Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
“Part of Trump’s genius is being bad in so many ways that no particular way stands out and it seems like he must not be that bad.” ~Scott Alexander www.astralcodexten.com/p/acx-endors...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
ouch.
Screenshot of Yahoo Finance notification with text: Breaking News Nvidia to replace Intel in Dow Jones Industrial Average (Reuters)
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
[new draft post] Private firms, public industries drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/01/p...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
they say success is hard work, but i contend that failure is more exhausting.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
I see it!
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
doing bad things may not be the best strategy to restore our innocence.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Denaturalization should simply not be a thing, for Elon or for anybody. The state get its opportunity for due diligence up front. Once a person is an American they are an American.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
i don’t even know how you would pin any of those people to a gar.
photograph of a gar (the fish) swimming under water. taken from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gar
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
we encounter ghosts constantly. the ghosts we encounter most often are ghosts of our former selves. boo! it says. look what you have done with us, you shithead.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
a taste of the conditions Donald Trump and Elon Musk have in mind for the working man. ht @sethcotlar.bsky.social @rednecklefty.bsky.social
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
deregulation + financialization = lobotomization + predation no one’s been working on the railroad edition, by Phillip Longman ht @volts.wtf washingtonmonthly.com/2024/10/29/t...
Train Drain | Washington Monthly
Link Preview: Train Drain | Washington Monthly: How deregulation and private equity have gutted the U.S. freight rail system—and with it, the promise of America’s industrial renewal.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
It’s an adaptation. In the original, Neo was a mitochondrion.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
it does, but not well enough to render “real GDP” reliable as a welfare measure. for example rents captured as reductions in quality, except within the particular items and ways hedonics can quantify them, don’t pass through to price. 1/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
horrible customer service, for example, doesn’t hurt GDP, assuming the demand-side is unaffected by reduced call center employment, which is a good assumption when macro policy targets demand. /fin
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
i hope talliers are always working to improve! but i think GDP largely is what it is, does what it’s supposed to do (express an aggregate of the market value of transactions to purchase final goods). it’s just that what it is has become much noisier as a correlate to welfare than it used to be.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
use of gdp as welfare measure was always based on qualitative correlations. gdp’s (well gnp’s) inventor said it should not be so used, but seemed to work pretty well. 1/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
but that is changing, because of increasing market power in especially the US economy, and relatedly the difference between cost-based and market-based pricing in GDP for govt purchased vs privately purchased goods and services. 2/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
under consolidated markets, GDP comes to include rents captured by monopolists. rent extraction reduces welfare but scores as higher GDP. 3/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
relatedly, the cost paid for government purchased healthcare in social democracies is much, much lower than the “market prices” of healthcare in the US. quality and outcomes are not broadly higher. 4/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
so, US health pathology increases US GDP, while failing to represent an increase (arguably representing a major loss) of real welfare in the United States. /fin
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
one take: if the government offers a higher wage but still lower than marginal productivity, a profit-maximizing (former) monopsonist raises its wage. the worker then is only actually lured away if the government offers a wage above the true opportunity cost, presumably because the work is worth it.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
(in a cost-benefit analysis, analysts unaware of the labor monopsony might erroneously judge a program worthwhile by underestimating the costs that would actually be required to hire the labor.)
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
it’s amazing how faddish the tech industry is. microsoft, google, amazon have all announced nuclear reactor projects within, like, a minute.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
the problem is Congress has ceased to serve the function of Congress so the other two branches fight over usurping the role.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
“As for the problems with what is sometimes termed ‘regulation by enforcement,’ that’s exactly the incentive structure the right wing has set up by kneecapping agencies’ abilities to set rules.” @lopatto.bsky.social www.theverge.com/24280387/gar...
The future of crypto regulation comes down to one unpopular man
Link Preview: The future of crypto regulation comes down to one unpopular man: Trump has promised to ‘fire’ Gary Gensler on day 1.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Speaking of Bernie, a very good profile by @ddiamond.bsky.social in, um, the Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
