Heading from the tailgate to the game and I ran into the Chief Game Theorist for the Michigan Wolverines, @genebsperling and fam.

What does the recent Trump-Xi meeting mean for trade between the world's two largest economies? Lemme dig in with my mate @MacpheeFergus at @TimesRadio in a podcast that I hope is worth 20 minutes of your time. Spoiler: It's much less than you think. https://t.co/D2mvx3deHd

Finally got organized and set up my YouTube channel. A few weeks yielded 10,000 subscribers and I'm learning there may be something to this! For now it’s mostly talks and interviews, but I've got plans for more exciting econ-goodness. Subscribe here👉

"The stock market is ecstatic. If you ask people how they feel about the economy, it's downright poor." Let's try to unravel this...

Q: "They did vote to pass a bipartisan resolution to block Trump's global tariffs. Justin, what does that mean?" A: "Signs of life. Who knew we had a Senate?"

Policy evaluation 101: Set the baseline. Trump took office Jan 20, so compare outcomes to Jan 19. "Less bad than last week" is not "good." Tariffs still higher, soybean sales lower, rare earth access tighter than on Jan 19.

The Fed’s job isn’t to make you rich. It’s to keep the economy roughly on track. As long as rates are in the neighborhood of the right answer—and I think that they are—things tend to go fine. It’s when policy goes way off that trouble starts. And yes, that remains a real risk.

Powell sounded less sure of a unified FOMC than I’ve ever heard him: dissents on both sides, and a chair saying folks aren’t sure what comes next. The debate appears to be less about the outlook and more about r* — the Goldilocks interest rate that neither speeds nor slows the

"All of those things say, you know, when you're driving through fog, slow down." That was the analogy Chair Powell kept coming back to—and it fits today’s mix of rising unemployment, 3% inflation, and a data fog from the shutdown.

The pandemic was a dress rehearsal for life without reliable official stats. We learned to read high-frequency proxies. Useful! But as Powell says, they’re a partial fix. There’s nothing like the real thing: BLS and BEA.

Trump's "China deal" puts the U.S. in better shape this week than last. But what relative to the day he came to office? ❌ Access to rare earth minerals ❌ Soybean sales ❌ Access to Chinese markets ❌ Predictable rules https://t.co/m58uzLCfLw

Two things happened at yesterday's Fed meeting: 1. A 25bp cut (foot off the brake), then 2. A presser that made a December cut much less certain. One loosens today; the other tightens tomorrow’s path. Net: Slightly hawkish. Takeaway: Watch the data, not the calendar.

My “secret plan” to beat this supply shock? Stop creating it. Roll back the tariff brinkmanship, restore a stable policy regime. Less uncertainty → more investment → better supply → lower inflation and steadier jobs.

“This isn’t the Fed putting its foot on the gas. It’s really the Fed taking its foot off the brake.” Point is: The Fed's latest rate cut isn't stimulus, it's normalization. The harder question is: What next? Even harder: Answer that question without data.

"The last time in which we saw dissent on one side and dissent on the other, looks like it may be over 10 years ago. This is once in a blue moon territory telling us that we're in a funny world right now."

If Trump had hoped that appointing a loyalist to the Fed would push it in a more dovish direction, he appears to have failed completely as the Fed swung in a sharply hawkish direction today. Miran's problem is that making an utterly incoherent case for rate cuts convinced

Today's Fed meeting saw two dissents in different directions -- Miran wanted a bigger cut, and Schmid wanted no cut. Looking back through the records, this is rare. Very rare.

Powell's press conference is more consequential than usual: 1. December rate cut may not happen 2. The FOMC is divided ("strongly differing views") 3. Powell very worried—about both inflation and unemployment. Stocks are falling, bond yields rising, as he speaks.

Fed cuts rates by a quarter point. For the first time in forever, there's a dissent on either side. Miran wants more (sigh, it's Miran). Schmid surprises and says he wanted no change. Quantitative tightening ended.

Happy Fed Day to all who celebrate. Here's my preview while we wait for the decision at 2pm.