Justin Wolfers
Econ professor at Michigan ● Senior fellow, Brookings and PIIE ● Intro econ textbook author ● Think Like An Economist podcast ● An economist willing to admit that the glass really is half full.
- "it feels like things are moving in the right direction. The biggest problem here is that the half life of a Trump trade policy seems to be about one Scaramucci."
- Quick reactions to the temporary China tariff cuts: 1. Short run: This is unambiguously good news 2. Medium run: The half life of a tariff announcement from the White House is around 6-8 days.
- Important news from US-China trade talks: 1. The US will cut the rate at which it taxes Americans who buy stuff from China, to 30% 2. China will cut the rate at which it taxes Chinese folks who buy stuff from the US, to 10%. It's another Ross and Rachel moment: A 90-day pause.
- Funny aside: At this point the US and China are still yet to agree on who called who to suggest they talk in Geneva.
- Trump's 2025 tariffs are many times larger, and many many times more economically damaging than his 2018 tariff binge. The two episodes just aren't comparable.
- I had never noticed and now this is all I can think about.
- Dig into the underlying economics of the federal government, and it becomes clear why DOGE has turned out to be such a disappointing failure.
- I've never felt more like an English major than when I described the Doll Discourse as a metaphor. (I didn't get good grades in my high school English classes.) But I felt comfortable because it's a metaphor for a very economic idea: Tariffs mean we're all going to get by with less.
- They're going to be teaching this tariff episode in public policy schools for generations, and it's not as an example of precise planning and implementation.
- New Trump Administration guidance: Regulations should be based on cost-benefit analysis, but make sure not to count all the costs. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/c... (gift article)
