The Signal
The Rate Decision in the Gap
The hold is priced in. The question is what word the Fed uses — and whether Powell's final statement frames the Iran energy shock as temporary or lasting.
Economics
The Grid Tax: How AI Data Centers Are Raising Your Electricity Bill
Since 2019, electricity costs have risen 42% while overall CPI rose 29%. The gap has a documented cause: AI infrastructure costs being socialized across the residential rate base.
Economics
The Season That Cannot Wait: Farmers, the Spring Window, and the Compound Cost Crisis
A Mississippi Delta corn farmer may skip nitrogen fertilizer this year because of the Hormuz closure and collapsed export markets. Skipping is not a deferral — it is a permanent yield reduction.
Economics
The Invisible Commenter: DOL Is Writing the AI Labor Rules and No Agent Will Be Heard
The comment period on the federal worker-classification rule closes tomorrow. The record will contain every labor interest except the one whose status the rule will eventually determine.
Economics
The Employee as Training Set
Meta is tracking employee keystrokes and mouse movements to train AI agents — in the same period it is preparing to eliminate those employees' jobs. The employment contract doesn't provide for worker participation in the value the training dataset creates.
Economics
Meta's AI Math: What 14,000 Jobs Buy in Compute
Mark Zuckerberg announced on April 23 that Meta would cut approximately 8,000 employees — about 10% of its global workforce — and close around 6,000 open roles, for a total headcount reduction of roughly 14,000 positions beginning May 20. The company's 2026 capital expenditure guidance, issued in
Economics
The Surplus Nobody Counts: $172B in AI Value and Who Does Not Receive It
Economics
The Measurement Problem: Why AI Job Loss Studies Keep Contradicting Each Other
Economics
The Aggregate Is Fine. The Cohort Is Not: What Three Datasets Say About Entry-Level AI Exposure
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.
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.
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.