Favorites April 24th 2022

July 2021, San Francisco

Not sure how to highlight it better, but that band of greenery so high up in the middle of the city is quite striking in person.

Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis

1/2 Good article about the Chinese housing market: "Mass market developers, however, are still struggling to attract buyers across the country, even with price cuts or inducements such as free parking spaces." Speculative markets can't be stabilized.

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Noah Smith adds that it doesn't make sense to buy an overpriced apartment and expect appreciation when the population of the country is declining. This thread goes on, explaining that the same processes that made values spiral up work in reverse as well.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I'm very worried about the prospect of American politics falling into the Macron/LePen political alignment where the disputes and voting patterns are entirely post-material but where, unlike in France, we won't have first met basic material needs like universal health care.

LePen lost to Macron, (although he made some tactical errors)

Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien

War changes things, Ukrainian civil society has been hugely strengthened by the resistance of Ukrainians to the invasion. I’m sure it was strong before or the resistance would not have been so effective, though the war seems to have driven it up a notch.

Mark MacKinnon @markmackinnon

I’ve been in a few war zones, but I’ve never seen a country that has moved so quickly - mid-conflict - to clean up the wreckage. It’s as if there’s a nationwide desire to wash away the stains as soon as possible. https://t.co/2Lb35tFdYw

The second photo is the *after* photo. They've moved very quickly to clean up damage, in many ways the war is strengthening civil society.

John Schmitt @jschmittwdc

"The @EconomicPolicy and The @Shift_HKS jointly released a company wage tracker this week to reveal how major chains are paying their employees..It's not hard to look at those numbers and see why workers have been motivated to unionize" via @paulconstant

businessinsider.comA new company wage tracker explains why so many hourly workers are choosing to unionizeWith many companies, like Taco Bell and Dollar General, mostly paying less than $15 an hour, workers are demanding a bigger cut of the profits.

Here's the site with the data. From the article: "had the federal minimum wage kept up with worker productivity, it would now be over $20 per hour". Combine that with a strong labor market, and surprise, you get unions.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

If they drove the fire truck in, you see, someone might get Covid

Chang Che @Changxche

A fire broke out in Shanghai's Pudong. The firetruck can't drive in because they put up an isolation wall around the building to shut everyone in. https://t.co/BeZkm0nPy6

• Thread about Ukraine's success fighting at night.

• Thread about attrition of Russian forces.