Platypus Economics with Justin Wolfers

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Don’t Be Fooled by Trump’s Diesel Gimmicks | The Professor Is In Oct 21, 2026

Show notes

Tax-free red dye diesel won't make a single extra drop — so who really pays for it?

President Trump signed an executive order letting truckers fill up with red dye diesel — the cheaper, untaxed fuel normally reserved for tractors and bulldozers — and the White House says it'll save truckers about $60 a tank. In this "Professor Is In" episode, Justin Wolfers and producer Augusta Chapman take your questions and show why the tax-free diesel policy creates no new fuel at all. There's only so much diesel in the world, so every gallon truckers gain, farmers lose.

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What Halloween Candy Reveals About Inflation | Off the Clock Oct 17, 2026

Show notes

Why is inflation rising faster than your wages? It's a cost-push energy shock, not the good kind.

Justin Wolfers and Bloomberg's Stacey Vanek Smith dig into the latest inflation report on Off the Clock, and the news isn't fun: prices are climbing 3.7% while wages crawl along at 3%, which means the average American — maybe you — is quietly falling behind. Justin walks through the difference between demand-pull inflation (the economy runs hot, prices rise, but your paycheck rises too) and cost-push inflation (energy and tariffs push costs up, prices rise, and nobody hands you a raise). Guess which one we're living through.

Along the way, Justin grades new Fed chair Kevin Warsh (forecasters gave him a shaky report card), explains why computers are suddenly getting pricier again, and announces the first-ever Platypus Economics Halloween costume contest.

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Why Official Inflation Can Seem Too Low | The Professor Is In Oct 16, 2026

Show notes

Prices rose 3.7% over the past year, core inflation is stuck around 2.6%, and your paycheck is buying less than it used to — yet it feels like everything costs way more than that. Economist Justin Wolfers sits down with producer Augusta Chapman for office-hours-style answers to your questions: why your gut says prices doubled.

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The Latest Inflation Report, Explained | Diving In Oct 14, 2026

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The latest inflation report just dropped, and Justin Wolfers digs into why it's worse than Wall Street expected. Headline inflation came in at an eye-popping 3.7% — well above the Fed's 2% target — and core inflation is stuck above 2.6%. The really worrying part is the latest month: prices rose 0.6% in a single month, and whatever momentum was pulling inflation back toward normal seems to have vanished.

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The Hidden Force Dragging Down Consumer Sentiment | Diving In Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Americans feel almost exactly as gloomy today as they did in 1980 — when inflation was near 14% and unemployment was close to 8%. Today those numbers are a fraction of that, yet consumer sentiment hit an all-time low. Justin Wolfers treats this like a detective case: the standard economic statistics predict sentiment should sit around 82, but the actual reading is 52 — a 30-point gap begging for an explanation.

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The Nobel-Winning Insight That Made Spending Hard to Predict | Diving In Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Why Robert Hall and Michael Woodford won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Economics — explained simply.

This morning Robert Hall and Michael Woodford won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Economics, and Justin Wolfers couldn't wait to explain what they figured out — and why it touches how much you spend every month. By the end of the episode you'll understand why your next big purchase hinges more on what you think is coming than on what's in your bank account today, how modern macro got built, and why this is the way we all teach and read the economy now.

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The G7’s 100 Million Barrel Announcement Changes Nothing | The Professor Is In Oct 09, 2026

Show notes

Justin Wolfers takes apart a headline that circled the globe: the G7 announcing it will release 100 million barrels of oil it had already promised to release back in March 2026. On this episode of Diving In, producer Augusta Chapman brings him your questions, office-hours style, and Justin explains why a press release dressed up as a deal does nothing to lower the price you pay at the pump.

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Trump's Red Diesel Order, Explained | Diving In Oct 08, 2026

Show notes

Justin Wolfers digs into President Trump's new executive order letting truckers fill up with red diesel — the tax-free fuel normally reserved for farmers, construction crews, and miners — and deferring the 24.4-cent federal highway tax until after the election. The White House says it'll save a trucker about $60 a fill-up. But diesel hit a record $6.52 a gallon a few weeks ago, and this order doesn't create a single new drop of it.

Subscribe:

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on Substack 👉 https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com

the Podcast 👉 https://platypuseconomics.com/podcast

Follow on Social Media @PlatypusEconomics and @JustinWolfers

This Oil Deal Sounds Huge. Until You Do the Math | Diving In Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

Trump calls it a massive win: 100 million barrels of emergency oil and fuel released to bring diesel prices down. In this episode of Diving In, Justin Wolfers reads the G7 communique line by line and finds something much smaller — an agreement to finally deliver on a release already promised back in March, in exchange for the US dropping a diesel export ban it should never have threatened.

Subscribe:

on YouTube 👉 https://youtube.com/platypuseconomics

on Substack 👉 https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com

the Podcast 👉 https://platypuseconomics.com/podcast

Follow on Social Media @PlatypusEconomics and @JustinWolfers

Why the Jobs Report Keeps Changing | The Professor Is In Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

The September jobs report landed weak, and the numbers for July and August got quietly revised downward. Economist Justin Wolfers takes your questions on what that actually means — and why a statistical agency that corrects itself is more trustworthy, not less.

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