Seems like the Strait of Hormuz is only open when the stock market is.

I'm more confused by the parquet flooring on your deck

Conventional macro measures flow performance well. What people often care about is affordability, security, and access to a stable life path.
That seems to me the real gap behind vibecession discourse

The conventional measures are often doing what they were designed to do; the problem is that what they were designed to do is not identical to measuring felt economic security. Sentiment measures should be treated as data, not dismissed as error

The reason I find this discussion so annoying is there exists a much more interesting one we could be having: “which dimensions of economic life are our standard indicators least equipped to register?”

The career penalty falls on those who were marginalized for dissenting too early, not on those who enforced the consensus.

elite policy worlds often reward adaptation w/o requiring reckoning. Former hawks of liberalization simply rebrand as pragmatic industrial-policy realists. B/c they still speak the language of technocracy and “seriousness,” they keep their status.

It is striking that this kind of reversal rarely produces proportional reputational loss for the people & institutions that policed the old line.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Forgot food: CPI breaks food into at home (8.3%) and away from home (5.4%). Logic is goods vs services. 

More curiosities about CPI:

bsky.app/profile/numb...

Housing is 35.3%.It gets a huge weight b/c every HH pays for housing every month, either directly as rent or imputed as owners equivalent rent. Thats why shelter is so much larger in CPI than childcare or college which are extremely burdensome but not broadly experienced by everyone at the same time

So the health insurance is small in weight & conceptually odd relative to lived experience. If CPI instead used something closer to posted premiums the spending share would be much bigger than the current sub-1% weight. (Tho impact on inflation would depend on retained earnings to benefit ratio)

Health insurance uses an indirect retained-earnings method, rather than just tracking posted premiums the way most people would expect. It's roughly the retained portion (what goes to profits and admin) of premiums after benefits paid out. NOT the cost you experience. medical care overall is 8.31%.

Since this stupid convo won't end Im again compelled to jump in

Daycare & preschool 0.70% of the CPI.
Health insurance 0.89%.
College tuition and fees 1.35%.

These are crushing unavoidable costs for HH that face them but b/c CPI reflects ave for all urban HH they have tiny weights

Honest to God, that looks like trash, but the full English breakfast is one of the isles unmitigated culinary achievements. The Irish version is a further step up with improved bread and rashers

Anyone in the new england/ Eastern NYS area who wants to up their 'dad levels' in this area should check out the work of ecologist Tom Wessels. 'Reading the forested landscape' is a full of niche facts and interpretive guidance.

-individuals generate data through apps, devices, & platforms (location, browsing behavior, purchase history)
-Data is aggregated & sold by private firms
-Govt agencies purchase access instead of compelling disclosure.

Reframes surveillance as a market transaction rather than a constitutional event

‘Creepy surveillance’: why some cities are shutting down Flock cameras amid privacy concerns Some cities are cutting ties with firm that provides license plate reader cameras, others are signing new contracts and many are still looking for their footing

We need more public awareness about how data brokerage functions as a shadow surveillance apparatus that circumvents constitutional constraints.
Govt compels disclosure = 4th A applies.
Information "voluntarily" shared with 3rd party, it is not protected
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Carney Suspends Gas Tax in Canada as War Drives Up Fuel Costs

Proving that being an actual economist doesn't immunize you against the electoral incentives for economically illiterate policy.

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/w...

So even in a recession I should still be able to respond to economic concerns with "actually SHED tells us 70 something % are good". Which seems to limit it's utility in this discussion

Your referenced series is an almost intentionally course status measure. A deliberately slow-moving high-inertia measure of a stock. Problem is few short term events will budge it. COVID is barely detectable in the series. A mild recession would be similar

2014 to 2019 SHED's “financial situation compared with 12 months prior” showed more people saying they were better off than worse off. Since 2022 that has flipped hard. In 2024 29% said worse off vs 23% better off, which is improvement from 2022 peak strain, but still much weaker than pre-2020 trend

When you add it all up, the collapse in immigration looks like this: a decline of roughly 50K for illegal (even including the people arrested and not released) and a decline of about 132K for legal. Over 70% of the cut in immigration has come from LEGAL immigration.

Dean have you read Katharina Pistor's code of capital? I thought it a really valuable discussion of the nature of capital

The notion that economic determinism was ever the prevailing logic of American political actors is just wild

bsky.app/profile/whst...

Libs in 2026: we need to discover if the most vulgar formulation of historical materialism is correct? 

Even Kautsky would be like "how about some nuance there buddy?"

Alligator Alcatraz phones were cut off. Then the beatings began, court docs say Attorneys say the Trump and DeSantis administrations are disregarding a court order requiring access to phones and attorneys for detainees.

The Constitution and a court order both say that the Everglades detention facility must allow people access to their attorneys.

Instead of complying, guards are cutting off people’s phone access and beating people who speak up.

Conference Board moved to online collection in 2021. UMich surveys transitioned in 2024.

I'd say the conference survey is more tightly tied to the labor market, which is currently decent & survey reflects that. 

UMich is consumer’s own finances & buying conditions. More relevant to vibe discussion

This week's issue of L'Espresso: The annexation of the West Bank, with soldiers complicit in the settlers' actions. Gaza annihilated. The advance into Lebanon. The border violated in Syria. The war on Iran. Ethnic cleansing and massacres. The Zionist right is realizing Greater Israel with US arms.

Lol Inflation stays hotter for longer, weaker discretionary spending, and more pressure on the Fed to stay restrictive. Euro & Asia faire even worse than US. Sovereign debt concerns grow for Egy, PAK, KEN. I haven't even mentioned the dead. All for what? WHY THE FUCK IS THERE EVEN A WAR?

President Trump’s order to blockade Iranian trade through the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran’s promise to continue to choke the strait are leaving global energy markets in even deeper trouble than they were just days ago.