Favorite Rejects 2023-02-26

Thomas Maxwell @tomaxwell

WeWork raised a total of $22 billion in funding and is now worth $900 million

Adam Thierer @AdamThierer

the U.S. has a lawyer problem: * more than 1.3 Mil lawyers in US * from 1900 to 2000, number of lawyers rose 793% * largest increase was in 1970s (+76%) * over the past decade, the number of lawyers up by more than 80,000 (up 6.6% from 2012 to 2022)

Nick Bloom @I_Am_NickBloom

Fascinating piece by Torsten Slok arguing that declining survey response rates are making data more volatile. More volatile data is making markets more volatile. This is raising uncertainty, and may damage growth.

Armand Domalewski @ArmandDoma

I used to believe this but 2020, and in particular, 2022, convinced me this was wrong. Lots of people who vote Republican flipped to voting Democrat!

Olivia Julianna 🗳 @0liviajulianna

In my opinion, persuasion voting doesn’t work very often. Sure, you’ll have some liberal republicans vote for you— but in large swaths it just won’t happen.

Shashank Joshi @shashj

Wang Yi told EU’s Borrell that China “will not provide arms to Russia”. This sounds pretty categorical, and would be a different category of lie to the ones usually told by the Chinese foreign ministry.

Finbarr Bermingham @fbermingham

Borrell speaking yet again about China arming Russia "But as far as I know, there is no evidence that China has been doing what they claim not to be doing." Says he had to explain at length to Wang Yi why it would be different to the west arming Ukraine https://t.co/TVMYrozHWG

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Here’s a tip for staying on track with your weight loss goals even on vacation — contract norovirus on your second day so you go 48 hours without eating, then just relax and have fun for the rest of the trip.

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Welp. The behavior of a certain cadre of scientists who used every trick in the book to suppress discussion of this issue is something I'll never forget. A huge disservice to science and public health. They should be profoundly embarrassed.

wsj.comWSJ News Exclusive | Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now SaysThe Energy Department joins the FBI in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

If you think that invading and occupying Mexico could be accomplished for a fraction of what we’re spending on Ukraine, I’d invite you to consider the financial cost of occupying the much smaller country of Iraq.

Jason Crawford @jasoncrawford

Apparently this was AI-generated and the Bacon quotes are hallucinated. 🤨