Excerpt:
"Nearly two decades ago, when charged to cover an apparent Depression-level event in the 2008 crash, I was stunned to discover how few resources were available to ordinary people hoping to make sense of the economy. The financial press was written by and for financial professionals, and every time I thought I’d found an analyst who made sense, I’d discover shortly after he or she was funded by banks or hedge funds incentivized to put lipsticks on pigs.

It also turned out that most of the statistics politicians used to represent the relative fitness or unfitness of the economy were and are weighted at best, and outright bull at worst, from the Consumer Price Index to the Unemployment Rate. Even LIBOR, the interbank lending rate that supposedly represented how finance companies thought about the economy, turned out to be a monstrous scam.
...
We’re again in panic mode, with front page charts full of down-pointing arrows, and the word “plummets” suddenly a ubiquitous headline term. However you feel about the new “reciprocal tariffs” program, we’re again entering a time in which most news consumers will need to know where to search for de-politicized answers to economic questions. I polled finance professionals, contributors like Eric Salzman, and reporters who cover economics to ask which sources are most accessible. Then I spoke at length with fellow Substacker Chris Irons of Quoth the Raven about the broader problems with finding reliable economic info, and some sites that short-cut the obstacles."