Alan

Oil prices surging again today, WTI crude oil up $4.75/bbl another 7%, with RBOB gasoline up 5.2%, national average likely now to head closer to $3.30/gal and beyond over next few weeks

#EconSky

Will the most servile law firms finally regret their obeissance?

#EconSky
(Updated.)

This is not just cosplay because ...

#EconSky

Just a reminder: Bitcoin fundamentals price it at zero.

Only speculative and criminal uses are sustaining it.

The figure documents a sizeable raw wage gap between workers who work from home and those who do not. As shown in the first bar, on average, the hourly wages of WFH workers are 35% higher than those of on-site workers. Once the authors look within occupation, education, and location, the wage premium associated with WFH shrinks substantially, to about 12% (second bar in the figure). Controlling further for other observable worker characteristics – such as age, gender, and job tenure – reduces the wage premium to 6.6% (third bar in the figure). Studies have found that workers typically value the option to work from home and are willing to accept sizable wage cuts in exchange for it, yet a growing literature finds that workers who work from home earn on average higher wages than workers who do not. This column combines French survey data, registry records, and social security records to show that the main driver of this work-from-home wage premium is selection. Workers who are more productive, or have better negotiation skills, appear able to get both higher hourly wages and the right to work from home more often.

Huiyu Li, Julien Sauvagnat, & Tom Schmitz show that the main driver of the work-from-home wage premium is selection. More productive workers with better negotiation skills are more able to get both higher wages and the right to work from home more often.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

Live updates: Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s sweeping tariffs in 6-3 decision The Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump's far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a significant loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda.

I'm surprised by even this modicum of independence, but I'm celebrating.
apnews.com/live/supreme...

JUST IN: Judge Provinzino in Minnesota has held a Justice Department attorney in civil contempt for violations of her order requiring the return of a released ICE detainee’s ID documents. He must pay $500 a day until the documents are returned.

Maybe turn to someone else in order to understand a paper written by actual economists?
www.vox.com/2020/5/8/212...

Only reality TV matters in Trumpland. Not reality.

Seeing an amazing emergent behavior where a document review agent finds internal wiki pages about the struggles of getting LLMs to understand our esoteric internal systems. The agent then decides its won’t be able to do the current task and aborts with a depressive note about its incompetence.

Censorship from the top can be fought on the Internet.

I worry more about the gap.

Profitable corporations employ people. Unprofitable corporations go bust and leave their workers without jobs. The statutory federal tax rate on corporate profits is 21%. These profits are again taxed as income when distributed as dividends or realized as capital gains.

i know they are going to be our overlords soon etc but why are Claude's business mistakes SOO CUTE? don't send ur money to a venmo u hallucinated, you sweet silly baby!! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

#EconSky
Your occasional reminder of the magnitude of the US fiscal deficits. (Source: Monthly Treasury Statement)

US.Activity.RetailSalesqq.png

Advance Retail Sales flat in Dec 2025, after increasing by 0.6% in Nov 2025. Key components shown in the charts #USCensus #RetailTherapy #econsky

#EconSky

#EconSky

You may recall that in January of 2025, artist Ann Telnaes announced that she had quit The Washington Post after editors killed a cartoon that depicted owner Jeff Bezos, among others, genuflecting to Trump.

This cartoon feels even more relevant this week.

Worth noting that this response actually concedes that what Pritzker said is true.

By the way, for those of you not in MN: Homan’s strategy was to withdraw some agents, so it felt like we were in the denouement of the crisis, and then escalate hard against observers. They’re being incredibly aggressive with observers now. National media may not want to check out just yet

Decisions about what tasks can be morally delegated to machines.

The Perils of Using AI to Replace Entry-Level Jobs AI is reshaping work, but eliminating entry-level jobs is short-sighted. These roles are crucial for developing future leaders, fostering innovation, enriching organizational culture, and protecting s...

hbr.org/2025/09/the-...

Oh, and a related question, how do you keep Claude away from any sensitive data like student records or PII that you might have on your computer? Is that even possible? (They already stole all of my husband’s books to train this thing, I don’t need them stealing anything else for me.)

It's about to get easier for Trump to fire federal workers Since his first term, President Trump has wanted to be able to fire federal employees for any reason. A new rule vastly expands his authority to do that.

Bad news for democracy and for evidence-based science policy.
www.npr.org/2026/02/06/n...

Orwell was a prophet.

Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell Somewhat devastating news today from the CIA: One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. There's not even a hint as to why they …

The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!

This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...

New Mexico Senate approves bill to ban ICE detention centers The New Mexico Legislature approved the Immigration Safety Act. House bill 9 bars the state from allowing ICE detention centers.

This is another effort that has taken a HUGE amount of local activism, led by community folks who care.

It CAN be done. Get involved where you live and push back.

www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/i...