to square that circle.

This paper looks important!! www.nber.org/papers/w3407... #Econsky #FinSky

WMT x MLS. "dedicated programming around televised MLS matches on Saturdays, the launch of a creator network and a curated soccer shopping experience, among other ties" "Walmart will invest in MLS and become an official sponsor and partner of the league." <-- "invest"? 👀

“The federal government wants to be able to dictate terms to private universities, law firms, newspapers, TV stations…to erode support for institutions in civil society. How does paying the government $220 million to do basic science make Jews safer? As a Jew, I find this horrific.” —Michael Roth

I will develop a plan to bring disciplined newsletter governance, proper capital allocation, strategic foresight and operational excellence to Money Stuff. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...

Fresh data on trade this morning from Census. June advance goods trade showed that excluding the impact of gold (which has driven swings in industrial supplies category; that broad category is the most granular we can get with the prelim data) the trade balanced narrowed on record exports.

Science in the United States is being destroyed.

The dark apotheosis of Minecraft Steve (no relation)

I was glad to sign this letter. eig.org/bipartisan-c...

This person finds actual government waste, fraud, and abuse. www.startribune.com/joe-thompson...

Just had a manuscript rejected for being “too narrow.” Guess it’s time to carboload.

July in NYC, when I average 3 showers a day.

This looks interesting. "Bounding causal effects in survey experiments with noncompliance or inattention" www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wvzck...

A Note on the Closing of the Path to Future U.S. Hegemony—Economic, Political, Geostrategic, Cultural From hegemon to has-been, remarkably quickly too. But think, post American hegemony, not Chinese hegemony but rather (hopefully peaceful) balance-of-power… braddelong.substack.com/p/a-note-on-...

This is mostly why I haven’t publicly commented on this deal Many previous deals, especially the UK one, already fell into this problem

Negotiations exposed the European Union’s weakness. To gain leverage, the bloc must mobilize trillions of euros in investment. Read today’s editorial:

Interesting. "We show that ignoring construct & external validity within identification strategies undermines the Credibility Revolution’s own goal of understanding causality deductively." www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Power outage at West Fourth Street seems to have destroyed the transit system this morning. Fun times.

This study was looking at imports of final goods. But of course most imports are of intermediate inputs. Those are even more likely to be absorbed in profit margins rather than being fully passed on.

The real upshot of these low favorability numbers is that the Democrats are as ripe for a Trump-style hostile takeover as the GOP was in 2015-16. The likelihood of the Dem presidential candidate in 2028 being someone who's some sort of outsider seems high to me.

Shameful. Sickening.

Although I-82 was not fully overturned, the DC City Council has once again overruled the will of its own voters and preserved a system where tipped workers receive second class treatment in one of the highest cost -of- living metro areas in the country.

Conference Board labor differential ticked down again (h/t @fullcarry.net):

Muito bom texto da @millylacombe.bsky.social, e na qualidade de um carioca que cresceu nos anos 80, e que a despeito de um pai tricolor não resistiu aos poderes mágicos de Zico, eu me identifico. www.uol.com.br/esporte/colu...

Anyone in New Orleans and available to hit tennis balls with my buddy? 3.5 level player

Anyone in New Orleans and available to hit with my buddy? 3.5 level player