Favorite Rejects 2021-08-25

Market Urbanism @MarketUrbanism

“Drivers praised the removal of dozens of checkpoints where security forces and militias had previously extorted bribes — replaced with a single toll payment to the Taliban.”

nytimes.comUnder Taliban Rule, Life in Kabul Transforms Once AgainThough the streets are quiet, Kabul residents describe a struggle to make ends meet in a reeling economy where banks and government offices are closed, and uncertainty reigns.

Adem and Jasharive @GeorgeHemingto1

The central idea behind crypto is in direct conflict with even the most respectably libertarian monetary policy No levers on monetary policy, everything is fiscal, you trade exclusively in a commodity - barter, essentially These people just don’t know their *own* economics

Stephen Diehl @smdiehl

Bitcoin's only intellectual contribution seems to be turning an entire generation of software developers into neo-metallist cranks, as a result of massive right-wing misinformation campaign about inflation and monetary theory.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

One of Afghanistan's neighbors is Iran, for example, but the US government consistently prioritized pressuring Iran over nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia, and Israel over trying to stabilize Afghanistan. slowboring.com/p/the-national…

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

We ended up in a situation where our only regional partner in fighting the Taliban was Pakistan, which didn't really work because Pakistan wanted the Taliban to win. slowboring.com/p/the-national…

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Good piece by @DLeonhardt if necessarily a bit gentle on some of the bad actors in the press….

nytimes.comA Better Afghan PolicyWhat would it have been?

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

It would be a much better story if the hubris inherent in selling a mid-pandemic book while covering up a pandemic-related scandal was the thing that brought him down.

Jonathan Lemire @JonLemire

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Gov. Kathy Hochul acknowledges nearly 12,000 more COVID-19 fatalities in NY than publicized by Cuomo administration.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Canada has perfected democracy: — Outcomes are driven entirely by tactical voting (or lack thereof) between different left of center parties — Regardless of who "wins," the median MP is always a centrist Liberal even in the weird election when they were in third place.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

There was this brief moment of time where there was bipartisan consensus that letting a weird app controlled by the government of China program our society might be a bad idea.

Daniel Friedman @DanFriedman81

When I talk about the collapse of norms and standards in media, this story is what I am talking about. Mentally ill fans followed around this Broadway actress and then accused her of abuse for not loving them, and the Daily Beast has run with this story. https://t.co/DNu647bqc8

JW Mason @JWMason1

Over on the right, you see how home purchases went up, and then when prices rose, purchases went down and construction went up? It's almost like there's a market or something. theovershoot.co/p/us-housing-n

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

Some evidence that single-family zoning laws are especially burdensome on the West Coast:

nber.orgThe Impact of Local Residential Land Use Restrictions on Land Values Across and Within Single Family Housing MarketsFounded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.

Zeeshan Aleem @ZeeshanAleem

Pulling out of a two decade long imperial fantasy that achieved little more than mass casualties — and deciding to eat the political costs that accompany the complicated maneuver — is the precise opposite of pure rhetoric and drift from the real world.

Bruno Maçães @MacaesBruno

A journalist asked me today how I made sense of the Biden administration. My answer, perhaps too charitable, is that I think they live in a world of pure rhetoric, where speeches alone matter and the real world has been lost