Favorites December 20th 2022
From extreme lockdowns to Trumpist in a few weeks is wild, and pretty scary considering they skipped the mRNA vaccine phase. But they're going ahead and doing the Florida thing of heavily limiting which 'deaths with covid' count as 'deaths from covid'.
He also linked to another paper about when telephone operators were suddenly replaced by machines. Apparently 15% of women in the US had worked as an operator at some point! Reminds me of the truck driver situation a bit.
This seems good, the goal of these provisions should be to ensure manufacturing capabilities are built as an alternative to China, but the US can't do that alone.
Threads
• Thread about a new measure of housing costs, new tenant repeat rent index, which doesn't lag real rent prices by as much as the CPI rent of primary residence, and is more accurate than the zillow spot prices that have been experimented with lately.
• Fun thread by a journalist who went and tried all the most recent meat alternatives. Most he describes as tasting quite good, although there were only a couple that he described as indistinguishable from the originals.
• Thread describing the Electoral Count Act reforms that are moving forward. Andrew Prokop says they look good. While we're discussing the omnibus spending bill, don't listen to folks complaining about the mechanics of it. Going slower and spending more time on public debate would not result in a better bill, secret congress is really the only way to pass vaguely good legislation anymore.
• Plus, more science funding in the omnibus as well.