~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (91)

Open borders hasn’t been getting a lot of good press recently but next week Bulgaria and Romania will join the Schengen Area for air and sea travel (road travel will likely follow). No more passports or visa necessary! The Schengen Area is a remarkable achievement for a part of the world once riven by violence […] The post Opening Borders appeared first on Marginal...

From the TxP Progress Prize: But then Tyler asked us, twice in a row, ‘what is your signature product?’ Being honest, we realised even if our pitch was strong at a high level, we’d essentially just submitted a laundry list of ideas for what we wanted to deliver, without much focus. We knew we had […] The post Applying to Emergent Ventures, and how...

Here is a good Substack essay by Nicolas Cachanosky, excerpt: Inflation expectations depend on what is expected to happen to the budget in the months to come. It is natural, then, to ask whether the observed surpluses are sustainable in the months ahead. Answering this question requires looking at two things. First, how was the fiscal […] The post How credible is the Milei plan?...

The Scottish Enlightenment will die on April 1st 2024, exactly 327 years, eight months and 24 days after the incident that provoked it. For on April 1st the Hate Crime and Public Order Act (Scotland) 2021 comes into force, an Act which will criminalise speech and opinion deemed ‘hateful’ even if spoken in the privacy of […] The post R.I.P. The Scottish Enlightenment 1697-2024 appeared...

Pacific Heights is a 1990 movie starring Michael Keaton, Melanie Griffith, and Matthew Modine. Conventionally described as a “psychological thriller,” or a horror movie it’s actually a Kafkaesque analysis of tenancy rights and the legal system. The movie centers on a young couple, Drake and Patty, who purchase a San Francisco Victorian with dreams of […] The post Pacific Heights: A Movie Ahead of...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is the episode summary: Marilynne Robinson is one of America’s best and best-known novelists and essayists, whose award-winning works like Housekeeping and Gilead explore themes of faith, grace, and the intricacies of human nature. Beyond her writing, Robinson’s 25-year tenure at the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop allowed her to shape and […] The post My excellent Conversation with Marilynne Robinson...

The growth of China’s agricultural subsidies is incredible: now at $300bn per year, according to the OECD. pic.twitter.com/hWEzB7prGf — joseph francis (@joefrancis505) March 18, 2024 Via Andrew Batson. The post China fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Crikey. “Then you must be passing all that coal ... by ChinaAPIn reply to ChinaAP. Then you must be passing...

El Salvador’s Congress approved on Tuesday a reform to remove income taxes previously imposed on money from abroad, in a move to attract more foreign investment. Money flows from abroad in forms such as remittances and investments in companies will now be exempt from tax, lawmakers said. Prior to the reform, incomes equal to or […] The post The El Salvador tax reform appeared...

a16z has issued the talks from that event, and we are issuing it too, as a bonus episode of CWT.  But note it is shorter than usual, and not the typical CWT format — this was done for an audience of actual DC human beings! Excerpt: COWEN: Why is open-source AI in particular important for national […] The post Marc Andreessen and I talk AI...

The Hill has a good op-ed by Matt Cole and Chris Nicholson on how labor and DEI regulations are strangling the CHIPS act. It’s somewhat over the top, failure is overdetermined, but this is an important op-ed and directionally correct. The Biden administration recently promised it will finally loosen the purse strings on $39 billion of CHIPS […] The post DEI vs. the Chips Act appeared...

You will find it here, 45 pp. of text plus lots of footnotes.  Overall it is a nothing burger.  You’ll find plenty of (justifiable) claims that there are no dead bodies, no alien spacecraft have been recovered, no technology is being reverse engineered, there is nothing to Roswell, and so on.  Here is from the […] The post The new UAPs report appeared first...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: From both a biomedical and economic point of view, the success of the new class of weight-loss drugs is something to behold. Not only are they a remarkable scientific achievement, but — in the case of Ozempic and Wegovy, both made by […] The post Small countries, big firms appeared first...

The amount of new transmission line installed in the United States has dropped sharply since 2013, when 4,000 miles were added. Now, the nation struggles to bring online even 1,000 new miles a year. The slowdown has real consequences not just for companies but for the climate. A group of scientists led by Princeton University professor […] The post We need YIMBY for the U.S....

Here is the video, audio, and transcript, taped in his Apollo office in NYC.  Here is the episode summary: Marc Rowan, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, joined Tyler to discuss why rising interest rates won’t hurt Apollo’s profitability, why liabilities have traditionally been the weak spot in insurance, why the concept of liquidity […] The post My excellent Conversation with Marc Rowan...

Please apply and send your students to the 2024 Public Choice Outreach Conference! The conference is a crash course in public choice. It’s entirely free. Indeed scholarships are available! More details in the poster. Please pass around. Applications are here! Here is a pdf of the poster, please circulate. Outreach Conference Flyer 2024 – 2 The post Public Choice Outreach 2024! appeared first on...

From an MR reader: Good story here about one man in Washington state fighting the battle against the progressive tide. He single handedly got six initiatives on the ballot to repeal progressive reforms over the past few years. These include a police pursuit law that prevents police from chasing criminals in most cases, and a […] The post Tide turning in Washington State? appeared...

Eduardo Costantini, a billionaire property developer, supports Milei’s plans but describes his handling of Congress as an “unforced error”. “The legislative strategy he had clearly didn’t work,” he says. “He came away from this first round practically empty-handed.” Nicolás Pino, head of agribusiness lobby La Sociedad Rural Argentina, says cutting spending without also delivering deep […] The post A pessimistic account of the Milei...

Distraction is everywhere. As I write this post, I pause to check twitter. Phones are omnipresent and demand our attention. Dopamine hits rule. Yet, despite the potential for greater distraction, a large study finds that on a standardized test, the ability to concentrate is up (modestly) for adults. In the present cross-temporal meta-analysis, we investigate […] The post The Ability to Concentrate is Increasing?!...

It is too soon to say, as I express in my 2x the usual length Bloomberg column.  It is amazing how many people are swallowing this one whole.  Here is the simplest point: The biggest problem is that it’s not yet clear these investments are going to pay off. They are being paid for with […] The post Is Bidenomics working? appeared first on...

BREAKING: Queen Camilla is taking a break from public duties for some "downtime", which means that NONE of the four most senior royals – King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William and Kate Middleton – are working right now. All is not well with the Royal Family. 💁‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/2sgSrM0Otz — Cillian (@CilComLFC) March 2, 2024 In […] The post Kind of like the NBA All-Star...

*NEW* Canada's GDP grew by 1.1% between the 4th quarter of 2022 and 2023, while its population grew by 3.2%. That means GDP per capita is now falling at 2% annually (roughly the difference). Zero economic growth in more than 6 years. pic.twitter.com/SrGGKPZjNx — Mikal Skuterud (@mikalskuterud) February 29, 2024 The post Canada fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn...

At $US15,000, BYD’s new Qin EV is already being touted as a “Corolla killer”, as the world’s second largest EV maker continues to disrupt the global auto market. Launched earlier this week in China, the all-electric Qin Plus has five variants priced between 109,800 RMB to ($A23,300) to 139,800 RMB ($A29,700). The Qin Plus comes with […] The post Solve for the equilibrium? appeared first...

Here is Fareed’s home page, here is Wikipedia: Fareed Rafiq Zakaria…is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly paid column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor at large of Time. He was managing editor of Foreign Affairs at age 28, briefly […] The post What should I ask Fareed Zakaria?...

I’ve chatted with a lot of Iranians online in the past few years (they’re in Iran). Some of their takes (always subject to the “plural of anecdote is not “data”)… 1. Islam is seen by younger people as the doctrine of a failed government staffed by a bunch of crooks. 2. And it’s a foreign, […] The post Claims about Iran (from the comments)...