Favorite Rejects 2022-08-01

Adam Tranter @adamtranter

The SUV that many think of as safe for their kids is actually not safe at all.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Society if we’d allowed NY, to swell into a monster city of 55 million https://t.co/u2eQWhpee3

Market Urbanism @MarketUrbanism

“…planners warned that NYC had the potential to swell into a ‘monster city’ of 55 million people. To avoid this fate, the city passed a major overhaul of zoning rules in 1961…Now, a longstanding housing shortage…is inflaming a crisis in affordability” https://t.co/6bPQTpVDgl

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I don’t approve of this DCCC tactic. At the same time, Republican Party primary voters are adult American citizens who are capable of deciding for themselves whether they prefer pro-insurrection or anti-insurrection candidates and they are responsible for their choices.

Jonathan Swan @jonathanvswan

Peter Meijer is one of the few Republicans to have risked his career to vote to impeach Trump. The Democratic Party is spending a meaningful amount of money to help his primary opponent - who they will soon warn is an existential danger to democracy. https://t.co/gDIjn6L9Ot

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

If I were the federal reserve, I would simply target aggregate nominal spending rather than tying myself into knots over whether cheaper gasoline makes core inflation better or worse.

Conor Sen @conorsen

I think you could argue the Fed wanted lower gasoline prices (see June FOMC meeting) but has been unhappy about the impact lower gasoline prices has had on financial markets (and perhaps with consumers). https://t.co/XkSQMm43cN

Mark Joseph Stern @mjs_DC

The executive director of a new TX crisis pregnancy center proclaims that "a lot of 13-year-olds do phenomenal" as mothers. She also believes that the 10-year-old rape victim should not have gotten an abortion: "even at 10, she knows a life is inside her." washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

A super interesting section of @ProfHansNoel's book notes that "abortion laws should be liberalized" was associated with left-wing *writers* decades before Roe and presaged a partisan alignment that didn't take root until the 1980s.

Special Puppy🧦🐵 @SpecialPuppy1

From 1972 through 1984, Self-Identified Republicans were more likely to support abortion rights than Democrats even though self-identified liberals were more likely to support abortion rights than self-identified conservatives https://t.co/Y3pZn5MZhi

Darrell Owens @IDoTheThinking

I honestly have never, ever seen any tech yuppies on rideshare scooters. Its always teenagers and poor older folks using them in Oakland. Tech yuppies usually drive EVs and yet theres little EV hate. Its just reactionary stuff about non-car mobility from motorists, nothing more.

Paul E Williams @PEWilliams_

Funny when people complain about ebikes and scooters and such as "toys for yuppies"—the only information really contained therein is that the critic lives in a segregated neighborhood. All sorts of people ride them in my neighborhood. Young, old, black, white, brown.

Caleb Watney @calebwatney

What are key, policy-relevant questions where we could use more academic research? I spoke recently to econ PhD students at the NBER Innovation Bootcamp about holes that I think are not well-answered by the existing literature. Here's my list of 11 in no particular order:🧵

Benny1 @cupking11

This is worrying. We've only started using robots ourselves.

David Zipper @DavidZipper

Pontevedra, Spain has seen 20%+ population growth since going car-free in 1999. Mayor of Pontevedra: "Not only have we not had a single road-related death in over a decade, but air pollution has been reduced by 67%."

politico.euThe city that pioneered Europe’s car-free futurePontevedra banned cars decades before most cities started to think about reclaiming streets for pedestrians.

Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis

1/5 Very interesting article, although I don't think it draws out the full implications. It points out that local governments are really struggling financially, and that Beijing has made things harder for them without yet having done much to help.

wsj.comChina’s Economy Tested by Strained City FinancesGovernment entities could face a nearly $900 billion funding shortfall in 2022, weighing on Beijing’s plans to revive growth.