A Beautiful Girlfriend in Canada

What does a secret, beautiful girlfriend in Canada have to do with the newly announced (and still unpublished) deal with Iran? Economist Justin Wolfers will tell you both stories smell off. He uses an "unraveling" argument from game theory and economic concepts to explain.


“If I have an amazing deal, I would definitely run out and hold a press conference and show you the text right now. The fact that I’m not doing that tells you that I don’t have an amazing deal,” Wolfers explains.


He breaks it down in even simpler terms.

“If you’re on a dating app and the person doesn’t have their photo up what would you infer?”

We cover the war in Iran’s economic ripple effects, including energy price spikes and the true cost of the conflict to people across the globe. We also tackle tariffs, the current impact on farmers, and what the AI revolution means for the future of work.


Wolfers just launched the new Platypus Economics Substack channel with a simple mission: teach the world economics in an accessible way that helps us all collectively.

“So, look, we all have our own theories about what ails the world right now. Mine is I think the world would be a better place if we all knew a little bit more economics,” Wolfers said. "The radicalizing moment for me is actually look at another field, medicine, where they’ve discovered these incredible vaccines that can prevent enormous amounts of illness and injury and death. And there’s not enough trust, public trust, in what the doctors are doing and people won’t even take the vaccines. Now my field, economics, we don’t have literal vaccines but we have metaphorical vaccines. We have ways of understanding the world that we think can lead people better, richer, fuller lives.”