How is the Economy Doing, Really? | EJ Antoni
Heritage Explains
Heritage Podcast Network
4.7 • 847 Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The ways that human beings exchange value are complicated and often involve tradeoffs. Things you think were a great idea often come with hidden costs. And so it is with federal financial policy. Everything the government does has consequences downstream.
I sat down with Heritage chief Economist EJ Antoni to discuss his outlook on the first year of economic policy from the Trump Administration.
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Thoughts? Questions? Email us at: heritageexplains@heritage.org.
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More by EJ at The Heritage Foundation: https://www.heritage.org/staff/ej-antoni-phd
Lora Ries on X: https://x.com/realEJAntoni
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Three, two, one, zero, all engine run. |
| 0:06.6 | There is no other institution that has the ability uniquely. |
| 0:11.3 | Without a heritage, every generation starts over. |
| 0:14.4 | Ask not. |
| 0:15.3 | To remind the current regime. |
| 0:18.6 | We the people tell the governor what it is allowed to do. |
| 0:21.9 | All the action to get back in their box and stay there. Let's die. We have a left. |
| 0:31.6 | From the Heritage Foundation, this is Heritage Explains. |
| 0:39.3 | Last week, much of the eastern and central United States faced a significant winter snowstorm. |
| 0:46.1 | Winter storm fern affected people as far south as the U.S. Mexico border, as far west as |
| 0:51.2 | New Mexico, and as far north as Canada. Some places received several feet of snow. |
| 0:57.8 | In the days leading up to the storm, people of course prepared by going to stores to stock up |
| 1:02.2 | on essential food and supplies, salt for sidewalks, generators, fuel, and shovels. And herein lies a |
| 1:09.1 | debate. Let's say there is a hardware store in your town that |
| 1:11.7 | carries snow shovels. As a winter storm approaches, the shop owner may be tempted to up the price |
| 1:17.2 | on his snow shovels, anticipating high demand. He buys out his supplier so that he has as many |
| 1:22.8 | shovels on hand to sell as possible. Townspeople are angered by the high prices, a practice some |
| 1:29.0 | refer to as price gouging. As a result, the town council passes a law that outlaws this practice. |
| 1:36.0 | The next year, another big storm approaches. Townspeople once again head to the hardware store |
| 1:40.9 | to buy a snow shovel. But this time, instead of there being an expensive snow shovel to buy, there are none at all. |
| 1:47.0 | They are sold out. |
| 1:48.7 | The shopkeeper only had ten in stock, and since he couldn't get any extra money for the period of high demand, |
... |
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