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The Pursuit of Happiness

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Nostalgia for the Neoliberal Era. Click to read The Pursuit of Happiness, by Scott Sumner, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

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’24’25’26
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179 from 1 Sep 2024 to 4 Nov 2026
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2026 69

  1. October 2026 links
  2. Deficits: I cried wolf . . .
  3. Restoring the reputation of monetarism
  4. Some of the best ideas are wrong
  5. Films of 2026: Q3
  6. September 2026 links
  7. Wanna bet?
  8. Adam Smith’s greatest insight?
  9. Don't mix fiscal and monetary policy
  10. A cheesehead’s view of the world
  11. It's the fun
  12. What is an undervalued currency?
  13. August 2026 links
  14. Say’s Law in China
  15. On the bigness of China
  16. Our monetary Rube Goldberg device
  17. John Cochrane on monetarism
  18. Basil Halperin on sticky wage models
  19. Thoughts on inflation and monetary policy
  20. July 2026 links
  21. Not just a cheap date
  22. Fable responds
  23. Why is Fable a Keynesian?
  24. The empire strikes back
  25. Kakistocracy
  26. Films of 2026:Q2
  27. Alan Greenspan, RIP
  28. America's non-violent future
  29. The silent revolutionaries
  30. The world is bigger than you can imagine
  31. The South China shock and the world's biggest rustbelt
  32. The great helmsman?
  33. Ever more links (5/20/26)
  34. The Great Forgetting
  35. Basil Halperin on eclectically optimal policy
  36. The beauty of tautologies
  37. Monetary policy and libertarianism
  38. Virginia Woolf on writing
  39. Who's afraid of the money supply?
  40. A painter's painter
  41. Random observations
  42. Conflict and competence
  43. The odd disappearance of the business cycle
  44. Difficulty increases desire
  45. Too good to be true
  46. Films of 2026: Q1
  47. The end of economics?
  48. Paid subscriptions
  49. When the dog doesn't bark
  50. No “wait and see”
  51. Fiscal shocks, inflation and the Lucas Critique
  52. Imagine three Chinas
  53. Freak Out!
  54. A scoundrel's last refuge
  55. Good things are good
  56. Some like it hot
  57. Replacement anxiety
  58. Which one is man's best friend?
  59. Odds and ends
  60. Simplify, simplify, simplify
  61. A hawk in dove's clothing?
  62. Japan: The future is now
  63. A Liz Truss moment?
  64. Not one penny
  65. Which one doesn't belong?
  66. The Nguyens and the Fed
  67. The films of 2025:Q4
  68. Are you a neoconservative?
  69. Imagine 130,000,000 washing machines

2025 80

  1. 13 years later: The lessons of Abenomics
  2. Architecture for a democracy
  3. Core nominal GDP
  4. I'm not budging
  5. The Great Depression: Elevator pitch
  6. Unapproachable
  7. Imagine a bigger Seattle
  8. Systemic analysis
  9. David Beckworth on Fed policy
  10. Output is abundance is affordability
  11. Chemtrails and antisemitism
  12. A death in the family
  13. Are stereotypes often true?
  14. What caused the Great British Inflation?
  15. Billionaire baby boom
  16. The greatest plot ever?
  17. Subjective time
  18. What should the Fed have done in 2008?
  19. Fat tails
  20. Breakneck
  21. Right for the wrong reasons
  22. Less wrong
  23. The juggler
  24. The myths of Chinese exceptionalism
  25. The Fed gives up
  26. Peak cinema
  27. Lerner Symmetry
  28. Misconceptions about tariffs
  29. Pundits and "the economy"
  30. What would fiscal dominance look like?
  31. What does "China shock" actually mean?
  32. Nominal nonsense
  33. Land of lakes
  34. Paradise on Telegraph Avenue
  35. Who says no?
  36. The problem of underconfidence
  37. Good vibrations
  38. J'accuse
  39. What really happened in 2008?
  40. Overlooked films
  41. The fiscal equivalent of war
  42. The artificial macroeconomist
  43. The eternal quarter
  44. Populism is not popular
  45. The "Trump put" is back
  46. The armchair epistemologist
  47. Eureka!
  48. Macro utopia
  49. Nonzero: Trade edition
  50. Integrity boosts productivity
  51. Peter Navarro vs. Kevin Erdmann
  52. The zeitgeist keeps shifting
  53. Epistemic humility
  54. Learning from Smoot-Hawley
  55. Bringing back the 1930s?
  56. Films of 2025: Q1
  57. Grade this blog
  58. Vengeance is mine
  59. Nonzero
  60. Another Bretton Woods?
  61. America without adult supervision
  62. Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics
  63. False Dawn
  64. Economic insights
  65. The other side of the transaction
  66. Luxury beliefs
  67. Thomas Mann and the business cycle
  68. A simple model of authoritarian nationalism
  69. Fertility and the AI event horizon
  70. Universal values
  71. Macro myths
  72. Other Rivers
  73. Financial conditions index targeting
  74. Epistemology in the age of AI
  75. California dreaming
  76. Should I stay in my lane?
  77. The China malaise
  78. America in 1929
  79. CWT: The director's cut
  80. Films of 2024:Q4

2024 30

  1. Her Story
  2. Modeling inflation dynamics
  3. The European malaise
  4. Why not both?
  5. Why money is important
  6. School of Rembrandt, fake Vermeers, and AI art
  7. The "it doesn't matter" perspective
  8. The floating world
  9. Why political success leads to failure
  10. Thoughts on the Trump-Biden-Trump era
  11. Does it even matter?
  12. The tambourine men
  13. What economists don't know
  14. What do economists know?
  15. Black, white, mixed, and Yugoslavian
  16. The tipping point state
  17. What caused the Great Inflation?
  18. A mischievous equation
  19. Much ado about nothing
  20. The interest rate monoculture
  21. Italian mannerism, David Lynch, and Lars von Trier
  22. Sahm's Rule, mini-recessions, and American exceptionalism
  23. Moving toward NGDP targeting
  24. September 16, 2008
  25. Development from the outside in
  26. China's mysterious deflation
  27. Learning from Boston
  28. The seen and the unseen
  29. Should we tax realized gains?
  30. The elusive concept of happiness