Shawn
@SaintIgnorant
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The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know. -Einstein
Seattle, WA
Joined March 2012
This old quote from David Frum summarizes the last decade of US politics in only eight words: “If progressives won’t enforce the border, fascists will.”
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Extremely excited that this @SenatorSlotkin bill addressing the housing crisis includes an important policy approach that I've been promoting: limited preemption of state and local barriers to building denser housing. 1/5
The United States is in a housing crisis, and we need to act now. My bill declares a national housing emergency, cuts regulations that get in the way and uses the full weight of the U.S. government to increase our housing supply by 4 million homes, lowering housing prices for all
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Let me tell you what happened the week Tyson announced it was laying off 3,200 workers from its plant in Lexington, NE. -Beef packer profits hit their HIGHEST level since 2022 -Tyson stock went UP 7% -Cattle prices for ranchers went DOWN 3.4% -Beef prices near RECORD HIGHS
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An updated FDA org chart from @biospace: nearly 90% of senior leaders who were at the FDA a year ago are no longer there. Most FDA employees are usually "career staff" who worked for multiple FDA commissioners & years of training to be knowledgeable incl cell & gene therapies.
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This is the most concise but mostly-complete explanation of America's home-supply shortage you will ever read. Link to the blog post below.
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The economic phenomena called Baumol's disease is fascinating. Baumol's disease refers to a term coined by an economist to explain why higher costs in certain sectors isn't the fault of billionaires profiting from them but the ugly worms who need health care. Eat shit.
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6/10 Economists used to be obsessed with economic history as fundamental to their understanding of the subject. They no longer are, and seem to avoid it as much as possible, probably because you cannot read history without finding mainstream economic models to be questionable...
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After a disastrous launch, the Dept. of Education's new team fixed the FAFSA system, helping 14M+ students. But the GAO criticized their modern methods with an outdated playbook. It's high time we focus on outcomes not broken processes, argues @pahlkadot
eatingpolicy.com
The FAFSA team snaps back, then punches back
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If you *only* used SAT to admit to elite colleges, share of admits from top 1% income falls 15.8% → 9.9% and representation from <$200k rises by +8.8%, with no reduction in post-college outcomes. It's 'holistic review' and 'ban SAT' policy that allows the most wealthy and
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The thing about winning in a partially-free-market is that onlookers will always assume natural causes or capitalist excellence is why you won. Since we all "know" protectionism never works, the reason you have farmland 2 miles north of the border must be rock distribution.
@Empty_America Vermont to Quebec transition is equally stark. My guess is because New England is terrible farmland due to the fieldstones from the glacier deposits. Lack of good farmland set New England down a different path.
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You’ll never guess when Montgomery County’s new rent control law went into effect.
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WTAF! Was my initial take. How much of these numbers are initial account creations (lazy intentions), women with multiple accounts, and *many* AI bot accounts? Suspect the real number is closer to .5-2.5%. 1 in 40 feels high, but maybe that's optimism
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This may be the best single sentence ever written in tech journalism
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Purdue University announced last week that it would keep tuition flat through 2027, marking 14 years of no increases. This is an amazing ongoing commitment to delivering value for students. When Mitch Daniels started as Purdue's president in 2013, the university had increased
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Trump's economic advisers are saying "not it" when asked about who came up with the formula to calculate different countries' tariff rates Bessent, Tuesday: “I wasn’t involved in the calculations of the numbers” Miran, Monday: “CEA was involved in calculating a variety of means
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The immediate consequence of not punishing star performers who misbehave is retaining their services. The later consequences are: more misbehavior, bad actors gaming performance metrics, loss of faith in justice, loss of respect for elites, declining importance of virtue. Easy.
Years ago I learned from @ConradBastable the simple truth that you cannot allow people to buy indulgences for their misdeeds with «high performance». Well, Elon is *the* American high performer, a Platonic type. He's doing lots of bad stuff now. Can the US follow Roman example?
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If the colleges hadn't put a generation of millennials under $1.8 trillion of nondischargeable debt, they'd have tens of millions taking to the street in defence of their endowments. But what use is a charity that gets richer every year while beggaring its beneficiaries?
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Given that Trump has claimed he doesn’t need (or want?) Canadian crude, what does he think would transit KXL? Wrong answers only.
TRUMP: COMPANY BUILDING THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE SHOULD COME BACK TO AMERICA, AND GET IT BUILT
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