Since current standards for pilot training and qualifications were established in 2010, air fatalities have been reduced by 99.8%. Despite this, Washington leaders are considering weakening these standards. Let’s be clear — passenger safety is at stake. Learn more.
✈️ |
@BusinessInsider
reports on
@taylorswift13
's efforts to reduce her carbon footprint during The Eras Tour.
"Before the tour kicked off in March of 2023, Taylor purchased MORE THAN DOUBLE the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel."
The pandemic has turned nine pharma executives and investors into billionaires. This has only been possible thanks to a massive government intervention in the market via monopoly patent protection — for vaccines largely developed via government funding.
Truly remarkable turnaround in DC housing production over the last 30 years. In the 1990s, the District lagged behind every single state in housing permits per capita (infamously issuing zero in 1996). In 2020, DC issued one permit for every 100 people, more than any state.
Do me a favor. Go look at your last pay check stub. Then look at the taxes that were taken out. Then realize that the Ukraine probably got 20-40% of that money. Ask yourselves... what could you do with that money? Better yet... what could you do with all of the taxes that were
Quite the opposite. The 99% of human history where we all were on the brink of starvation, dominated by some cruel, moronic lord, and dead at 40 was dystopian.
New Census population estimates shed light on the extent of prime-age population decline across the country, with some interesting wrinkles.
First, nearly three-quarters of U.S. counties saw declines in their prime-age populations between 2012-2022:
1/n
UNITED STATES: CNBC reports that 25% of Gen Z taxpayers say they will 'need a therapist to help deal with the stress of tax-filing season', based on a survey by Cash App Taxes.
Disastrous news from the Philippines- the Court of Appeals has sided with Greenpeace and the antis in blocking vit-A enhanced Golden Rice, which is now in widespread cultivation in the country. All planting must now stop, harming the interests of millions.
On violent crime overall, the picture is even more grim. D.C. has seen the largest increase of any major city in America and it isn't even very close.
6/
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND): "It is time to do the right thing by making it easier for highly skilled immigrants to live, raise their families, and work in our country, allowing them to contribute in meaningful ways to states like North Dakota."
.
@SenSanders
today introduced a plan to impose a 95% tax on the “windfall profits” of all corporations earning more than $500M in revenue. “Windfall” would be determined by each company’s average profits during the 5 years before the pandemic
The Inflation Reduction Act was actually a trillion dollar spending bill. The border security bill is actually a mass amnesty. Just assume bills do the opposite of what they say.
Biden's collapse with young voters is kind of mysterious. I've heard a lot of theories, but I find disappointment over his failure to end the SALT deduction most convincing.
"Putting two kids into a child-care center in D.C. costs 41% more than the local average mortgage payment and nearly twice the cost of tuition at a public university."
Requiring an associate's degree will make it even more expensive for families.
The worst part of Twitter is not the viciousness, shallowness, or scapegoating.
It’s finding out how many smart and important people have terrible epistemic standards.
Demoralizing to see people you admire share obvious slop that doesn’t pass the smell test.
This is a BIG deal - the first of Indian Point's nuclear reactors is shutting down this month & New York State is moving toward a 100%
#RenewableEnergy
future!
Be sure to check out
@Beyond_IP
and their incredible campaign!
#BeyondIndianPoint
There is a housing policy angle to our engagement. This was on top of The Cairo, the building which led to DC’s first building height restrictions.
I would have proposed on an even higher rooftop, if one were legal.
Many of these YIMBRos have never held public power, and their dreamy capitalist idealism of supply-demand curves show that they don’t understand that the root cause of housing scarcity is commodification.
Setting aside all the other stuff about the Boudin recall, it is actually wild that a major US city elected a former Hugo Chavez staffer to be District Attorney.
Underrated is the extent to which hedge funds/high finance make it harder for the US to do advanced manufacturing (and not just through the capital inflows/trade balance channel).
I just don't believe this cultural story. TSMC gets the best, most motivated people in Taiwan. In America those people can make 5x as much doing software.
Notably, Japanese-owned U.S. auto factories are as productive as factories in Japan.
Job estimates conspiracy theories are the cleanest identifier I’ve ever seen for people whose views on the economy add zero value. They’re helpfully identifying themselves so we can clear our feeds of stupidity.
The new right-wing government in New Zealand is going to war with NIMBYs. So too is Pierre Poilievre, the next Conservative PM in Canada. Starmer won a giant Labour majority last night in the UK promising big planning reforms... Fascinating.
Buried in this episode: We almost lost Dwarkesh to stupid per-country green card caps.
After 13 years in the US (the son of a doctor!), he was mere months away from aging out of his H-1B dependent status and having to leave the country or become a Big Tech "code monkey."
.
@leopoldasch
on:
- the trillion dollar cluster
- unhobblings + scaling = 2027 AGI
- CCP espionage at AI labs
- leaving OpenAI and starting an AGI investment firm
- dangers of outsourcing clusters to the Middle East
- The Project
Full episode (including the last 32 minutes cut
NEWS: WH aides planning how to make grueling cuts to Biden agenda to accommodate centrists
Manchin's $1.5T "topline" = ~**60%** cut to Biden's plans
Wrenching choices of what gets left out:
Homelessness or climate?
Seniors or poor?
Hungry or sick?
This is one of those ideas where folks will say "sure it's probably a bad idea, but it polls well and helps you get elected."
The problem is when you say that for long enough, policymakers simply start to think it's actually a good idea in the first place.
Kamala wants to ban corporate landlords from owning lots of single-family homes.
But this policy may actually be regressive: It effectively shrinks the supply of housing available to renters, while reinforcing class segregation
France seems to be crushing it:
• Builds housing
• Builds transit (Anglo country difficulty level: impossible)
• Leading Europe esp on defense
• Green: nuclear, bikes etc
• High birth rates in declining world; Paris seems like highest birth rate large metro
Low-wage workers' wages have boomed twice in the last 40 years. They happen to be the two times we actually approached full employment.
No radical changes in trade or labor policy, just good old-fashioned aggregate demand.
Fascinating new way to look at how lower-wage workers have fared, by
@ernietedeschi
Introducing the Low-Wage Index: A Compositionally-Adjusted Look at Low-Wage Workers Since 1979
New: Demographic collapse has arrived in major American cities.
Between 2020 and 2023, large urban counties' under five population fell 8%. In NYC, it fell 18%. Los Angeles, 14%. Cook County, IL, 15%.
1/x
Here's how our map shakes out when we look at absolute changes in prime-age population over the last decade. Sun Belt: it's your economy, if you can keep it.
3/n
In contrast to what you may hear about the gig-ification of work in America:
-The average worker is working fewer hours
-Rates of 2+ jobs are down
-Typical job tenure is up
-People are changing jobs less frequently
Via
@BenGlasner
@LettieriDC
@ModeledBehavior
's new project.
This stuff from EJ is crude clickbait at best.
Here's the share of native-born, prime age Americans who are employed. As you can see, it's the highest it's been in two decades.
Nobody is being "swapped out." The labor market for native workers is historically tight.
Over the last year, native-born Americans have LOST 1.2 million jobs while foreign-born employment has increased 1.3 million; we're just swapping out American workers at this point, not growing the pie for everyone...
TIL: Lee Kuan Yew couldn’t get India or Egypt to help train Singapore’s brand-new military. He took the controversial step of inviting Israelis to do it, and just told people they were Mexicans.
@mattyglesias
It is strange for the author of this story to frame apartheid South Africa as a bastion of unfettered speech while also including this passage:
New: Foreign-born workers make up an outsized share of the workforce in industries critical to economic and national security.
You simply cannot separate industrial policy success from skilled immigration reform.
Let’s dive into the numbers.
Probably one of the most important storylines for understanding the 21st century: The Great Stagnation may be self-perpetuating, locking in zero-sum views that in turn slow growth.
NEW: a recent study found a fascinating pattern
People are becoming more zero-sum in their thinking, and weaker economic growth may explain why
Older generations grew up with high growth and formed aspirational attitudes; younger ones have faced low growth and are more zero-sum
The median salary for an H-1B visa holder last year was $118,000. For all the rhetoric around H-1B as some kind of low-wage program, the typical person on this visa makes literally twice the average American's annual salary.
NEW: How is Washington D.C. actually doing?
As we near the end of 2023, I take a look at key measures of the city's health, including demographics, crime, transit, schools, and housing.
1/
A new paper on correlates of zero-sum thinking just came out and it has everything: race, sex, politics, class, mobility, and even deep roots!
Here are my favorite graphs from the paper. But first: how was zero-sum thinking measured? The answer is as a set of four questions on
The economic case against tariffs is sound.
The national securities case against letting China poach all of American manufacturing is also sound.
The synthesis is we need free trade with the free world.
Outrageous: With his $44 billion, Elon Musk could have established a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities.
I knew this guy was insufferable on national politics but he is just clueless and uninformed on local affairs, which is a shame because he lives here and other people listen to him. He is the part of the MAGA group in DC local politics, voting against his own good gov interest.