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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · 8d

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.

Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · 8d

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.

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · 8d

3/ Interestingly, the gap—in both level and proportional terms—increases when a R is president. This largely reflects the fact that men are more likely to be Rs, and Rs are more optimistic when there is an R president.

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · 8d

2/ In what we call “The Gender Optimism Gap,” we use UMich Consumer Sentiment data and (consistent with others) find since the 70s (as far back as the data go), women are persistently less optimistic than men about the economy.

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · 8d

1/ Me and @nealemahoney.bsky.social are back to analyzing the vibecession. This time, We dug into the #s on how men vs. women experience the economy and found a striking result: women tend to be 10 points less optimistic about the economy than men nealemahoney.substack.com/p/the-gender...

The Gender Optimism Gap

Men are significantly and persistently more optimistic than women about the economic outlook

nealemahoney.substack.com

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · 14d

There's a lot of bad happening in the world today. So take some time to read something good--dare I say, great!--from
@jaredb-econ.bsky.social and @nealemahoney.bsky.social who boil down the econ of "affordability" to a simple, three-legged framework. Good economics, good policy!

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

Alexis Goldstein @alexisgoldstein.bsky.social · 20d

It’s actually quite unstrategic to abandon vulnerable people in your coalition. It doesn’t make you look tough, it makes you look like a coward.

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

Alexis Goldstein @alexisgoldstein.bsky.social · 20d

In 2021, I warned that “family offices”—investment firms that manage the $ of tech titans & other billionaires—have more assets combined ($6TN) than all of private equity ($4TN).

Unlike PE, the public has NO insight into where they put that money. Zero.

www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/o...

Opinion | These Invisible Whales Could Sink the Economy (Published 2021)

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 20d

Lol Miran also projecting GDP growth to stay at 2.6% a year through 2028 (ht @weakinstrument.bsky.social)

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · 22d

If this is true, this is the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the United States and it's not even close. It would amount to a **$2B** bribe to the President; the next closest scandal in terms of $ would be Teapot Dome, a measly ~$10M in today's $s

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/u...

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

The Contrarian @contrariannews.org · 28d

Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to replace her with a loyalist widely criticized by conservatives and liberal economists alike

Read how these 2,000+ civil servants are pushing back to protect the integrity of the agency @weakinstrument.bsky.social

The jobs numbers are safe for now, but the labor market might not be

The civil servants devoted to the mission of the BLS make U.S. economic statistics the envy of the world.

contrarian.substack.com

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

SIEPR @siepr.bsky.social · Sep 2

(2/5) The story cites Mahoney's research with SIEPR's Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social and Ben Harris of @brookings.edu on how Americans’ views on the #economy versus what the data show have diverged since the #Covid19 pandemic: tinyurl.com/333f777d

What People Don't Know About The Economy

tinyurl.com

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

Andrew Watt @andrewwatteu.bsky.social · Aug 28

Update
contrarian.substack.com/p/crypto-wan...
@weakinstrument.bsky.social puts in essay form the key mechanisms described in the 🧵: the crypto/stablecoin & Treasury markets feed on each other in a doom-loop; faced with economic damage the government bails out the miscreants, socialising the costs.

Crypto wants to bring you down with it

The Trump administration is speedrunning government bailouts for the crypto industry.

contrarian.substack.com

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · Aug 26

What the crypto industry wants is simple: insurance--paid for taxpayers--that essentially provides a price floor for their useless assets. It's not subtle, and it's not complicated.

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · Aug 26

Today, I'm in @contrariannews.org about the non-stop effort to shoehorn crytpo into the real economy so that when crypto prices decline, the gov is forced to bailout the industry or face a financial crisis.

contrarian.substack.com/p/crypto-wan...

Crypto wants to bring you down with it

The Trump administration is speedrunning government bailouts for the crypto industry.

contrarian.substack.com

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · Aug 10

I'm in the NYT today (with @jaredb-econ.bsky.social ) arguing that the last time we had stagflation, we had oil shocks and a bad Fed. Now, we have no oil shocks and a good Fed. If we have stagflation this time, it will very much be by the President's own choosing.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/o...

Opinion | The Economy Is Starting to Pay for Trump’s Chaos

www.nytimes.com

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · Aug 7

Putting salt and sugar into water and calling it "electrolytes" is definitely one of the greatest marketing gimmicks of all time.

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

The Contrarian @contrariannews.org · Jul 30

How can workers feel secure when the economic landscape is always shifting beneath their feet?

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

Arin Dube @arindube.bsky.social · Aug 6

Regardless of politics, economists should make clear: we do not condone reckless attacks on our statistical agencies, including by our fellow economists.

The staff at these agencies work painstakingly to collect the data our democracy and economy depend on.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Aug 6

Kevin Hassett suggests the Bureau of Labor Statistics rigged the 2012 election for Barack Obama

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Reposted by Ryan Cummings

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · Aug 4

Yes, traffic cameras work, but it's a myth that people hate them!

Survey after survey shows that most people support automatic enforcement (and often want more of it).

This is a false controversy, fed by a minority of disgruntled drivers & journalists seeking narratives with conflict.

It’s Easy to Hate Traffic Cameras. But They Do Save Lives.

They raise issues of fairness, and critics claim they’re only about revenue. More speed and red-light cameras, however, would prevent a lot of deaths and injuries.

www.governing.com

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Ryan Cummings @weakinstrument.bsky.social · Aug 4

Rig counts have become a less reliable signal of production over time because the efficiency of an individual rig has improved quite a bit, but OPEC+ production and tariffs on inputs like steel are going to give pause to both majors and independents trying to win market share with new production.

George Pearkes @peark.es · Aug 4

Also precious little sign from oil & gas names reporting so far that they plan to increase investment. Some modestly positive quotes from CVX/XOM last week but oil services names aren’t seeing any signs of life in US tight oil yet.