In Washington, analysts and politicians alike seem increasingly resigned to the idea that the only way the government will engage in fiscal consolidation is in the aftermath of a bond market crisis. But I am more optimistic that the normal democratic process could yet lead to deficit reduction.  Many discount this possibility because the last truly successful effort to reduce the deficit occurred as long ago as 1993, when the political environment was much more amenable to productive compromise. Commentators contrast this success with the failure of the $4 trillion “grand bargain” deficit-reduction effort in 2011, led by President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner. They argue that the rise of more adversarial and performative politics is to blame.  Of course, politics and policymaking have deteriorated since the 1990s. But I still think that the normal democratic process has a much better shot at leading to deficit reduction than most analysts and commentators seem to think, as I discuss in my latest @FT column, in the next post.

Many assume the central conflict in society is between the haves and the have-nots. In reality, much of the struggle is between the haves and the have-mores—people who are already doing well but want the money, resources, and status of those above them: robkhenderson.com/p/rage-of-…

Marian is citing a criminally undercited paper. I wish the authors could share the data

Turd:)

100% cato.org/sites/cato.org/file…

Building a political movement around the premise that people hate Amazon was such a weird call theargumentmag.com/p/why-eve…

Hello Senator.... This November it will be 50 years since you were first elected to Congress, so we want to be the first to say . "Happy 50th Anniversary of drawing a taxpayer funded salary." That is quite an achievement. In fact - you are 2nd longest-still serving member in Congress. It has been a long time since you held a private sector job. AND yes 50 years ago - in 1976 (it was America's Bicentennial that year) - people still punched clocks back then. The world has changed a lot. During your 50 years in Congress - you watched as the creators and inventors and producers changed the world, creating trillions in new wealth, millions of new jobs and dramatically raising living standards for everyone rich and poor alike. And for 50 years you have voted to raise taxes and regulate and oversee every move of the private sector. You have never created or invented or produced. Just taxed and regulated and outraged. But thank you for using the platform the "TRILLIONAIRE class" has provided to the entire world for free to tell us all how disgusted you are. We would never know otherwise.

Please notice that the reasons the French Socialists (and their Stiglitz backup singer) give for extreme expropriation keep varying and yet the proscribed action is always the same. Their papers keep getting debunked, they issue weak retorts, and just move on to new dubious ways of coming to the same conclusion. Here we have a stock over a flow with no actual evidence of harm. These are not economists they are just AOC/Mamdani in French academic dress. Notice there is nothing concrete here. Not even a weak “study” to show this is a problem. Just lurid statistics that he hopes will get the guillotines sharpened. Also, the implication is, of course, that the world would be better if Elon didn’t create SpaceX. Those rockets would’ve obviously landed themselves and the world government this liar has recently proposed would clearly have given us StarLink. Of course this is all a short leap for a French socialist who already has come out against growth because, uh, Greta says the poor and middle class shouldn’t advance themselves. The central battle of the future is not oligarchy vs democracy as this “repetitive dishonest unable to do ‘maths’ socialist” says, it’s mob rule, that is both left and right wing populist nonsense against human flourishing.

Amodei has built a panic around AI since he blocked GPT2's launch in 2019 as OpenAI research director, calling it too dangerous (!). Bad decisions by politicians on data centers permitting, on trade controls and more will be natural consequence of this panic.

In 1945, there were almost 42 workers paying into Social Security for every beneficiary. Nowadays, it's 2.7 workers per beneficiary. No way this program can survive--nor should it. If we want to fund an old-age anti-poverty program, let's do that openly, fairly, and sustainably.

With $1 trillion in net worth, Musk could give everyone on earth around 125 bucks and thereby solve all problems forever.

“Free speech is outdated” usually means “I trust today’s censors more than yesterday’s.” But the old problem remains: If you give someone the power to decide which ideas are too dangerous to hear, don’t be shocked when that power gets used against you.

A supposed moderate, Phillips has assigned the national debt as personal debt of the affluent. Problem: they're the creditors, not the beneficiaries. They had no veto over the spending that ran up the tab, didn't benefit from most of it, and never agreed to finance it.

For years, some Americans have sneered unfairly at "Europoors". Now, European degrowthers want to make "Europoors" into a reality. noahpinion.blog/p/degrowth-w…

A short rant against the envy cult, which would, if empowered, happily turn the United States into Belgium. nationalreview.com/corner/th…

It does look a lot like degrowth to me?

Today is a great example of why taxing unrealized gains is insane. If Musk had to face a massive tax bill for paper gains from taking SpaceX public, he likely wouldn't have done it, and the wealth SpaceX creates would be more concentrated in his hands.

Most people don't understand the difference between having billions in the bank, liquid, & having ownership shares in companies worth billions. And I think it would behoove the media to explain this once in a while.

Berkeley math professor: “Today, the more successful a public high school is at preparing its students, the lower its graduates' chances of getting into top UC campuses like Berkeley and San Diego.” Berkeley admitted 45% of applicants from a high school where nearly 94% of “students failed to meet the state standards in mathematics.” It admitted less than 14% of applicants from a school where “nearly 100 percent of its students in AP Calculus BC pass the national exam with a perfect score of 5.”