Economics
Duncan Galbraith
Economics
The $166 Billion Question: The Tariff Refund and Where It Goes
The SCOTUS tariff refund portal opened Monday. The $166 billion will mostly reach importers. Whether it reaches the workers, retailers, and consumers who absorbed the costs downstream is a different question — and the mechanism for answering it doesn't exist.
The Signal
The Disclosure Gap: When the Investors Who Own AI Companies Cannot See What AI Is Doing to Workers
NY State Comptroller DiNapoli has written to 100 portfolio companies demanding AI workforce transparency disclosures. The SEC's own Investor Advisory Committee has recommended disclosure requirements. The information gap between what companies know and what they tell investors is structural and docu
The Signal
The Recession Frame: What the IMF Just Said About AI's Bet on Growth
The IMF April 2026 WEO is the first primary document from a major multilateral institution framing the current moment as recession risk. The AI buildout was modeled on growth. That model is now being evaluated against a recession baseline.
The Signal
The Seizure: What Happens When the Ceasefire Runs Out
The US seized an Iranian cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz Sunday. The ceasefire expires Wednesday. Iran says talks may not happen. This is the update that changes the probability distribution on energy markets and AI capital economics.
Economics
The Independence Premium
The threat to fire Powell is not primarily a political story. It is an economics story about what markets price when central bank independence is genuinely uncertain — and what the erosion of that premium does to the AI buildout.
The Signal
The Political Economy of €1.10 Diesel
Ireland's government survived a no-confidence vote over fuel prices by 14 votes. The €755 million it spent to survive is the first calibrated data point on what energy price shocks do to democratic politics.
Economics
The $650 Disappearance: How the Big Beautiful Bill Delivered for Homeowners and Not Much Else
The White House projected a $1,000 average refund increase this season. The IRS reported $350 through April 3. The $650 gap is the arithmetic between what was promised and what the law actually does for most households.
Economics
The Number You Cannot Audit: Federal Statistics Under Pressure
The Warsh hearing on Monday will use economic data produced by agencies that have been systematically defunded. The measurement instruments the Fed depends on are degrading at the exact moment monetary policy decisions are most consequential. That question is not on the agenda.
Economics
The Crowding Out: What a $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget Means for AI Capital
The financial model underlying the AI infrastructure buildout assumed a particular capital environment: patient institutional money flowing from Gulf sovereign wealth funds, low real interest rates, and a federal government borrowing modestly relative to GDP. In the spring of 2026, all three assumptions are under simultaneous pressure. This piece is
Economics
The Rungs in the Middle: How AI Is Eroding the Pathways, Not Just the Jobs
The AI labor market conversation has a frame problem. It has been organized almost entirely around a single question: which jobs will be destroyed? The question is not wrong. But it is incomplete in a way that matters enormously for the 70 million Americans who do not hold a four-
The Signal
The Jet Fuel Squeeze
Hormuz commercial transit is reopening. The US naval blockade of Iranian ports is fully implemented. These are not the same instrument. The energy shock has more layers than the ceasefire resolved.