Phoebe is built around a single thesis: data isn't the boring part of economics — the predictable narrative wrapped around it is. Every month the government releases the numbers that shape your financial life — jobs, inflation, growth, spending, interest rates. The data is free and everywhere, and read raw it's more interesting than it gets credit for. What's missing is the plain-English framework to read it that way: what the number actually says, what it doesn't, and how it connects to the decisions you make — before it's wrapped in manufactured tension. Professional research assumes you already have that framework and prices accordingly; cable news trades it for the narrative. The middle — teaching readers to read the data themselves, plainly and without commentary or politics — is thin.
That's the gap Phoebe fills. Most coverage tells you what happened — by wrapping it in a story. Phoebe shows you how to read what happened — the data underneath the storied narrative, traced to what it means for you, so next time you can read it yourself.
What Phoebe publishes — organized as the economic chain, one tab per link (Labor → Inflation → Growth → Yields → Wallet):
Report Breakdowns — a short, plain-English video read on each major economic release (jobs, inflation, growth, spending, and more): what the number actually says and why it matters — read straight, past the narrative. Built to teach which number actually matters. No directional calls, no opinion markers — just the data. Each read lives in a standing slot on its topic's tab — Labor, Inflation, or Growth — alongside its chart and numbers; the latest read always holds the slot.
Weekly Read — a weekly synthesis of how the week's economic data and interest rates fit together, with an objective look at the week ahead and its data calendar.
Two reference tabs complete the chain — where to go deeper when a read references something you want to understand from the ground up:
Yields — today's full Treasury par yield curve, the 90-day path of the 2-Year and 10-Year against the Fed Funds Rate, a 50-year chart of the 2-10 spread with NBER recession bands shaded behind it, the breakeven inflation rates, and SOFR against the current Fed funds target range. A visual anchor for where the bond market prices growth, inflation, and Fed policy.
Wallet — the Cost of Borrowing — what it costs to borrow today (mortgage and prime), each rate set against its own history, the markup lenders add on top of the bond market, and the lesson underneath: why a Fed cut doesn't always reach your mortgage. A reference for anyone weighing a home or a business loan.
Sources: every figure comes from primary public data — the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac, and the federal agencies that publish the releases (the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Census Bureau, and Energy Information Administration), directly or by way of FRED. The framework that turns those numbers into a read is proprietary; details available on request.