Favorites October 25th 2023
You can barely see the EU / Eurozone parts of the graph! Derek Thompson responded to this tweet by checking the categories of the top US companies by market cap (computers, computers, computers, computers, computers, computers) vs the top EU ones (ozempic, luxury bags and jewelry, lotions). Armand Domalewski responded: "The American economy runs on nerds, the European economy runs on mistresses". Another response was that European companies gave away a ton of technology instead of making profit off of it.
If you simply tax the land value, you can use it to pay for the improvements, which benefit everyone!
The situation in Sudan seems... very very bad.
He's also been very clear that he's in favor of banning abortion nationwide, and he wants tax subsidies for teaching kids that there were 85 breeds of dinsoaurs on Noah's Ark. Here's a longer thread about where he and other republicans have landed on the 2020 election outcome. At least he seems to be warming to Ukraine aid, but maybe not? Overall though, this guy seems terrible, and his election is a win for far right Republicans.
Longer Reads
• Great thread fact-checking various claims about EVs. TL;DR: EVs reduce net carbon emissions after about 13k miles of driving, the source of the electricity barely matters.
Flotsam and Jetsam
– Breakdown of Tax Revenue by category across countries, property taxes are the best of these options, check out how great Texas' tax structure is, shame about what they spend it on. (src)
– China's Maritime claims vs the internationally recognized claims (src)
– Los Angeles traffic engineers were directed to build a 24 foot road with one bike lane and one car lane. They ignored council and built three car lanes and no bike lanes. Traffic engineers can be pretty evil. (src)
– Wild proposal for a new building in Los Angeles that seems to violate the building codes, but would be cool if they get to build it. Of course it’s problem is the staircase requirements (src)
– One rich couple basically cured spinal muscular dystrophy with $100 million (src)
– Where did the population of Israel come from. (It's the neighboring arab countries expelling their jewish populations) (src)
– Member of the DSA describes how they were taken over by Tankies (src)
– Everyone agreed that the Israeli government shouldn't have given so much money to Hamas, even when it was happening. (src)
– The Saudis intercepted a missile from Yemen aimed at Israel, Wild! (src)
– Solar is cost effective, but not if you try to put it on houses. (src)