Every October, a committee in Stockholm crowns the year’s top minds in economics with a medal, a royal handshake, and a very large check, all in the name of the man who invented dynamite. But does the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences still carry the weight it once did? Between laureates honored for formulas only a statistician could love and winners who’ve spent their prestige on political punditry, Phil has some notes. And some names. Save a stool at the bar for this week’s Happy Hour Econ, as Lou and Phil hand out a few awards of their own.

Plant-based burgers were supposed to take over the dinner table. Instead, they’re gathering frost in the freezer aisle while shoppers make a beeline for the brisket and sirloin. So what keeps fake meat on the shelves, and what would actually happen if we all gave up the real thing? Enjoy a tall glass of oat milk with Lou and Phil as they chew on diet trends, crop yields, and the curious case of conspicuous production on this week’s Happy Hour Econ.

Steel is back, baby! At least, that’s the pitch, now that a company plans to build the largest steel mill in U.S. history (in the fields of Iowa) and politicians are already taking a victory lap four years before a single beam rolls off the line. But is this a real industrial comeback, or the latest chapter in a protectionist saga that started before the ink on the Constitution was dry? Lou and Phil find out whether Big Steel’s big promises have any mettle at all on this week’s Happy Hour Econ.