Love the first day of class energy. Seeing folks from around the country and the world show up in Ann Arbor to do their best. Incredible wolverine energy. And wherever you are: This is your shot. Be amazing.

Latest episode of "Off the Clock," with @svaneksmith dives into the week that was. What did we hear from Silent Kevin, how can we deal with Angry Canada, is Scott Bravado's heart really in Operation Economic Outcast? Plus, the economics of Dolly Parton.

Silent Kevin's theory: if the Fed stops talking, markets will stop watching the Fed and start watching the economy instead.⁣ ⁣ But.⁣ ⁣ Every loan rate from overnight to 30 years is built on expectations of what the Fed does next. Going quiet doesn't change that math—it just makes the guessing harder.⁣ ⁣

Latest episode of "Off the Clock," with @svaneksmith dives into the week that was. What did we hear from Silent Kevin, how can we deal with Angry Canada, is Scott Bravado's heart really in Operation Economic Outcast? Plus, the economics of Dolly Parton.

Kevin Warsh wants a quieter Fed. But after his speech at Jackson Hole, the expected interest rates jumped.⁣ ⁣ That’s the problem with “saying less.” Markets are listening anyway.⁣ ⁣ If the Fed is going to move markets, clarity beats silence. Read more:

💵 “When the president finds a country he hates and wants to bring down, Iran, he isolates them from the global economy. When the president finds people he loves and wants to support, the U.S. manufacturing sector, he isolates them from the global economy.” Economist Justin Wolfers tells Drop Site’s Ryan Grim that Trump is using the same weapon, economic isolation, while making opposite promises: sanctions will leave Iranians “poor and hungry,” but tariffs will somehow make Americans rich. “That’s literally incoherent on its face,” he says. Watch the full interview on YouTube at the link below. @ryangrim | @JustinWolfers

The history of U.S.–Canada trade is long.⁣ ⁣ It began with the 1854 Reciprocity Treaty.⁣ ⁣ Then came the 1965 Auto Pact, which removed tariffs on many cars and parts and helped create today’s integrated North American auto industry.⁣ ⁣ Then came the 1989 Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement, which phased out most tariffs and expanded rules on investment, energy, and disputes.⁣ ⁣ In 1994, it became NAFTA with Mexico, tying North American supply chains even closer together.⁣ ⁣ NAFTA was replaced in 2020 by USMCA/CUSMA, which kept most free trade but tightened auto rules, added stronger labor standards, updated digital trade rules, and expanded U.S. access to Canada’s dairy market.⁣ ⁣ The two countries still fight over lumber, dairy, steel, aluminum, agriculture, and energy.⁣ ⁣ Despite disputes, we’ve had steadily deeper trade integration.

The scarier story isn't a president firing a commissioner over bad jobs numbers. It's what happened last week, quietly, with no front-page coverage: our statistical agency actually put out a number shaped to please the president.⁣ ⁣ That's not a bad data point. That's the loss of a shared source of truth.

Here’s the statistical problem with the Census Bureau’s 24,000 noncitizen voter claim:⁣ ⁣ When the thing you’re measuring is extremely rare, even tiny matching errors can pollute the well.⁣ ⁣ Bad data work can manufacture a scandal out of noise. More on Substack:

The tariff math is the easy part: prices rise.⁣ ⁣ The bigger cost is trust. Michigan's auto industry works because Canadian parts makers built their future around Detroit. Threaten that relationship long enough, and they start building their next factory near a port instead, ready to sell to Europe.⁣ ⁣ That's not a price shock. That's a permanent loss of preeminence.

For Americans this is a trade war. For Canadians it's existential. Joking about making them the 51st state and saying their consent doesn't matter tends to do that. Good politicians make it easy for the other side to say yes. This made it impossible.

A smoke alarm going off doesn't mean there's a fire. It means there's something worth checking.⁣ ⁣ The Census Bureau's report matched voting records to immigration records and found 24,000 alerts, then called them 24,000 illegal votes. That's not what an alarm tells you. It tells you to go look.

Trump is trying to boost the U.S. economy by making it harder for Americans to trade with the rest of the world. He is also promising to destroy Iran's economy by making it harder for Iranians to trade with the rest of the world.

The President has decided that in order to make ground beef cheaper, he will cut tariffs on ground beef. And I'm wondering if he could generalize from this one product to other products, and perhaps concede that tariffs raise prices on American consumers.