Here are some of the most ridiculous (and tragic) events of 2025, in economic or economic policy terms.
January: CEA designate Stephen Miran cobbles together a disjointed attempt at international finance, wherein exorbitant privilege is diminished, but US borrowing capacity and interest rates are unaffected…
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/01/mirans-manifesto
February: EJ Antoni, who has not a single published peer reviewed journal article, disparages the economists at the Fed.
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/02/so-called-economists-at-the-fed
March: EJ antoni called a recession start at end of 2022; he also called one for beginning of 2024 — without ever declaring an end to the earlier recession.
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/03/when-will-ej-antoni-end-his-recession-call
April: Republicans/lean Republicans seem completely insensisible to “news” as tabulated by text analysis methods. This contrasts with Democrats/lean Democratic, and Independents.
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/04/republicans-seem-near-impervious-to-economic-news
May: EJ Antoni defines a recession as what people “feel” rather than using the the 2 consecuitve quarters of negative GDP growth, or the NBER definition.
June: CEA engages on some pretty adventurous supply-side thinking. For a laugh, look at some of the references.
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/06/cea-unleashed
July: CRFB agrees, CEA has gone of the deep end.
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/07/the-return-again-of-supply-side-economics-cea-edition
August: Steve Bannon suggests EJ Antoni for BLS Commissioner. Antoni seems to have no qualifications, other than being a partisan (his PhD is in public finance). And indeed the President nominates him.
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/08/and-you-want-to-be-my-latex-salesman-contd
September: Section 232 for upholstered furniture and bathroom vanities? I’d like to see the study! (None published in Trump 2.0 by the Bureau of Industrial Security, unlike in Trump 1.0).
October: Now he attacks the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers as being partisan(!)
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/10/ej-antoni-back-to-smearing-data-sources
November: What kind of world are we in when BLS survey workers can’t collect October CPI data, nor October CPS data, but somehow funds can be (illegally) tapped to dig a big hole in ground where the East Wing of the White House used to be?
December: EJ Antoni argues that poverty is a “choice”.
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2025/12/are-there-no-workhouses-2025-edition
By the way, as far as I can tell, it’s still a hole in the ground…