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…
Speaking of lower prices:
https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/a-billion-barrel-oil-glut-is-forming-at-sea-02be162d
The point of the article is that the volume of petroleum in tankers is huge right now, and likely to depress prices in 2026. The writer’s effort to provide background is brief but comprehensive – useful stuff. One point that could have been addressed, but wasn’t, is whether there is any remaining tanker capacity to absorb oil. If (when?) we run out of inventory capacity, production will have to be curtailed. That’s bad for wells, among other things. The writer does mention the period of negative WTI prices in 2022 when inventories were full.
There is a hint in the article that sanctioned oil may absorb much of the damage from the glut in 2026. We should be negotiating to assure that happens – Russia, not Venezuela.
We are currently at prices where our fraction operations can barely break even. Any lower and it will be 2022 again.
Happy New Year!
One possible “customer” for the excess oil: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M_EP00_SAS_NUS_MBBL&f=M
The Biden Administration drew down reserves by almost half of what they were when his administration began. Although there has been a slow rebuilding of the inventory, there is still plenty of storage capacity to absorb the oil, and a good opportunity to do so especially if it happens to be relatively cheap.
Nice try Joey Tribbiani but……
“All $16.95B in emergency revenue made from the 2022 sale was used to secure these barrels, except for the $2.05B that was rescinded by Congress for deficit offset. Additionally, DOE accelerated approximately 5 million barrels in exchange returns, to further support the SPR refill and ensure all available windows for efficient replenishment were taken advantage of – helping to increase volumes in preparation for future emergency needs for replenishment. This milestone underscores the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to safeguard and replenish this critical energy security asset. This with a robust three-part strategy first announced in early 2023.
This unprecedented replenishment follows the historic release from the SPR to address the significant global supply disruption caused by Putin’s war on Ukraine and help keep the domestic market well supplied, ultimately helping to bring down prices for American consumers and businesses. Analysis from the Department of the Treasury
indicates that SPR releases in 2022, along with coordinated releases from international partners, reduced gasoline prices by as much as 40 cents per gallon.”
https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-makes-final-purchase-strategic-petroleum-reserve-secures-200
You’re just not a big fan of reading are you Joey??
When we initially began these emergency reserves, the absurd high expense to have them were justified by the fact that we would be in deep shit if war cut off our foreign supply of oil (from the middle east). Why would we have an oil reserve now when we are actually net exporting. Explain the emergency that would justify this expense.
WITHOUT cheating and googling it, how many people in here would believe me if I told you that Kevin Hassett and Jared Bernstein wrote a policy paper together??
[ Starts final jeopardy background tune ]
Oh, god, the pressure!
Not me, that’s for sure.
Really? You’re not just making this up to mess up my mind?
I’ll raise you Kevin Hassett and Dean Baker.
Strange times.
TACO Thursday:
“Trump Delays New Tariff Hike on Furniture, Kitchen Cabinets”
https://archive.is/U3YmY#selection-1163.0-1163.59
He’s shown Putin how it’s done, I guess. Who gets the oil now?:
https://nypost.com/2026/01/03/world-news/trump-says-us-will-now-take-over-running-venezuela-after-nicolas-maduro-was-captured-in-the-dead-of-night/
Is there actual evidence that U.S. forces are in control of Venezuela’s government? Have we so far done more than bomb and kidnap?
I’m starting to wonder whether most of what the felon-in-chief said during his press conference is a fantasy. The oil. The billions U.S. rule. It’s early, but so far there are no signs we’re in chatge.
Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island: “No serious plan has been presented for how such an extraordinary undertaking would work or what it will cost the American people. History offers no shortage of warnings about the costs – human, strategic, and moral – of assuming we can govern another nation by force.”
The felon-in-chief claims U.S. citizens held in Venezuela are safe because he’s soooo scary. Not because we know where they are or because we’ve done anything to assure their safety. The felon is just makin’ stuff up.
I can’t find any reporting from Venezuela other than what’s drawn from TV and radio broadcasts, which can be picked up from outside Venezuela, and those reports are government approved. We didn’t take the TV and radio stations, but we’re in control?
No U.S. generals briefing in public on the action. No detail. How is the U.S. ‘taking over Venezuela”?
Did we just kill a bunch of people and kidnap the Maduros so the felon could keep himself in the headlines? Keep the Epstein files, poor public approval, loss of health insurance, weak job growth out of the headlines now that the press is coming out of holiday mode?
I’m gonna say “yes”, until there is ant evidence to the contrary. Other than bombing and kidnapping, we’ve done nothing. Venezuela will be in greater turmoil, so that regime change is more likely, but we aren’t in control.
Colin Powell’s rules are not in force. This is Calvin Ball, played by war criminals.
The felon-in-chief repeated his “we gonna get that oil!” excuse for bombing Venezuela, saying U.S. oil companies will jump in and start cranking out oodles of money. Last time I checked, U.S. oil majors weren’t interested:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/17/trump-oil-venezuela-return-00695292
Oil development could be a catalyst for settling things down in Venezuela (though that’s contrary to many historical examples), but that can’t happen if the majors aren’t interested; oil industry development is a massive, decades-long proposition. Small fry can play, but they can’t transform Venezuela’s oil industry.
So the whole “we’re gonna run Venezuela like we did Iraq” story seems about right, if we end up running Venezuela. So far, though, we’re only likely to run Venezuela if some local generals take over and give it to us. Hasn’t happened yet. And it still isn’t likely to attract oil majors. Prices and politics are wrong for big oil investment.
During his press conference, the felon-in-chief suggested that Venezuela will be dealt with the way Iraq was after the second Iraq war – the U.S. will install another Bremer, who will see pumping oil as his top priority.
Heck, Bremer is still around, so maybe he can do it.
So the Department of War invaded Venezuela from the Gulf of America.
Soon to be renamed Trump-ezuela.
if maduro is such a bad guy (and he is), why is he still alive? why do 15 or so of his security team get executed without a trial, while maduro and his wife are still alive in New York? I am not defending maduro by any stretch. but what is the point of killing soldiers (some were still military cadets) and leaving the real criminal alive? and if we are in the. business of kidnapping dictators, there are a few around the world (Putin for example) that should have a similar game plan. this smells of bully behavior more than good intentions.
and exactly what oil field experts are now lining up to rebuild the infrastructure in what appears to be a Wild West Venezuela? are we going to have a draft of engineers and business people to go work in a kidnapping zone? this does not seem to be well thought out at all.