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:<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ggzkfl1lu5e1f2nwpkhrn/The-Ezra-Klein-Show-Alloway_Weisenthal-Episode-Charts.pdf?rlkey=9g3anyu3ykofa6s67u2pbbdh5&e=1&st=9g7bkvge&dl=0" target="_blank">Charts</a><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1te7oSFyRVekxMBJUSethH?si=9ebc33d7c629488d" target="_blank">Odd Lots</a><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765382030/thethreebodyproblem/" target="_blank">The Three-Body Problem</a> by Cixin Liu“<a href="https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-vibecession-the-self-fulfilling" target="_blank">The Vibecession: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy</a>” by Kyla Scanlon“<a href="https://kyla.substack.com/p/everyone-is-gambling-and-no-one-is" target="_blank">Everyone is Gambling and No One is Happy</a>” by Kyla ScanlonBook Recommendations:<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324106036" target="_blank">Breakneck</a> by Dan Wang<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/726262/north-woods-by-daniel-mason/" target="_blank">North Woods</a> by Daniel Mason<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/771662/a-marriage-at-sea-by-sophie-elmhirst/" target="_blank">A Marriage at Sea</a> by Sophie Elmhirst<a href="https://human-as-media.com/book-the-digital-reversal/" target="_blank">The Digital Reversal</a> by Andrey Mir<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Orality-and-Literacy-30th-Anniversary-Edition/Ong/p/book/9780415538381" target="_blank">Orality and Literacy</a> by Walter J. Ong<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/no-sense-of-place-9780195042313?cc=us&lang=en&" target="_blank">No Sense of Place</a> by Joshua MeyrowitzThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast" target="_blank">nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast</a>, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs</a>.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 <a href="http://nytimes.com/podcasts">nytimes.com/podcasts</a> or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher">https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher</a>. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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