Catherine Rampell
@crampell
Economics editor at The Bulwark. MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) anchor. Previously WaPo op-ed columnist and NYT reporter. Econ, politics, immigration, tax, etc. + occasional theater nerdery.
Six years after the pandemic, weekend subway ridership in New York has recovered to nearly 90% of its 2019 level while weekdays remain stuck near 75% www.apollo.com/insights-new...
Trump has the tariffs thing wrong. we have huge tariffs on canadian lumber. if we reduced them maybe canada would chop down all their trees and sell the wood to us. voila, no more forest fires
Ships transiting Hormuz still way below what they were before the war began
One doc dumped tonight includes tip to FBI that "China had collected private US user data from millions of TikTok accounts, to include name, ID and address” so Chinese govt could make fake drivers’ licenses to request ballots. Problem w/ conspiracy theory: TikTok doesn’t ask for street address
one of the supposedly damning docs the White House released tonight says Russia tried to undermine BIDEN. Also says China "prefers that President Trump be defeated" but actually "Beijing did not intend to try to affect the election" (!)
A BIS analysis argues the AI buildout is outpacing prior infrastructure booms and warns, “The larger the boom, the deeper the eventual bust.” Their model suggests that investment is 50% above the efficient level. www.bis.org/publ/work136...
Only 34% of Jewish adults feel very or somewhat safe as a Jewish person living in the United States today. 21% say they have been verbally harassed or harassed online because of their Jewish background. apnorc.org/projects/mos...
something about this rhetoric sounds familiar... www.nytimes.com/2026/07/08/u...
"American allies have begun pushing the gas pedal on an unprecedented experiment in de-Americanization." www.wsj.com/world/europe...
Even before the “ceasefire” ceased, Bloomberg’s count of tanker crossings showed that traffic was still far below normal and had begun to dwindle again (h/t John Authers)
60% of Americans say Trump is using his office for personal gain, and only 27% say he isn't. yougov.com/en-us/articl...
These are Scott Wiener's policies on Israel, per his campaign website. www.scottwiener.com/foreign-policy
Interesting map of fertility rates by county www.census.gov/library/stor...
I asked Norman Rockwell's granddaughter, Daisy Rockwell, about this use of her grandfather's work. She writes: "It goes without saying that they have completely misunderstood the meaning of the painting, which is tolerance for others and peaceful coexistence."
Reading over old interviews with Greenspan. An amusing bit excerpt from Simon Bowmaker's "When The President Calls":
This is a fun dashboard. Tracks the ongoing consumer burden of the Iran War, as measured by additional aggregate spending on fuel (gasoline/diesel). Current tally is $60.5B iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu
Since January, the entire S&P 500's gains have come from just two corners of the market, AI and energy, while everything else is actually trading at less than where it started www.apollo.com/wealth/the-d...
"Activities such as speeding, walking a dog not on a leash, or fishing without a valid license may now serve as the basis for the government filing a civil denaturalization complaint in federal courts." From new TRAC report on rising denaturalizations. tracreports.org/reports/774/
Newly shortened FOMC statement concludes with assertion that "The Committee will deliver price stability." The Fed's dual mandate is price stability and maximum employment. Guess this means they think we're at full employment?
Most economists surveyed by the FT believe core inflation won't get below the Fed's target rate of 2% until 2028 or later www.ft.com/content/ee4e...
Americans are becoming more reactionary: news.gallup.com/poll/710981/...
Former Fed chair Jay Powell received the Profile in Courage Award at JFK Library yesterday. He defended the Fed's independence and urged respect for rule of law. Should not require courage to say such things. But these days it does www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...
Dallas Fed estimate for how much lower inflation would be without Trump tariffs www.dallasfed.org/research/eco...