The statistical methods used to measure economic performance were invented and developed by economists, giving them authority in defining success metrics for their own discipline

Political incentives of forecast-makers rather than fundamental intellectual failure of the economics discipline explain why many economists missed the 2021 inflation forecast that Summers got right

Trade is a self-imposed supply shock—tariffs make all the things we buy more expensive, raising the price level, which makes people poorer, reduces demand, and increases unemployment by combining inflation and unemployment effects

China is raising quality of life for a billion people and may not pose a threat; hedging against Chinese hegemony without provoking them back into hegemonic buildup is the genuine strategic dilemma

Low-price Chinese imports benefit U.S. consumers by providing cheaper goods and technologies (solar panels, batteries), similar to how technological innovations like fluoridated water harmed dentists but benefited society overall

When a country has done terrible things, there are only three options: (1) do nothing, (2) economic sanctions, or (3) military action; given these are the only choices, sanctions are often chosen despite not being optimal

Forecasts are inherently probabilistic, so if an economist says a recession is more likely than not but it doesn't occur, this is not a hugely consequential error since they weren't claiming certainty

Other social science disciplines (political science, sociology) are increasingly importing techniques and approaches from economics rather than the reverse, indicating economics' intellectual dominance among social sciences

The virtue of explicit quantitative models over implicit subjective models is that when they go wrong, you can see they've gone wrong and fix them, whereas implicit models conceal their failures

A problem at the Federal Reserve is that people doing the same job for 15-20 years become attached to how they've done things before and fail to update methods to reflect how the world has changed

Many economists are too complacent about current models, but the right conclusion is not that the discipline is in decline but rather that there is room for improvement within economics

Even from a protectionist perspective seeking to create domestic employment, tariffing steel and aluminum is poorly designed because 60 times as many workers are employed using those materials as produce them, so tariffs primarily harm downstream users

Tariff uncertainty induces businesses to delay purchasing and investment decisions, amplifying the economic damage beyond what the tariffs themselves would cause by creating option value in waiting

China has engaged in unfair competition practices including subsidies, dumping, and gaming the free trade system for nearly 25 years since joining the WTO

Predatory pricing—where firms sell at low prices to drive competitors out then raise prices—has almost no documented examples in the entire history of economics

If Chinese prices are jacked up after driving competitors out, U.S. producers could re-enter the market, preventing monopoly extraction because there are multiple sources of most imports

The U.S. cannot indefinitely run fiscal deficits above 6% of GDP without eventually facing real trouble; when spending on interest payments exceeds defense spending, a great power almost certainly has a problem coming

Even firing every federal employee would only reduce the deficit from 6% to 5.4% of GDP, proving that cost-cutting in government employment is not a large-scale solution to deficit problems

Approximately half the federal budget is spending on the aged and another sixth is spending on interest payments, leaving little flexibility for other spending

Over the next 10 years, $8 trillion in taxes that are legally owed will go unpaid, representing a massive enforcement gap