Justin Wolfers
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justinwolfers.bsky.social
Justin Wolfers
@justinwolfers.bsky.social

Econ professor at Michigan ● Senior fellow, Brookings ● Intro econ textbook author ● Think Like An Economist podcast ● An economist willing to admit that the glass really is half full.

Justin James Michael Wolfers is an Australian economist and public policy scholar. He is professor of economics and public policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. .. more

Economics 62%
Psychology 14%

We've moved to the new CCCB "Central Campus Classroom Building". (It's bigger. And newer.)

"I've got a lot of empathy for J.D. Vance here asking for patience...I was talking to my partner last night and I asked her for patience. I'm trying to work on having a better personality...I'm not all the way there yet right now." And maybe that's how we should interpret JD's views on the economy.

Reposted by Aaron Sojourner

My MVP for this week: I've discovered some folks who could do a much better job running American trade policy. #Econ101 #GoBlue #TeachEcon

It was!

Overheard while enjoying a flat white at one of the Aussie cafes in NYC: "Do you have a pumpkin spiced latte?”

In so many ways it feels like a caffeinated metaphor for my life as an ex-pat Aussie making his way in the U.S. ☕🇦🇺

DOGE failed. And DOGE is dead. So I guess government can be responsive after all.
Difficult to overstate how profound a failure DOGE was. Spending in FY2025 was not only than in FY2024 – but higher than it was projected to be when Trump first took office.*

The little bit of spending DOGE cut has already killed hundreds of thousands and will eventually lead to millions of deaths.
Bye bye, “DOGE”.

It no longer exists as a “centralized entity”, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/world/us/dog...

Reposted by Justin Wolfers

Difficult to overstate how profound a failure DOGE was. Spending in FY2025 was not only than in FY2024 – but higher than it was projected to be when Trump first took office.*

The little bit of spending DOGE cut has already killed hundreds of thousands and will eventually lead to millions of deaths.
Bye bye, “DOGE”.

It no longer exists as a “centralized entity”, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/world/us/dog...

Think of steel as flour for the manufacturing economy. A tariff is like a flour tax: the mill might add 1,000 jobs, but factories using flour cut around 75,000. That’s what happens when you tax an input instead of solving the real problem.

"there is a genuine Republican agenda, and it's about deregulation. Funny thing is there's also a White House agenda, and the White House agenda is about intervention. And this is the most interventionist White House I've ever seen."

"Look, the Fed can do a lot of things, but what it can't do is lower the price of imports. It can't make it so there are more workers for California farmers to help pick the crops." These are self-inflicted supply shocks, and the Fed can't magically undo them. (The White House can.)

Reposted by Aaron Sojourner

Tariffs apply to goods, not services. Zero in on the goods-producing sector, and you'll discover that it's hemorrhaging jobs. Indeed, the start of the trade war marks the peak in that sector, and it's been in recession ever since.

"And so next year's economy is going to see two big things happening. It's going to see the tariffs hit and it's going to see an enormous slowdown in immigration and in population growth... and that will determine whether that turns out to be a recessionary year or not."

“If you asked me for the one single number that best summarizes how people feel about the economy, it would be the unemployment rate… when you hear from regular folks that they are finding things tough out there, this higher unemployment rate… speaks to that story.”

It hasn't been a great year for jobs.

"The overwhelming sense I got from watching the president was just trying to count the number of lies, and I ran out of fingers and toes. He lied and said that prices are coming down. He lied when he said prices were at an all-time high under President Biden. They're at an all-time high right now."

Justin Wolfers said he "ran out of fingers and toes" trying "to count the number of lies.”
Economist Stunned By Trump’s Latest Brazen Claims: ‘The Reality Is…’
Justin Wolfers said he "ran out of fingers and toes" trying "to count the number of lies.”
www.huffpost.com

AI is now central to the macro story: markets are booming on data-center spending. But a warehouse of servers is mostly capital, not workers. Great for stock prices, not so great for broad job growth—unless AI eventually raises productivity in other sectors too.