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Jeff Hulett

Curator, The Curiosity Vine

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The Curiosity Vine is an idea incubator.

Our contributors have experience and interest in a variety of high-impact topics, such as science, technology, conservation, mathematics, data science, public policy, economics, and others. Our objective is to promote early-stage ideas, enable idea collaboration, and test idea purchase.

TCV platform is curated by Jeff Hulett.

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Featured Posts

Doing the Right Thing When Everyone Is Looking: The Economics of Moral Conviction

Moral education relies upon a foundational premise: an essential goal of character development includes choosing ethical actions without external oversight. While childhood training focuses on strengthening their internal moral compass, adult decision-making inside complex institutions operates under fundamentally inverted conditions. In mature professional, civic, and political environments, choices occur under institutionally shaped conditions, such as peer visibility, orga

Econ Connections

Economics Personality: An Evolutionary Process

My Economics Personality I study and "do" economics all the time. But have you ever stepped back and thought about your economics personality? For me, it has been evolving throughout my life. When I was younger, I would have identified much more with economists like John Maynard Keynes or Paul Samuelson—focusing on centralized equilibrium models, state intervention, and macroeconomic levers. Today, my economic personality has evolved toward liberty, spontaneous order, and rea

Econ Connections

Demystifying Backpropagation: The 300-Year-Old Calculus Rule Powering Modern AI

Modern artificial intelligence systems rely on an underlying algorithm to learn: Backpropagation. Whether predicting text, recognizing images, or translating languages, neural networks depend on this universal mechanism. The core mathematical mechanism behind backpropagation is not a recent invention. The algorithm relies on a calculus rule formulated by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1676: the chain rule. To understand how modern AI works, we examine how this centuries-old mat

College & Career

Bridging the AI Divide: Moving Higher Education from Hesitation to Integration

"If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they will rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." — Socrates (in Plato's Phaedrus) Educators have long questioned how new tools alter human cognition. Socrates was not warning against algorithms, but the newest technology of his era: the written word. New classroom technologies seld

College & Career

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Treasury Rates Update: October 8th, 2026

In my decades monitoring fixed-income markets, a muted reaction to a sharply negative economic datapoint reveals a market that has already priced in considerable policy drag. Despite the October 2nd jobs report delivering a surprisingly low print of just 29,000 new positions, the Treasury curve held remarkably steady this past week. Rather than triggering a flight to quality, yields across most maturities experienced minimal movement as investors looked ahead to upcoming infl

Econ Connections

Bill Knudson

Oct 171 min read

Treasury Rates Update: September 24th, 2026

In my decades monitoring fixed-income markets, a decisive breach of psychological threshold levels often signals a fundamental shift in market sentiment. Following the prior week's flattening trend, the Treasury market experienced an aggressive bear steepening wave this past week, completely breaking through previous resistance levels. Yields surged across all maturities as selling pressure intensified across intermediate and long-term bonds. The benchmark 10-year Treasury

Econ Connections

Bill Knudson

Sep 261 min read

Treasury Rates Update: September 17th, 2026

In my decades monitoring fixed-income markets, post-Federal Reserve decision meetings often trigger a classic dynamic: a flattening yield curve as short-term rates reprice monetary expectations while the long end absorbs broader growth and inflation outlooks. Following the September 16th Fed meeting, the Treasury market exhibited this shift precisely, driving a noticeable flattening as short-end yields surged while long-term rates rallied. The benchmark 10-year Treasury rate

Econ Connections

Bill Knudson

Sep 191 min read

Treasury Rates Update: February 12th, 2026

The Treasury market experienced a notable shift this week as yields across the long end of the curve retreated significantly.. As an economist with years of experience monitoring these cycles, I view this movement as a direct reaction to the "moderate" jobs report released on February 6th, which showed 130,000 new jobs—a figure that seems to have cooled immediate growth expectations.. The 10-year Treasury rate led the decline, falling by 12 basis points (bp) over the past wee

Econ Connections

Jeff Hulett

Feb 151 min read

Inflation Prediction for February - CPI stable in the 3.2 - 3.8% through mid-2024

January 2023 data release February 13, 2024 Editors note: TCV Economist Bill Knudson's inflation forecasts have been on target over...

Econ Connections

Jeff Hulett

Feb 16, 20243 min read

The Miracle on the Hudson and Great Decision-making

We celebrate Captain Sullenberger as the prototypical example of how great decision makers benefit from a great decision process.

Personal Finance Journey

Jeff Hulett

Jul 7, 20234 min read

Treasury Rates Update: June 8th, 2023

For the past 2 weeks, 10 Year Treasury rates were unchanged. Past week: up 4bp. On 5.3.23 the Fed made an announcement that broadly...

Econ Connections

Jeff Hulett

Jun 9, 20231 min read

Predicting Bank Stress - Unrealized losses are part of the banks' broader embedded loss inventory

Banks made bad bets on the long end of the yield curve. Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic have failed. Who's next?

Econ Connections

Jeff Hulett

May 1, 20238 min read