The New Bazaar

Rob Armstrong is the writer who first coined the acronym in The TACO Trade, which stands for Trump Always Chickens Out, in a column back in April. He wasn’t trying to go viral, much less have the acronym circulate throughout Wall Street and the media, much less have President Trump be asked about it. But that’s what happened. 

Armstrong is the Unhedged columnist and podcaster at the Financial Times. He also had a prior care...

Will artificial intelligence help you do your job, or will it just straight-up do your job and leave you unemployable? 

Or will the future bring something else entirely — either between those two extremes or a world that we simply cannot imagine yet? And are we already starting to see signs of that future emerging? 

On this episode of The New Bazaar, Cardiff is joined by economist Nathan Goldschlag, Research Directo...

It's hard to think of a better guide to the ongoing US-China trade war than Evan Medeiros. A professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a lifelong scholar of the US-China relationship, Evan is also the co-author (with James Polk) of a new study, China's New Economic Weapons. Ever since the trade wars of the first Trump term, Chinese officials have been designing a new set of weapons to prepare them...

Chad Bown is not just among the world’s most respected trade economists. He is also perhaps the single most careful tracker of real-time trade activity — which obviously makes him the best possible guest to explain the consequences of US President Donald Trump’s decision on April 2nd to impose new tariffs on China and many other countries in addition to further escalating the trade war with China just a week later while changing co...

Joining Cardiff for this episode is Jared Bernstein, who was most recently the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors for President Joe Biden following a long career in economic policy and public service. 

Jared shares with Cardiff his thoughts on the current economic moment, the achievements he was most proud of during the Biden years, and a few regrets. They also discuss: 

• How the econ policymaking sausage ...

On today’s episode, Cardiff chats with his EIG colleagues Adam Ozimek, chief economist, and Connor O’Brien, research analyst, about the one policy that achieves all three of the following goals simultaneously: 

1. It massively boosts the rate of economic growth through its effects on entrepreneurship, innovation, and the creation of entire new industries.

1. It reduces inequality.

1. Not only does it cost...

It’s not often that someone comes up with a new, provocative, and persuasive theory about the competition between the US and China to be the world’s leading economic and technological superpower. The topic is so salient right now, the source of so much commentary, that it’s hard to say something that hasn’t already been said many, many times. 

But this episode’s guest, Jeffrey Ding — a scholar of international relations at ...

How close is the 2024 presidential election? 

Here is how the New York Times framed it recently: “Never in modern presidential campaigns have so many states been so tight this close to Election Day. Polling averages show that all seven battleground states are within the margin of error, meaning the difference between a half-point up and a half-point down — essentially a rounding error — could win or lose the White House.”&n...

What is the right foreign economic policy toward China? Did the Fed cut rates in time to avoid a recession? Have agglomeration economies been changed by work-from-home and the dematerializing economy? 

On September 21st, Paul Krugman joined host Cardiff Garcia live on stage for a sweeping conversation at the #EconTwitterIRL conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

They discussed not only Paul’s view of the economy an...

"The introverts have taken over the US economy."

That's the provocative title of a recent Bloomberg column from economist Allison Schrager. As she looked into the data on how Americans have been spending their time since the pandemic, she noticed that they are spending less time socializing with their friends on weekends and more time in front of screens. Even when they do go out, it's increasingly for an early dinner. That's al...

When people talk about the crisis at the border between the US and Mexico, what specifically are they referring to?

The Department of Homeland Security keeps track of a statistic called “border encounters” at the US border with Mexico. This includes primarily the large number of people who try to cross the border without documentation, or illegally, and aren't crossing at a formal port of entry. It also includes people who do tr...

Who is the Magic Johnson of economics? Who was the Adam Smith of basketball?

On this fun and oddball episode of The New Bazaar, Cardiff speaks with Tyler Cowen, economist and author of GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter?

Inspired by the sportswriter Bill Simmons, Tyler wrote his book from the standpoint of a fan—having fun, taking sides, admitting biases, unapologetically trying to entertain t...

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has unusually written an unusual book.

The data analysis included in "Who Makes the NBA?: Data-Driven Answers to Basketball's Biggest Questions" normally would have taken Seth, a trained economist, multiple years of writing and running code. But because of new artificial intelligence tools, he finished the book in just thirty days. And he used AI tools not just for the coding, but also for the artwork, c...

Martha Gimbel and Gopi Shah Goda were formerly economists within the White House Council of Economic Advisors, or CEA. 

They look back on their time inside an important economic policymaking institution, telling Cardiff about:

• Their favorite projects
• Toughest assignments
• The relationship between CEA and other economic policymakers
• The difference between academia and policy work 
• What they might change about it
• Common...

Angus Deaton—Scottish immigrant, Nobelist, and one of Cardiff's favorite economists—has written a new, forthcoming book titled Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explore the Land of Inequality.

It’s great, if also hard to categorize.

Partly it’s a memoir, about his humble origins in Scotland, where he was born; his studies at Cambridge with better-heeled peers; and his subsequent decades as a Princeton University,...

These are confusing times for the economy and for financial markets—and for the relationship between the economy and financial markets. 

At the moment the economy is doing well. The labor market is still creating hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. Unemployment is low. Inflation has come down over the past year. And economic growth has been stronger than a great many economists and others had forecast heading into the...

Within economics, there's a semi-famous quote from the economist Paul Krugman: “Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run, it's almost everything.”

Krugman’s point is that ultimately, how much productivity climbs each year—roughly speaking, how much more efficient an economy’s workers become at producing goods and services—is also what determines how much our living standards also rise from year to year. And so in the ...

We're sharing a special episode of a podcast we think you might like. It's called The Closer and it's hosted by executive producer of The New Bazaar, Aimee Keane. In each episode, Aimee speaks to dealmakers and insiders about landmark financial deals that have changed our lives in some way.

In this episode, Aimee speaks to an executive at the center of Whatsapp’s $19 billion sale to Facebook, Neeraj Arora. He explains how the de...