‘This Is Something That Traditional Economics Isn’t Prepared to Deal With’
December 23, 2025 with Natasha Sarin, Kyla Scanlon, Kimberly Clausing, Kristina Samulewski, Jack McCordick, Michelle Harris, Annie-Rose Strasser, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Pat McCusker, Jeff Geld, Shannon Busta, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Dan Wang, Isaac Jones, Annie Galvin, Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal, Daniel Mason, Sophie Elmhirst, Andrey Mir, Walter J. Ong, Joshua Meyrowitz, Annika Robbins, Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, Marie Cascione, Emma Kehlbeck, Claire Gordon • Listen
- Natasha Sarin is the president and a founder of the Budget Lab at Yale, known for tracking trends and modeling the potential economic effects of many of Trump’s policies.
- Kyla Scanlon is a leading theorist on the economics of attention, a member of Gen Z, the author of 'In This Economy?' and runs Kyla’s Newsletter on Substack.
- Kimberly Clausing is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a professor at U.C.L.A., and the author of 'Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital.'
- Kristina Samulewski works on audience strategy for 'The Ezra Klein Show.'
- Is part of the show’s production team.
- Michelle Harris is responsible for fact-checking on 'The Ezra Klein Show'.
- Is the director of New York Times Opinion Shows.
- Produced this episode.
- Is part of the show’s production team.
- Contributed to the original music for this episode.
- Is the show’s senior engineer.
- Handles audience strategy.
- Did the cinematography for this episode.
- Is part of the show’s production team.
- Dan Wang is the author of the book "Breakneck."
- Did mixing for this episode and contributed to the original music.
- Is part of the show’s production team.
- Tracy Alloway is a co-host of the economics podcast 'Odd Lots' and has closely followed the economic changes and developments throughout the year.
- Joe Weisenthal is a co-host of the economics podcast 'Odd Lots' and has closely followed the economic changes and developments throughout the year.
- Produced this episode and did fact-checking.
- Produced this episode.
- Produced this episode and is the executive producer.
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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:
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
“The Vibecession: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy” by Kyla Scanlon
“Everyone is Gambling and No One is Happy” byKyla Scanlon
Book Recommendations:
Breakneck by Dan Wang
North Woods by Daniel Mason
A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst
The Digital Reversal by Andrey Mir
Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ong
No Sense of Place by Joshua Meyrowitz
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Annika Robbins, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Kimberly Clausing, Natasha Sarin and Kyla Scanlon.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
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