Here is my take of the Warsh press conference - there were lots of contradictory statements, which raise concerns about how Warsh would handle a significant economic crisis.

The changes in the FOMC statement between June and today:

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This should not be a surprise. Rewards credit cards are akin to gambling houses - the rewards are transfers between all payers (including cash payers), while the house (credit cards + banks) get to take a bigger cut.

Here's a question to economists - what in the US market structure prevents the US from having a payment system like Brazil’s Pix, where fees are near zero (unlike US credit cards and other systems)

Good to see more coverage (by Justin Wolfers) of the Trump Accounts and that they are an inherently a flawed policy. It will only exacerbate inequality and not help families in need. We have covered the economic research that shows this in one of our previous articles: 1/2

You may often see comments saying ‘inflation is just too much printed money’. If that were the case, we would have plenty of research showing this. However, most research shows that the the supply of money does not lead inflation, but, rather, it's the other way around. 1/2

But what's more interesting- if your competitors experience shipping delays, but you don't rely on shipping, you will still increase prices.The magnitude of this effect is quite large- in the pandemic, these strategic interactions were a significant driver of price increases. 3/4

McCloskey on why economics doesn’t have a textbook that can be recommended for people to learn economics I agree- the reason is that economics is a method of formal thinking. That’s why textbooks that focus on models or ideas, and not on how to build the model, become obsolete.

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How The World Cup Builds Nations 1/3

This is actually not true. Immigrants in a country (and investors) that pay taxes would also be considered foreigners in this model. So labor and capital taxes are also paid by ‘foreigners’.

Oof - we have slower growth and high inflation currently. Also, Q1 GDP, even at 1.6% is ‘artificially’ inflated due to the fact that in Q4 2025, there was a government shut down. Adjusting for this, GDP growth was around 1.2%.

The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates fixed. What’s interesting to see is the debate positioning in the statement. Three of the voters are de facto telling that there is no reason for rate cuts at all. (and they’re probably right for the next 12 months). Image-Nick Timiraos

I feel like this should be bigger news than it actually is - tariffs ended up being a tax levied by corporations on tax payers in the US.

Tariffs do matter for inflation. It's been well over a year since the beginning of tariffs, and we continue to see the impacts of tariffs on inflation.

March CPI (headline inflation) might print a 0.8…

My belief continues to be that for something that needs real precision, the current technology is not going to cut it.

The OpenAI-Walmart partnership, which failed, could have been prevented if OpenAI had hired economists Econ-based thinking would tell you that consumers value consistency (while genAI helps with discoverability). This is one of the reasons we have ‘sticky’ prices!

Great news - Washington State banned non-competes. A rare type of policy decision which makes everyone better off!

I don't think people are prepared for the March CPI (Consumer Price Index, i.e. inflation number). 0.62% growth is 4 months of inflation in 1 month.

Why are markets more hawkish than the Fed? The Fed does not take a stand on war length. The markets have expectations. The Fed reacts to data as it comes in; the market assumes what data will come in. In this case, I believe the markets are ‘right’.

A recent paper on housing supply and prices is causing quite a stir, as it suggests that inequality is the driver of high house prices and not just supply. It’s…probably correct. 1/3

Ah - less investor oversight is always better for everyone….

Fraud in venture capital backed startups is a growing problem. Economists have shown that this is due to fall in oversight by investors driven by reduce investor ownership and simply too many investors.

NYC is proposing a new tax for house purchases between $500k to $1mln (currently homes trading above $1mln have a transaction tax). Buyers won't be worse off from this is because house prices will fall to offset the tax. One estimate suggests prices fall by double the tax amount.