‘This Is Something That Traditional Economics Isn’t Prepared to Deal With’ | The Ezra Klein Show

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. 0:00 Intro 1:07 How is the economy doing right now? 4:11 Trump’s tariffs 16:55 Trade war with China 30:06 The great A.I. buildout 48:00 What about the A.I. bubble? 51:40 Labor market disruption 1:01:35 Vibecession update 1:10:49 2026? 1:15:15 Book recommendations Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-alloway-weisenthal.html Watch more on @EzraKleinShow 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. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html