Is AI Going to Destroy Our Lives or Not?
dimensionality, freeze-dried food, the SpaceX IPO, and what to do about all of it
Economics
Kyla's Newsletter.
Human-centric economic analysis to help all of us understand the world better.
Recent essays
23 of 23The Ozempicization of the Economy
Biohacking, gambling, and war
Buying Futures, Renting the Past: How Speculation and Nostalgia Became the Economy
Super Bowl ads, Jesus derivatives, and Gen Alpha's return to the theater
The Great Entertainment
Can you govern the world like a reality TV show?
San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin on What's Actually Happening in the Economy
Now vs the 1970s/1990s, the persistence of uncertainty, and why cranes matter
Everyone is Gambling and No One is Happy
Vibes, AI, open-mouth coughing, and lessons from 40 weeks of travel
30 Days, 9 Cities, 1 Question: Where Did American Prosperity Go?
Traveling the country to understand it
How Bible Sales and Chipotle Explain the Economy
rate cuts, risk, and the casino economy
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee on What the Job Market Is Really Telling Us
Inside the Chicago Fed’s effort to measure work in an era of fuzzy data and fragile confidence
AI Is the Market, and the Market Is the Government
AI, Gold, and the New Logic of Governance
Who's Getting Rich Off Your Attention?
How concentrated ownership and automated manipulation reshape democracy
6 Economic Lessons from Books About Power, Propaganda, and Decline
What Tolkien, Canetti, Girard and more can teach us about discord, scapegoats, and the test of institutions.
Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack on the Risks Markets Are Missing Right Now
The importance of Fed independence, sticky inflation, AI’s impact on entry-level work, and why she still leans modestly restrictive
AI That Works for Workers: Survey Results
How do people actually feel about artificial intelligence in the workplace?
How AI, Healthcare, and Labubu Became the American Economy
The Three Americas and aspirational displacement
Zero-sum Thinking and the Labor Market
is college worth it? and other questions about the state of things
From Dollar Dominance to the Slop Machine
Part 2: China, energy, and extraction versus creation
Trump, Mamdani, and Cluely
attention and speculation as primary economic drivers
Everything Feels Like It Doesn't Make Sense
Immigration, incentives, and the contradiction of Gentle Singularity
Gamblemerica: How Sports Betting Apps Rewired a Generation's Relationship to Risk
In dialogue with Jon Cohen on sports betting, dopamine, and the strange ways we turn human vulnerability into infrastructure
The Four Phases of Institutional Collapse in the Age of AI
How democracy, expertise, and institutional memory are eroding during technological change - or @grok is this true?
Economic Lessons from the Screwtape Letters
Rejection, Convenience, and the Budget Deficit
WWEconomics: Kayfabe and the Trade War
How the US-China Trade War Became Political Theater