Econ Soapbox Year in Review
2025 Edition
Three years of blogging in the books. I hope readers (there are hundreds of you!) enjoyed reading my musings and rants. Two Econ Soapbox posts this year were more popular than the rest. The first one I expected - “This is Bad,” about the Trump Liberation Day tariffs - immediately garnered a lot of views. Thank God many of those tariffs never went into effect, and other countries didn’t retaliate - a response I did not see coming. The second was unexpected. The post “How not to think about wealth inequality in America” started slow but has continued to get clicks since it was published in August. It’s one of my higher-level economics posts, diving into various concepts and analyzing an academic paper, so I’m pleasantly surprised people have found it interesting.
Some of my favorite Econ Soapbox posts of 2025 were “The Sale of Public Land,” where I rebut the commonly held but (in my opinion) incorrect belief that most public land should be set aside for conservation, “Health Economics and ‘The Pitt’”, which gave me a chance to connect economics to a TV show that won five Emmys, and “Why Pope Leo XIV was Elected,” which has nothing to do with economics, but gave me a chance to articulate what most mainstream media missed when covering the new Pontiff.
Thinking about the year overall, much it was dominated, once again, by Donald Trump. His administration entered January like a bull in a china shop. Contrary to what I expected, many of his supporters and detractors were right: the second Trump administration is much different than the first. For his supporters, Trump 2.0 is much more effective than the initial version. For his detractors, he’s much more destructive. From higher education to immigration to international trade, the White House has had one of the most influential years of all time. Not since George W. Bush in 2001 has a president so dominated the US political system. It’s a pity most pundits and journalists can’t discuss Trump without their own biases overwhelming detached reasoning. I would love to read an objective, amoral essay by a political science expert putting Trumps first year of this term into context. Instead, it’s either all sunshine or the apocalypse.
Outside of the US it’s been an uneven year. The Middle East might be stabilizing. The largest conflict in Europe since World War II trundles on, creating casualties at a tremendous rate. Sudan and Haiti continue to be ignored nightmares.
On the positive side, Argentina may finally be getting back on its feet. Western Europe is (mostly) coming together to support Ukraine. Trade deals are being struck by countries looking to find alternatives to the United States. Renewables continue to improve and expand, allowing countries to rely less and less on coal. GLP-1 drugs do appear to be the miracle drug we’ve hoped for. Sri Lanka is back on it’s feet after a disastrous couple of years. There is good news out there.
Finally, some holiday reading for everyone. Some of my favorite articles of the year are below:
“All the President’s Enablers” by James Kirchick. As much as I’d like to read Jake Tapper’s book about Joe Biden’s hidden decline, or one of the many other books in that vein, I don’t have the time. Instead, I read this article, which does a fantastic job explaining how Joe Biden kept his condition from the public for so long.
“The End of Children” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus. Birth rates around the world are declining. Some countries, like South Korea, face a slow-moving existential crisis. In this brilliant essay, Gideon Lewis-Kraus examines the whys as well as the consequences of this potentially humanity-changing paradigm.
“The Chinese Billionaires Having Dozens of U.S.-Born Babies Via Surrogate” by Katherine Long, Ben Foldy, Lingling Wei. The latest in dystopian reality: Chinese billionaires are having children by the dozen through surrogacy in the United States. One man claims to have had around 100. In direct opposition to the “End of Children” article, this piece looks at those trying to seed the Earth with their progeny, and are willing to spend millions and go around the world to do so.
“Academia is finally learning hard lessons” by Megan McArdle. Much has been written about the Trump administration’s reckoning with higher ed. This succinct article is from the perspective of a journalist who is against what is happening, but recognizes the decisions academia made that got us here.
“On the problem of normative sociology” by Joseph Heath. This short but dense essay is from 2015, but I discovered it this year. “Normative Sociology” is the concept that many study what ought to be the cause of a problem, rather than what is the cause of a problem. The downstream issues this causes are large and far-reaching. Both the left and right of America are guilty of this, and the concept deserves much wider attention.
“How Donald Trump Got NATO to Pay Up” by Joshua Yaffa. People who think of the New Yorker as being reflexively and always anti-Trump should read this essay. My favorite geopolitical article of the year, Yaffa explains what NATO was like before Trump, and how he is changing it. Both positive and negative comments lay out where we are today and how we got here.
“How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost” by Nicholas Confessore. In this article, Nicholas Confessore somehow pushes through heaps of propaganda and gives a well-reasoned accounting of the decisions transgender activists made, their loss in the Supreme Court, and what it means for the future of the movement. Between this and his coverage of campus issues, Confessore has become one of my go-to journalists.
“Can Anyone Rescue the Trafficked Girls of L.A.’s Figueroa Street?” by Emily Baumgaertner Nunn. The most disturbing article I read all year. Absolutely brilliant reporting by Emily Baumgaertner Nunn reveals there is an open child sex trafficking market in the heart of Los Angeles. Rather than hand-wringing or editorializing, the piece mainly lays out what’s happening in devastating detail to those who slip through the cracks of society. This article bothered me.
“The Iranian Revolution Almost Didn’t Happen” by Daniel Immerwahr. It’s easy to think of history as a series of pre-ordained events. In this essay, Daniel Immerwahr looks back at the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Far from being a sure thing, a shocking number of lucky breaks went the rebellion’s way, resulting in the surprise downfall of the Shah and current regime still in power today.
“The average college student today” by Hilarius Bookbinder. Professor complains that college students today are worse than when he was a student. I know, nothing revolutionary. That said, in this pseudonymous article, a professor lays out some of the problems universities are having with college students today. I don’t agree with all of his comments, but the general trend is unmistakable. Something broke down during Covid, and we need to get it back.
“Long Drives and Short Homilies: How Father Bob Became Pope Leo” by Jason Horowitz, Julie Bosman, Elizabeth Dias, Ruth Graham, Simon Romero, and Mitra Taj. Usually this type of reporting isn’t done by three journalists, let alone six. This long essay tells the life story of Robert Prevost, now known to the world as Pope Leo XIV. From his childhood in Chicagoland to becoming a Cardinal, a portrait of quiet competence emerges. If you want to understand our current pontiff’s background, you need not look beyond this essay.
Here’s to 2026.