11 Comments

Brad Delong's "not worth reading" -- re the Isaacson biography of Elon Musk -- may be missing the larger lesson. The book is not to be trusted, certainly. (No authorized biographer of a living person can be trusted fully.) But the very publication of Isaacson's Jobs and Musk books, both of which have gotten more attention than any recent biography of a living or recently-living politician, tells us something important. For years, leftish development economists have been trying to tell us that large multinational corporations are the real international order. An alien arriving on earth today - not necessarily on a vehicle designed by the Alpha Centauri division of SpaceX, upon stating "Take me to your leader," would be ushered in to meet Elon Musk.

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While I can't comment on *university* websites, there are lots of websites out there that *don't* tell you the full name of whatever it is rather than the acronym, or only have an image file of the full name, which can't be found with the search function or copy-pasted.

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Rory Stewart on Tory incompetence:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/16/rory-stewart-hits-out-at-incompetence-in-uk-government

(commentary, with a link to the original)

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Isaacson and Musk: I didn’t know that about Musk’s grandfather. That, in itself, certain brings clarity. Otherwise Musk, himself, has definitely affected the trajectory of humanity.

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Lemieux: Well, maybe "want more of his constituents to die" is a little strong. It more like assisted suicide. [Aren't we Catholics supposed to be against that?] :)

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Noah Smith: Probably true (even if NIMBY's don't realize it). Still, the best form of advocacy it to point out reform is potentially Pareto Optimal and possibly look into ways of actually compensating/bribing opponents.

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NIMBYism: "All?" On some margins, yes, but not necessarily anywhere near, and detectible against background noise by, policy makers reducing disincentives to housing construction. Better stick with old fashioned cost benefit analysis by which reform passes the text even without explicitly reducing anyone's cost of housing.

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Duy: ??? if the Fed were optimistic about inflation, doesn't that imply NO further increase or perhaps even a decrease in rates? Doesn't being pessimistic on growth point the same way?

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