Favorite Rejects 2022-01-14

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

The whole thing where a chip shortage reducing the volume of new car production led to soaring prices for used cars seems like it might contain some lessons for housing policy.

Andrew Prokop @awprokop

Steve Clemons (fresh off dinner with Manchin at Cafe Milano) says Manchin actually isn't so keen on the Freedom to Vote Act (the supposed compromise crafted to win his support). Also, he wants bipartisan Electoral Count Act reform politico.com/news/2022/01/1…

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Do what’s right for the economy — reduce spending on the overburdened goods sector and redirect that money into newsletter subscriptions where the supply chain is extremely robust.

Jason Furman @jasonfurman

The decline in retail sales might actually be a positive sign of a healthy normalization. The economy has struggled to produce enough goods to match the voracious consumer appetite for them. If goods spending continues to normalize that would be, well, good. https://t.co/hz2w72fNXu

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Not necessarily opposed to this, but it would be a lot cheaper to let people build tall buildings on the Upper West Side sidestreets where the B/C trains have unused capacity.

Samantha Maldonado @sssmaldo

Well this is quite the proposal https://t.co/HMvZekXzzo https://t.co/T1Ps2Od1YF

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

One Billion Americans within our existing land mass would leave the United States slightly less dense than Germany. https://t.co/0xlo48Rplj

New York Times Pitchbot @DougJBalloon

Sure, if you extended New Manhattanata past Governor’s Island, you could fit in a quarter-million more New Yorkers. But if you extended it past Iceland, we’d finally have room for the one billion Americans we need. By Matt Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

There are about the same number of people in the Phoenix metro area as in the Berlin metro area. https://t.co/XdaTu4jJW8

Allan Moyes @Scotty1959

@mattyglesias Except that Germany doesn’t have the SW quadrant of the US which is basically uninhabitable away from the coast (at least for a large number of people).

Brad Heath @bradheath

Guys, when the FBI asks to talk to you, you're not going to be the one doing the interrogating.

Mike Dunford @questauthority

Here's the most recent tweet from that timeline. *Ron Howard Voice* "A report did not follow." https://t.co/dwFIgHvAxH

Nick Heer @nickheer

I keep thinking about how marketers, in solving for Google’s search ranking mechanisms, have effectively broken it as a search engine.

mjtsai.comMichael Tsai - Blog - Search Engines and SEO Spam

Michael Vario @mvario1

No One Seems To Understand Why Elizabeth Warren Just Teamed Up With Josh Hawley & Lindsey Graham To Try To Repeal Section 230 | Techdirt techdirt.com/articles/20220… #ProtectSection230 #SaveSection230

techdirt.com[UPDATE] Elizabeth Warren Is NOT Cosponsoring A Bill To Repeal 230Big Update: It turns out that this was a clerical error on the part of a Senate staffer, and that Elizabeth Warren is not co-sponsoring this bill from Lindsey Graham to repeal Section 230. The Congress.gov site is expected to be corrected and her name...

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The incredibly rapid rise of the number of NBA players in COVID protocols being followed by an equally rapid decline. public.tableau.com/views/NBACOVID…

Alexis Rivas @alexisxrivas

Today it takes 410 days on average to build a custom home in the USA. The same amount of time it took to build the Empire State Building in 1930. The opportunity for innovation in construction is incredible.

Bobby Fijan @bobbyfijan

A fact that always blows my mind: It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building https://t.co/EYYdeR384q

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

I still think Twitter's political power is massively overrated in general, but I wonder if the YIMBYs crushing the NIMBYs on Twitter had anything to do with this...

Curbed @Curbed

.@AOC has a plan to address the housing shortage. She wants to flood local, state, and federal governments with YIMBYs. @dianabudds writes https://t.co/SZVfmb5mzv

tylercowen @tylercowen

How much should we be upping our probabilities that a bunch of other mysterious ailments are caused by viruses too?

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

One of the most underrated aspects of contemporary politics is the extent to which "activists on the left" and "major funders" are the same people. It's very different from the dynamic of 20 years ago.

Shane Goldmacher @ShaneGoldmacher

The drive for a major push on voting rights didn't just come from activists on the left. It has come from major funders. https://t.co/HDd6PiuuCf

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

The thing about "defund the police" was, it would have backfired even had it actually been done.

Steven Buss 🥑 🌐 @sbuss

"No evidence suggests a relationship between the size of a police force and the number of people its officers kill; ample evidence suggests that bigger and better-funded forces tend to reduce violent crime." https://t.co/vzz37ACYJG