Thoughts on the Warsh Confirmation Hearing and Beyond | Center for Financial Economics By Jon Faust With all the news about the Gulf last week you may have missed some remarkable Fed news.  Going against Trump’s demand for lower interest rates, Treasury Secretary Bessent said that Fed r...

Jon Faust, Powell's former senior advisor, with some thoughts on Warsh... krieger.jhu.edu/financial-ec...

Happy The-Strait-Is-Fully-Open Day to all who celebrate

Exclusive | Trump Promises Mass Pardons to Staff Before Leaving Office In a recent meeting, the president said he would pardon those within 200 feet of the Oval Office, according to people familiar with the remarks.

Exclusive: President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, according to people who have heard his comments. on.wsj.com/3PTqciC

Inflation Rose to 3.3% in March Consumer prices were up 3.3% in March from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Friday, much hotter than February’s gain of 2.4%.

Inflation accelerated to 3.3% in March, the hottest reading in two years.

Sector breakdown on jobs

Things like this make me wish I lived in Boston

...and worry about this in the context of an aging population

A new paper from Fed board economists concludes that breakeven job growth is near zero

"It would not be unusual for there to be one or more months in 2026 with declines in total payroll employment as large as -100,000 jobs, even if economic output was growing at the rate of potential output growth"

Dirty Business The Baltic Dirty Tanker Index, which measures the cost of moving crude oil by sea, has surged to its highest level on record. The index sat around 1,000 for most of last year. It began climbing in the...

The dirty tanker index is waaaay above the highest level it hit after Russia invaded Ukraine www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Michigan and Ohio went to war once, you expect people to just move from Ypsilanti to Toledo?

Sure, the inflation-adjusted level of gasoline is much lower than the past, but the change in prices over the past five weeks is pretty darn big even in inflation adjusted terms www.wsj.com/economy/cons...

How Working in America Became So Joyless The loss of small perks and rise of AI have conspired to strip work of all joy, making the office ‘feel like a funeral.’

"Honestly, it feels like a funeral in the office." How work life got so terrible.

Do a ctrl f in the story for “Nobel Prize”

my boss is awesome, 100/10 would recommend

Prediction is hard

WNBA Players Had an Ace Up Their Sleeve in Pay Negotiations: A Nobel Laureate Harvard economist Claudia Goldin helped WNBA players win a nearly 400% raise. Starting this season, players’ average salary will top $580,000.

After Claudia Goldin became the first woman to win a solo Nobel in economics, she got hundreds of invitations.

She accepted three.

One was advising WNBA players on a labor deal. She helped players land the biggest % raise in US sports history.
www.wsj.com/economy/wnba...

WNBA Players Had an Ace Up Their Sleeve in Pay Negotiations: A Nobel Laureate Harvard economist Claudia Goldin helped WNBA players win a nearly 400% raise. Starting this season, players’ average salary will top $580,000.

“You’re passing by hundreds, thousands of people, and they’re all cheering you on,” she said. “That’s bigger than getting the Nobel.” Story w/ @realbachscore.bsky.social www.wsj.com/economy/wnba...

America’s Chief Financial Officers Say AI Is Coming for Admin Jobs A new study finds little evidence of broad job losses from AI—but a clear shift away from clerical roles and toward technical ones.

Will AI end up being skills-biased? A survey of CFOs suggests yes. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-a...

Hoosiers ends with a two pointer and there are at least a couple of seconds on the clock. Much more lowkey and old-timey

Exclusive | Growing Frustration With Chuck Schumer Spurs Talk of Replacing Him Some Democrats on Capitol Hill are discussing how to get New York’s senior senator to step aside as minority leader amid concerns about his negotiating style and midterms strategy.

New in WSJ

Growing Frustration With Chuck Schumer Spurs Talk of Replacing Him

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Never underestimate the abilities of a great survey field professional

I talk about minimum wage and monopsony in this Wall Street Journal piece. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

The Wage Standard by Arindrajit Dube: 9780593471418 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books “The go-to guy on minimum wage” (Nobel Laureate and New York Times bestselling author Paul Krugman) tackles one of the thorniest social issues of our times—income inequality—from...

More of both here :-) www.thewagestandard.com

Interesting article about research into the effect of the minimum wage on employment

By
www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

The 30-Year Debate Over the Minimum Wage Is Still Not Settled A 1994 paper blew up the consensus that minimum-wage increases kill jobs. Economists have been at each other’s throats ever since.

“Fortunately, only a handful of economists are willing to throw over the teaching of two centuries; we have not yet become a bevy of camp-following whores." James Buchanan in a letter to The Wall Street Journal in 1996. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

Economists Don’t See a Recession Unless Oil Hits $138—and Stays There for Weeks In a survey, the average of economists projects the Middle East conflict boosting inflation but probably not hurting growth.

In our latest economic survey for @wsj.com, the average recession probability has ticked up to 32% but the consensus is that the economy is resilient enough to weather the oil supply disruption—provided crude doesn't rise above above $138/barrel for a sustained period.
www.wsj.com/economy/econ...

Economists Don’t See a Recession Unless Oil Hits $138—and Stays There for Weeks In a survey, the average of economists projects the Middle East conflict boosting inflation but probably not hurting growth.

Wall Street economists' forecasts for growth and unemployment have barely budged since January, despite the war www.wsj.com/economy/econ...

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years

In spring 2022, we were back from the pandemic, and I'll never forget how a bright Cal student pointed out the missing history of Dolores Huerta's role with the UFW. "It's like she was erased," the student remarked at the time.

Now we all know why.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/u...

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011 The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011 was awarded jointly to Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims "for their empirical research on cause and effect in th...

So weird: there's more than one scammy memorial site inviting donations or tree-planting in my dad's memory.
We are not asking for that, but if people feel moved, donations in lieu of flowers to www.aclu-mn.org, www.aclu.org, or www.eff.org
Econ folks, can you help get the word out?

Christopher Sims, Economist Who Taught the Data to Speak, Dies at 83 The Nobel laureate’s work transformed how central banks understand cause and effect in the economy.

www.wsj.com/economy/cent...