The hottest Macroeconomics Substack posts right now

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Top Finance Topics

Economics Links, 1/27/2026

In My Tribe • 258 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. A very large, concentrated holder of Bitcoin could be forced to sell if prices fall to its average cost, and such selling could trigger a damaging price spiral and liquidity crunch.
  2. The biggest long-term drop in women’s unpaid housework came from moving cooking into the market, and physical attractiveness also yields measurable advantages in pay and workplace evaluations.
  3. High and rising public debt could undermine investor confidence and a spike in interest rates might cascade into a broad financial crisis, but rapid GDP gains from transformative technologies could make today’s debt seem trivial even as they disrupt the labor market and reduce participation.

Top Links 974 Silver v. oil. Price wars in China & Beijing's war games. Foucault on the villain's lair.

Chartbook • 557 implied HN points • 06 Jan 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Silver’s price surged in 2025, more than doubling and breaking a 45-year record.
  2. In futures markets a troy ounce of silver is trading at a higher dollar value than a barrel of oil, an unusual inversion of commodity prices.
  3. There are price wars in China and Beijing is conducting war games, signaling rising geopolitical and economic tensions; the discussion also invokes Foucault’s idea of the villain’s lair to frame questions of power and menace.

Unpopular Quick Take

Points And Figures • 453 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. The ten‑year Treasury yield is high largely because demand for debt is strong as the economy expands, not because of runaway inflation.
  2. Corporate capex is rising due to tax incentives like full expensing and big AI investments, which is pushing firms to borrow more and support higher long‑term rates.
  3. Traditional inflation signals and manufacturing are cooling — CPI and commodity prices are down and ISM is in contraction — so growth appears driven by investment and productivity gains rather than broad consumer inflation or big hiring waves.

How Concerning Are the February Jobs Numbers?

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 22 implied HN points • 13 Mar 26
💼 Business Macroeconomics
  1. Slow monthly job gains don’t necessarily mean the labor market is weak — when the economy is at or near full employment and the working‑age population is growing slowly, job growth will naturally be small and more volatile.
  2. The prime‑age employment‑to‑population ratio and other indicators suggest the labor market is near full employment, so current low job creation can be consistent with a tight market rather than a clear downturn.
  3. Some recent job losses (notably in government) can be productivity‑enhancing as workers move to the private sector, while strong growth in health care largely reflects demographic aging and a sectoral rebalancing.

Taiwan's Modern Miracle

Apricitas Economics • 49 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
💼 Business Macroeconomics
  1. A surge in global AI chip demand has driven Taiwan’s fastest economic growth in decades, with exports and manufacturing soaring and GDP rising sharply.
  2. Taiwan now sits at the center of a geopolitical tug-of-war: it’s indispensable as the main producer of advanced semiconductors, while both the US and China try to secure or shift semiconductor supply for strategic reasons.
  3. The boom also brings risks — a two-track economy, currency and energy vulnerabilities, and exposure if AI demand weakens — so Taiwan must stay at the cutting edge of chip tech while managing tense geopolitics and macro policy.
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Do We Want High Home Prices?

MD&A • 138 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Don't reason from a price change: the same price move can mean very different things depending on whether supply or demand shifted. For example, lower prices from more supply help consumers, but lower prices from a recession hurt them.
  2. High housing prices can be good or bad depending on the cause: when they come from supply restrictions like zoning and fees they mostly hurt renters and lock people out, but when they come from higher wages and growth they reflect higher living standards. Developers will build more if prices rise for the right reasons, but supply limits break that feedback and create persistent unaffordability.
  3. Owning a home only partly hedges future housing costs, so paper gains from house-price inflation often offset higher lifetime housing liabilities; amenities raise prices because they're scarce, not because higher prices make them better. Increasing housing supply lets people enjoy amenities without forcing others out.

Top Links 977 Copper, copper, copper. How Americans feel about AI & dumbing down pop.

Chartbook • 457 implied HN points • 09 Jan 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Copper is a major focus, suggesting shifts or stresses in the copper market are driving attention and debate.
  2. Public attitudes toward AI and worries about popular culture getting "dumber" are highlighted, showing cultural and technological anxieties.
  3. Income inequality is reshaping US consumption: the top 20% of households now account for about 39% of all spending and are even more concentrated in certain new categories.

On Crypto Crashes and Fake Money

The Future, Now and Then • 211 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26
🔮 Crypto Macroeconomics
  1. The reported $2 trillion crypto 'loss' mostly reflects falling market prices, not actual dollars moving somewhere else, because many crypto valuations were speculative rather than real wealth.
  2. Speculative tokens masquerading as assets can be used as collateral and tied into the real financial system, so when prices fall they can expose scams and create contagion across lenders and counterparties.
  3. This crash may partly reflect rich backers diverting capital (for example into AI), which reduces buyers-of-last-resort; prolonged low prices could reveal systemic cracks unless big players choose to prop the market back up.

Top Links 975 Real v. digital gold. Bulgarians & the euro. Soldiers as battery carriers & Tolstoy at the beach.

Chartbook • 457 implied HN points • 07 Jan 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Real gold and digital "gold" are different; physical gold has long-standing monetary and cultural weight, while digital versions raise new questions about trust, ownership, and value.
  2. Bulgaria and the euro is a key issue, since adopting the euro involves political, economic, and social trade-offs for the country.
  3. Modern military life mixes technology and human cost—soldiers can be treated like battery carriers—while cultural images like Tolstoy at the beach highlight surprising contrasts between war, technology, and everyday life.

Oil Flips A Shit: First Trade Ideas For Monday

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 29 implied HN points • 09 Mar 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Oil prices jumped into triple digits near $119 after a Middle East escalation, output cuts, and disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, raising the risk of a sudden or prolonged supply shock.
  2. Policymakers are considering releases from strategic petroleum reserves to calm markets, which could blunt the price shock but underscores the seriousness of the global macro risk.
  3. The oil spike is already weighing on global equities and boosting volatility, creating fast-moving trading opportunities but also higher downside risk for markets.

Follow Up to Random Thoughts

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 210 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. The U.S. faces a large housing shortage — at least about 10 million homes and plausibly 12–15 million units — largely because construction fell after 2008 and vacancies have been depleted.
  2. Vacancies are at a functional bottom so new-home production must rise well above current rates to stop rent inflation, and major zoning reforms in supply-constrained (Closed Access) cities are needed to reach the higher end of the required housing.
  3. Per-capita housing consumption and residential investment are well below historical trends — conservatively about 13% below and equivalent to roughly $7 trillion (about 13 years of current investment) — meaning sustained, large-scale building is needed to close the gap.

Top Links 966 Apollo going risk-off. What's up with Belgium. Southern geometries and François Ier's châteaux.

Chartbook • 400 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Apollo Global, with roughly $908bn in assets, is moving to a risk-off stance by building liquidity at insurer Athene—buying tens of billions in U.S. Treasuries and trimming leveraged positions.
  2. Recent developments in Belgium are flagged as a noteworthy topic attracting attention.
  3. Cultural pieces highlight southern geometric art and the châteaux of François I, including imagery like Gunther Gerzso’s 'Southern Queen' (1963).

Top Links 965 Oracle's CapEx shock. The German credit crunch of 2022. Work-related deaths & ŽiŞek "chats" with Kotkin about Stalin.

Chartbook • 386 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Oracle raised its FY26 capital expenditure outlook to $50 billion, a $15 billion increase from the prior guide, signaling much larger infrastructure spending.
  2. The German credit crunch of 2022 is highlighted as a significant financial event worth revisiting.
  3. The roundup also flags work-related deaths and a conversation where ŽiŞek chats with Kotkin about Stalin, linking labor-safety issues with political and cultural debate.

📈 The most underrated trend of the 2020s

Faster, Please! • 365 implied HN points • 06 Jan 26
💼 Business Macroeconomics
  1. U.S. productivity, which was slow in the 2010s, has quietly sped up since 2020.
  2. Output per hour rose at roughly 2% annualized from 2020 to mid‑2025 compared with about 1.5% from 2007–2019, showing a clear improvement.
  3. That improvement undercuts the Great Stagnation story and points to growing productivity momentum even before AI fully changes work.

Top Links 959 Dodgy numbers. Black unemployment. Varoufakis fake. Embracing decline.

Chartbook • 400 implied HN points • 22 Dec 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. America’s official inflation numbers look dodgy and probably understate actual price pressures, so they need closer scrutiny.
  2. High Black unemployment is highlighted as a major ongoing economic and social problem that demands attention.
  3. There are claims that figures like Varoufakis are inauthentic, and a broader theme warns that some people or institutions are calmly embracing economic decline rather than resisting it.

“We Are Not as Wealthy as We Thought We Were”

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 505 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Much of the $58 trillion in U.S. residential real estate value reflects higher prices on existing homes caused by constrained supply, so it is rent extraction rather than new wealth from better housing.
  2. New home construction has lagged, reversing the old "filtering down" process so older homes now "filter up," raising rents and lowering real incomes—especially for lower-income families.
  3. Official household net worth is overstated because future rent gains are counted as assets while the costs to tenants are not counted as liabilities, meaning measured wealth rose without improving living standards.

🤖👴 AI vs. age: The great offset

Faster, Please! • 548 implied HN points • 09 Dec 25
💼 Business Macroeconomics
  1. Many people expect AI to cause a huge economic boom and rapid change across society.
  2. A JPMorgan analysis suggests aging populations will subtract from growth roughly as much as AI can add, so the two forces could cancel each other out.
  3. That means AI might mainly keep economies from shrinking rather than spark a new golden age. So investors and policymakers should temper overly rosy expectations.

“We Are Not as Wealthy as We Thought We Were”: Part 2

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 421 implied HN points • 22 Dec 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Home prices jumped far above their long-term trend even though residential investment and real housing consumption fell, meaning the housing stock didn’t improve while market values rose.
  2. Rising rents drove much of the value increase — rent inflation has outpaced overall prices and a 1% rise in rent is associated with about a 1.68% rise in price/income, in part because land trades at higher price/rent multiples than structures.
  3. Because real investment in homes has declined, families pay more for housing, and if demand-side forces are blamed for higher prices that necessarily implies very tight supply; historically, large federal homeownership programs raised ownership without inflating values when they boosted housing supply.

Economics Links, 12/13/2025

In My Tribe • 318 implied HN points • 13 Dec 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Defined-benefit pension plans share risk and promise steady payouts, but claims of higher returns often rely on risky investments and create incentives that lead to underfunding and bailouts. 401(k)s put responsibility on individuals to make good investment choices.
  2. Modern institutions keep creating more HR, compliance, DEI, and management roles to prevent mistakes and reduce risk, which explains much recent job growth in administrative positions. This expansion may be concentrated in nonprofits and health care, producing many paper-pushing jobs.
  3. Trade with China changes the mix of what gets produced but is not inherently zero-sum, since domestic productivity and policy can offset demand shifts. Meanwhile, zero-sum thinking strongly shapes political views—encouraging support for redistribution, identity-based policies, and restrictive immigration—and often reflects personal or ancestral experiences.

Top Links 958 Burned-out doctors. UK deconvergence. The kola trade & "Good tank farms".

Chartbook • 286 implied HN points • 21 Dec 25
🌐 International Macroeconomics
  1. A large international survey found high levels of physician burnout, with 43% of American doctors reporting they feel burned out.
  2. The roundup brings together diverse geopolitical and economic topics—like UK deconvergence, the kola trade, and industrial "tank farms"—alongside striking images and historical material.
  3. The content is a curated, subscription-supported collection that mixes free and paid posts to fund its continued publication.

Lessons for Debt Control from Clinton's Success in the 1990s

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 222 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. When fiscal consolidation is credible and the central bank supports demand while technology cuts the price of capital, private investment can be crowded in and overall growth can accelerate.
  2. The 1994 bond-market selloff reflected unexpectedly strong tech-led growth and mortgage-backed‑security duration effects, not a market fear that deficit cuts would wreck the recovery.
  3. The 1993 deficit‑reduction package paired tax increases with spending caps and expanded the EITC, which helped working families and long‑run growth, while much of the political opposition was partisan theater rather than a unanimous professional economic judgment.

The Fed Is Adding $20B A Month To The Balance Sheet

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 22 implied HN points • 03 Mar 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. The Fed quietly restarted QE and is adding roughly $20 billion a month to its balance sheet, which is already about $6.6 trillion and could balloon much higher in the next crisis.
  2. Most Fed purchases have been in short-term debt, which has pushed short rates down and steepened the yield curve. The Fed has been losing money and isn’t remitting profits to the Treasury, leaving a large deferred loss.
  3. Foreign buyers have helped absorb new Treasury issuance but their buying has flattened recently, so if the Fed won’t buy long-term bonds and foreign demand stalls, Treasury borrowing costs could spike and further strain the budget.

Do Homebuilders have an inventory problem?

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 84 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Months-of-supply is a misleading metric because it mainly rises when sales fall, so it often just mirrors the sales trend rather than showing true excess inventory.
  2. Builders generally start homes in step with sales, so absolute unsold units haven’t exploded the way the months-of-supply chart suggests, meaning current measures don’t automatically imply dangerous overbuilding.
  3. Policymakers have misread this signal before and worsened downturns, and today the same misinterpretation may be pushing homebuilder stock prices down and could present a buying opportunity.

Economics Links, 12/19/2025

In My Tribe • 227 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Annuities give guaranteed lifetime income by shifting market and longevity risk to insurers, but they also mean your heirs won't inherit those assets and many people dislike losing control. Inflation protection is crucial because fixed nominal payouts can leave retirees worse off.
  2. A large part of residential real estate value may be rent extraction from limits on new construction rather than true productive wealth. Still, location-specific advantages like access to jobs and amenities also create genuine value beyond supply constraints.
  3. GDP isn't a perfect measure of wellbeing, but it reliably captures economic development by measuring market transactions, specialization, and trade. Economic growth as measured by GDP often lays the foundation for progress on other social and wellbeing goals.

Still Not Out Of The Woods

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 25 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Wholesale inflation accelerated in January — core PPI jumped 0.8% for the month and is running around 3.6% year-over-year, well above the Fed’s 2% goal.
  2. The hotter PPI contrasts with a softer CPI, and that tension matters because rising producer prices can filter through to consumer prices over time.
  3. It’s premature to declare victory over inflation — the PPI data suggest inflation risks remain and policymakers should stay cautious.

Liu Shijin urges RMB internationalisation to boost consumption, balance trade

Pekingnology • 75 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. China needs to boost domestic consumption to fix a demand shortfall, focusing especially on services and basic public services and raising incomes for rural and low‑income groups.
  2. The growth model should shift from investment/export‑led expansion to one driven by innovation and consumption, using ‘terminal demand’ to guide effective investment and letting inefficient capacity exit.
  3. Accelerating RMB internationalisation—by expanding the offshore RMB pool through RMB‑settled imports, making RMB settlement a market‑access condition, and developing offshore RMB financial products—can strengthen the currency’s global role and support domestic consumption growth.

CROSSPOST: JOSH BARRO: Good Things Are Good

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 15 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
💼 Business Macroeconomics
  1. The idea that AI-driven productivity will cause a 2028 market crash is implausible because it doesn't show how rising productivity would suddenly collapse demand.
  2. Large productivity gains that raise most people's real incomes are more likely to boost consumption than push the economy into a liquidity trap.
  3. It's reasonable to worry about real risks from AI, but 'too much productivity growth' isn't one of them — turning good news into a macroeconomic disaster is a rhetorical trick.

We don't need to just make up fantasy stories

Economic Forces • 21 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
💼 Business Macroeconomics
  1. GDP accounting means output turned into income never just disappears; if automation shifts income from workers to capital owners, that money gets spent or saved and fuels other parts of the economy.
  2. Prices provide a natural brake: cheaper AI-driven supply pushes prices down, which tends to raise demand or shift consumption and prevents an endless negative spiral unless a specific blocking mechanism exists.
  3. You can’t extrapolate from a few firms to the whole economy — comparative advantage and new consumer demand lead people and firms to reallocate into new roles, so automation changes jobs and wages but doesn’t automatically cause total collapse.

Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 1.4% year-over-year in November

CalculatedRisk Newsletter • 71 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. U.S. house prices rose modestly year-over-year — the Case-Shiller national index was up about 1.4% and the FHFA index about 1.9% — but inflation outpaced those gains so real home values fell.
  2. There is a sharp regional split: Midwestern and Northeastern markets led gains (Chicago +5.7%, New York +5.0%), while several Sun Belt cities showed year-over-year declines (Tampa −3.9%, Phoenix −1.4%, Dallas −1.4%, Miami −1.0%).
  3. Monthly data show small positive momentum after earlier declines — Case-Shiller rose about 0.4% month-to-month (seasonally adjusted) and FHFA rose about 0.6% — yet overall price momentum remains muted and many metros saw monthly drops before seasonal adjustment.

Slick Landing

Doomberg • 8377 implied HN points • 06 Jan 24
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. In 2022, the US economy was expected to fall into a deep recession, but it didn't.
  2. Despite doubts, the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes had a positive impact on the economy.
  3. Forecasts for the US economy are challenging, and unexpected outcomes provide unique learning opportunities.

Why Boom-Bust Cycles Validate Austrian Economics

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 25 implied HN points • 21 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Artificially low interest rates from central bank credit expansion lure entrepreneurs into projects that look profitable but aren’t supported by real consumer preferences, creating a boom that later collapses when policy tightens.
  2. Even if businesses correctly anticipate rate moves, changes in the money supply divert resources into non‑wealth‑generating activities, and variable, unpredictable time lags make it impossible to reliably time or avoid those distortions.
  3. Because firms must chase observable demand or risk failure, the harm from expansionary monetary policy becomes self‑reinforcing and cannot simply be undone by better expectations, so boom‑bust cycles persist.

Some thoughts on the crypto market dump

SP-AND-EX • 33 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26
🔮 Crypto Macroeconomics
  1. Speculation in crypto has decoupled from real blockchain value, turning many projects into pump-and-dump plays and driving widespread cynicism that reduced meaningful investment.
  2. Crypto’s growing partisan alignment damaged its appeal as a neutral store-of-value, pushing investors toward traditional hedges like gold and increasing the likelihood of regulatory backlash.
  3. Outside forces drained speculative capital from crypto: legalized sports betting and AI hype diverted gamblers and investors, and the weakening of the yen carry trade removed cheap funding that had supported high-risk crypto bets.

The current high value of residential investment

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 210 implied HN points • 08 Dec 25
💼 Business Macroeconomics
  1. A long shortfall in residential construction since the mid-2000s has left roughly a 15 million‑home gap and driven net residential investment down from a sustainable ~2% of GDP to about 0.6%, creating a cumulative $7 trillion deficit.
  2. That shortage has inflated land rents across many cities, acting as a regressive transfer from renters and new buyers to existing owners and raising nominal GDP and inflation without raising real GDP.
  3. Building many more homes—especially rental and 'missing middle' units bought by investors—would replace land rents with structure rents, lower housing costs over time, and shift wealth away from landowners toward renters and new homeowners.

What Causes Stagflation?

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 19 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Increasing the money supply creates an “exchange of nothing for something” that shifts resources away from producers, which raises prices while weakening real economic growth — this combination is stagflation.
  2. Unexpected boosts in money growth can temporarily cut unemployment and raise output, but once people expect higher inflation they change their behavior and the growth gains vanish, leaving only higher inflation.
  3. The severity and visibility of stagflation depends on private savings: falling savings make weaker growth and higher unemployment clear, while rising savings can mask weak growth even as prices climb.

Let's Look At Data

Points And Figures • 746 implied HN points • 31 Jul 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. The Fed is politically influenced, as seen in their recent decision to keep interest rates unchanged, despite some members wanting to lower them.
  2. Recent PCE data indicates inflation is rising, which might justify keeping rates steady even in light of other pressures for cuts.
  3. Changes in tariffs are likened to taxes that can slow down the economy, and the current money supply suggests potential recession signs, complicating the decision on whether to ease rates.

The Economic Legacy of DOGE

Apricitas Economics • 68 implied HN points • 20 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Macroeconomics
  1. DOGE produced the largest peacetime cut to the federal workforce in modern US history, cutting about 277,000 jobs (over 9%) and hitting civilian agencies hardest with big reductions at the IRS, VA health system, and USAID.
  2. Despite the massive layoffs, DOGE failed to deliver the promised big budget savings or deficit reduction—total federal spending actually rose and the alleged widespread fraud in major programs was not found.
  3. The layoffs caused real economic harm: Washington, DC fell into a localized recession, federal job losses spread across every state, many former federal workers remain unemployed, and cuts to science, health, and international aid risk longer-term damage to growth.

So...Is The Gold Boom Over?

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 32 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Foreign central banks sharply increased gold purchases starting in 2022 to diversify reserves away from the U.S. dollar, and that central-bank demand was a major reason gold rose so much.
  2. In 2025 individual investors piled into gold and helped send prices parabolic, but a hawkish Fed nominee and rate worries triggered a fast, large sell-off.
  3. The core story — countries wanting less dollar exposure — remains intact. Short-term drops may be temporary and more central-bank diversification could keep upward pressure on gold over the long run.

"Absolute Train Wreck": US Adds $481 Billion In Debt In 3 Months

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 31 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. The government has sharply increased borrowing, adding hundreds of billions in a few months and sustaining a new norm of over $2 trillion per year; at that pace the debt could grow by about $10 trillion every four years.
  2. Annual interest payments have topped $1 trillion and are set to rise, driven by large amounts of notes (2–10 year maturities) and a shorter average debt maturity that forces more frequent rollovers.
  3. This combination of rising debt and interest costs looks fiscally unsustainable and could force the Fed or Treasury into interventions that would weaken confidence and strain markets.

The Silver Market Just Nuked The Narrative

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 106 implied HN points • 27 Dec 25
💰 Finance Macroeconomics
  1. Silver's sudden, violent price surge is a clear signal that problems in the monetary system are showing up in markets, and it's more a systemic warning than a one-off trade.
  2. A rare convergence of falling real yields, Fed-cut expectations, central bank gold buying, new institutional demand, thin physical supply, and speculative derivatives created a squeeze that amplified the move.
  3. Precious metals are acting as an honest barometer of eroding confidence in fiat and central planning, implying a regime change driven by decades of loose monetary policy and rising deficits.