Contents

The Vibe Economy

Chapter 1 The Economic Kingdom

Vibes Are the Economy

Chapter 2 The Vibe Economy

Moods and Markets

The Economic Circle of Life

Fueling Feelings

Vibe-ology and Emotion Economy

The Uncertainty Cake

Economic Mood Rings

How Money Works

Chapter 3 The Weird World of Money

The Weird World of Money

Dollars and Sense: What Makes Money, Money?

Through the Ages: The Evolution of Money

The American Currency Story: Revolution to Recognition

Chapter 4 The Mechanics of Modern Money

The Banking Blueprint

Fractional Reserve Banking

The Art of Lending

Decoding Bank Balance Sheets

The Invisible Sheriff

How Banks Hedge Risk

How Banks Can Fail

The Dollar’s Reign

Rethinking the Dollar

How Money Is Measured

Chapter 5 Supply and Demand

Introduction to Supply and Demand

The Economics of Banana Bread

Eggflation: When Eggs Come in Short Supply

Beyond Mechanics and into Policy

Making Supply Chains Better

Chapter 6 GDP and the Economy

Government Purchases

The Gingerbread Yeti Economy

Debt-Fueled Growth

What Does GDP Really Mean?

Growth at Any Cost

Looking to the Future

Chapter 7 Commodities

Globalization and Commodities

External Factors and Commodities

The Rise of U.S. Shale Oil Production

The Rise of Renewables

Artificial Intelligence and Commodities

Chapter 8 Inflation

Types of Flation

Measuring Inflation

The Consumer Price Index: The People’s Inflation

Personal Consumption Expenditures: The People’s Inflation, But for the Fed

The Producer Price Index: Inflation for Businesses

The Inflation Pizza

Inflation Expectations

Causes of Inflation

A quick profit explainer

#2 The State of the Labor Market

#3 Globalization

#4 Energy Markets

Other Types of Flations

Chapter 9 The Labor Market

What Is the Labor Market?

Key Labor Market Metrics

The Unemployment Rate

The Labor Force Participation Rate

Surveys and Measurements

The Minimum Wage

The Skewed Way We See Wage Growth

The International Impact of Low Wages

How We Value Work

How Can the Labor Market Be Improved?

Parental Leave and Disability Policies

Rethinking Ownership

Chapter 10 The Housing Market

The American Dream

The Housing Cycle Is the Business Cycle

How to Buy a House

Mortgage Rates Over the Past Two Years

Well, Why Don’t We Have Enough Homes?

Housing in Other Countries

Fixing the Problem

Chapter 11 Stock Market

What Are Markets?

Risk Types in Markets

Stock Market versus Economy

Valuation Example

Exchange-Traded Funds

Is BlackRock Running the World?

Index Providers

Passive versus Active

The Stock Market Is Seven Companies

Efficient (and Inefficient) Markets

What Happened in 2021?

Why Did Markets Become a Meme?

Chapter 12 Bond Market

The Bond Market

What Are Bonds?

Bonds Between Friends

High-Yield Friend

Treasury Bills, Notes, and Bonds

Treasury Market

Markets as Vibe Reflectors

Chapter 13 Cryptocurrency

The Cryptocurrency Narrative

Nonfungible Tokens

Is Dogecoin Alive or Dead?

Where Crypto Went Wrong

Chapter 14 Recessions

Recessions and Economic Downturns

The Semantics of a Recession

What Does a Recession Look Like?

Historic Recessions

Zombie Companies

The Vibecession

The Benefits of Recessions

How Money Moves

Chapter 15 Fiscal Policy

What Is Fiscal Policy?

What Does the Government Spend Money On?

The Debt Ceiling

The United Kingdom Shows That Fiscal Policy Is an Art

Lessons from the Eurozone

Can the Government Survive?

Fiscal Policy Is Good, Actually

Chapter 16 Monetary Policy

What Does the Fed Do?

How Do the Fed’s Tools Work?

Reserve Requirements

Open-Market Operations

Repo Agreements

Types of Repo Agreements

The Discount Rate

The Fed Funds Rate

Being a Central Bank Is About Belief

Monetary Policy in 2020

Chapter 17 The Federal Reserve

Who Started the Fed?

How Does the Federal Reserve Work?

Board of Governors

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)

Federal Reserve Banks

The Chair of the Board

The Fed’s Narrative

Narrative Creation

Resistance to the Narrative

The Fed’s Mountain

Volcker in 2022

2 Percent Target

How the Fed Deals with Markets

The Fed and the Labor Market

Navigating the Fog

Theories, Problems, And opportunities

Chapter 18 Old Guy and New Theories

Classical Economics

Keynesian Economics

New Growth Theory

Chapter 19 Problems

The State of the American Dream

Economy and Mental Health

The Shifting Nature of Work

When Systems Fail

Your Eyeballs Are Dollar Signs

Social Media Makes It Worse

Media Literacy Crisis

Media, Nostalgia, and Consumerism

Things Are All the Same Now

What GME Really Meant

Economic Inequality and Cooperation

Chapter 20 Opportunities

The Abundance Mindset

Acknowledgments

About the Author