About this episode
This is the strangest economy I’ve seen in my lifetime. If you just looked at the macro data — the jobs numbers, G.D.P., the stock market — things look pretty normal. But they clearly aren’t normal. The Trump administration spent the year upending the global trade system while tech companies spent hundreds of billions of dollars on A.I., a technology that could potentially displace many of our jobs. And people don’t feel normal, either. Survey data shows that the vibecession rages on.Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal are the co-hosts of the excellent economics podcast “Odd Lots” and have closely followed all the chaos this year. So I wanted to have them on the show to explain what the hell is going on.Mentioned:ChartsOdd LotsThe Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu“The Vibecession: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy” by Kyla Scanlon“Everyone is Gambling and No One is Happy” by Kyla ScanlonBook Recommendations:Breakneck by Dan WangNorth Woods by Daniel MasonA Marriage at Sea by Sophie ElmhirstThe Digital Reversal by Andrey MirOrality and Literacy by Walter J. OngNo Sense of Place by Joshua MeyrowitzThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at
