What public figures publish and believe, in their own words.
About this feed
Highlights: posts that did unusually well for the person who wrote them, everything they published at length, each release and new project, and every belief — at most two a day from anyone. Day by day, newest day first; within a day, the people with the most beliefs on this site come first. Nothing else orders it. Show everything instead.
The quoted blocks are what people actually said; a beneath one is the belief those words support, in korrents' wording. Nobody here wrote their own page.
Top people are the people in this feed with the most beliefs on this site, then the most here. Choose an area and the row leads with the people whose beliefs are about it; tap a face for their feed.
All of Economics
energysolareconomistsinterest ratesinflationremote workpublic debtquantitative easing
Top people in Economics
Showing Profile →
Hiding
Hiding
24 April
23 April
-
Their words
Construction costs tend to rise at, or above, the level of overall inflation, and it rarely (if ever) gets cheaper to build houses, offices, or other buildings.
-
Their words
the economy now asks every creative person to essentially become a small media company, which is a very specific skill set that has nothing to do with why most of us started making things in the first place
21 April
17 April
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
For a New LibertyTheir words
In all honesty, I think that these are the best eight pages of economics I’ve ever read.
16 April
15 April
-
Their words
Computing is not like that. There's a reason why the x86 still exists. There's a reason why ARM is so sticky. These ecosystems, these ecosystems are hard to replace. It costs an enormous amount of time and energy and most people don't want to do it.
14 April
13 April
-
Their words
That's why I don't think accelerationist steamrolling will work. The only way this conflict resolves peacefully is some kind of grand bargain: a flagship policy plan that directly addresses the public's top fears about AI and meaningfully redistributes the gains.
8 April
-
Their words, before
It may no longer have as much economic value as it once did. I think that I'm quite convinced is true that we perhaps have seen the peak.
Their words now
So, I do think it is correct for the average programmer to think maybe we've seen the best of the golden days.
7 April
-
Their words
What I see now is, well, "I'm a a programmer and I've got six agents. So, really I'm managing a team." No, you're not. You're using six tools at once, which is fine. But, it's that's very different than having a conversation with somebody who believes things that are a little different than what you believe.
1 April
From one piece Scaling Uber with Thuan Pham (Uber's first CTO) 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
It's not about just a technology. It's about whether the world is ready for it, whether it's economically feasible.
-
Their words
we have a very clear definition and expectation of what it is at the staff engineer level because we benchmark ourselves to all the great company out there Google, Facebook and all that
24 March
23 March
From one piece Jensen Huang: NVIDIA - The $4 Trillion Company & the AI Revolution | Lex Fridman Podcast #494 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
And so when you take these things in combination, I am absolutely certain that the world's GDP is going to accelerate in growth. I'm absolutely certain the percentage of that GDP that will be used for computation will be 100 times more than the past
-
Their words
Now, the second thing is we have to build data centers that gracefully degrade.
22 March
-
Their words
We may have a handful of genies, but that's different from having a handful of friends, right? In part because the energy's different, the conversations are different. Also, they just agree with us constantly.
19 March
17 March
16 March
13 March
From one piece Dylan Patel — The single biggest bottleneck to scaling AI compute 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
oh 50 gigawatts of economic you know sort of capex in in the data center and what gets built on top of that in terms of tokens is even larger right it might be hundred billion dollars worth of AI value into the supply chain is held up by this $1.2 two billion dollars worth of tooling that simply just cannot expand its supply chain quickly.
-
Their words
So, space data centers effectively are not li limited by, you know, hey, we have this energy advantage. It's actually just limited by the same contended resource. We can only make 200 gawatts of chips a year by the end of the decade.
-
Their words
Uh, Micron bought a fab from a company in Taiwan that makes lagging edge chips, right? Um, Heinix and Samsung are doing, you know, some pretty crazy things to try and expand capacity at their existing fabs, uh, that also have like very large knock-on effects in the economy. And so, hey, why can't we build more capacity is like there's nowhere to put the tools, right?
11 March
-
Their words
Our dumb economy might prize a certain talent more during a certain period of time or place, but that doesn't mean you should.
-
Their words
There were booms and busts, and cumulative price inflation was zero, and the United States went from a new-world emerging backwater in the late 1700s to being the world's largest economy by the late 1800s.
5 March
4 March
24 February
From one piece Attack of the Zombie Tariffs 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
The tariffs survived the case for them because their real purpose was the personal power they conferred.Their words
It has been clear from the beginning that a primary motivation for tariffs was that they empowered Trump personally.
-
Their words
Revenue from the Trump tariffs, even pre-Court, wasn’t enough to make a large dent in the deficit.
-
korrents.com
The tariffs did not revive American manufacturing; employment in it fell after they were imposed.Their words
Trump also claimed that his tariffs would revive American manufacturing. In fact, manufacturing employment has declined since Liberation Day.
+ 1 more
-
korrents.com
The 2025 American tariffs did not reduce the trade deficit they were imposed to reduce.Their words
In fact, the U.S. trade deficit for all of 2025 was about the same as it was in 2024.
19 February
17 February
-
Their words
Both estimates make me think that the concern about global energy demand for LLMs is over-blown.
13 February
From one piece Dario Amodei — “We are near the end of the exponential” 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
The the chatbot is already running into limitations of, you know, making it smarter doesn't really help the average consumer that much. But I don't think that's a limitation of AI models. I don't think that's evidence that, you know, the models are are the models are good enough and they're they're, you know, them getting better doesn't matter to the economy.
-
Their words
What I would say is that you know we are we are about to be in a world where growth and economic value will come very easily. If right if we're able to build these powerful AI models, growth and economic value will come very easily. What will not come easily is distribution of benefits, distribution of wealth, political freedom, um you know, these are the things that are going to be hard to achieve.
12 February
From one piece Speed Can Reindustrialize America 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Zero tariffs are the best way to help them.
-
Their words
Long lead times and soft costs, fueled by the world-leading US wages for "white collar" work, are the root cause of poor performance in low-volume production because there are few units to spread the soft costs over.
-
korrents.com
Tariffs on imported components and machinery hurt the American manufacturers they are supposed to help.Their words
These end manufacturers (new and old) are vulnerable to tariffs on their inputs and they are the buyers that the "speed strategy" is relevant for.
10 February
-
korrents.com
Manufacturing and mining in space will never be lucrative enough to pay for human settlement of space.Their words, before
Furthermore, I believe it’s very unlikely that space-based manufacturing or mining could be lucrative enough to fund the venture.
Their words now
Today, exploding demand for power-intensive AI applications provides enough of an upside to justify producing components in space, providing the economic engine necessary to justify and fund the trillions of dollars necessary to build and sustain space factories.
-
Their words
The economics of orbital “datacenters” or essentially glorified Starlink satellites with a bunch of GPUs attached are likely to be even better than Starlink.
Space AI: I guess we’re doing Moon factories nowcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com
9 February
From one piece Do subsidies make meat much cheaper? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Simply making fossil fuels more expensive without having affordable alternatives just makes energy more expensive, which hits the poorest hardest.
Do subsidies make meat much cheaper?hannahritchie.substack.com
-
Their words
Again, you cannot pay for the externalities by pulling subsidies (there is nothing there to pull
Do subsidies make meat much cheaper?hannahritchie.substack.com
From one piece JL Goes International, and to ETFs…… Oh my! 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
The United States' share of global GDP and equity markets will keep shrinking, and that decline is accelerating.Their words
For these reasons, I see that declining trend of the US share of the world economy described above accelerating.
-
korrents.com
Tariffs are likely to become inflationary once companies can no longer absorb the added costs.Their words
These tariffs are also likely to be very inflationary once companies are no longer willing or/and able to absorb them.
-
Their words
Tariffs, and especially the erratic implementation of them, are teaching our allies and enemies alike that the US is no longer a reliable trading partner.
4 February
3 February
-
Their words
I believe this is the watch great watchmakers would make today, given that back in the 1800s they were using all available technology.
13 January
-
Their words
There's never in history been a better time for remote jobs or being an entrepreneur.
11 January
6 January
-
korrents.com
The right response to housing costs is to build millions more homes as fast as possible.Their words
Every economic issue is complex, but this one seems pretty straight forward: we should build more homes. Millions of them, as fast as we can.
4 January
-
Their words
Alex Mayyasi, Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces that Shape Your Life is a useful introduction to economic concepts.
1 January
-
Their words
This is a topic that I warned about very publicly in 2025 , where I predicted that AI could displace half of all entry-level white collar jobs in the next 1–5 years, even as it accelerates economic growth and scientific progress.
-
Their words
Systems which do require remote operations assistance to get full reliability cut into that economic advantage and have a higher burden on their ROI calculations to make a business case for their adoption and therefore their time horizon to scaling across geographies.
25 December 2025
From one piece Chinese Labor Isn't Just Cheaper; It’s Better. We Need to Fix That. 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Between 2015 and 2025 US manufacturing wages rose 40%, while the cost of purchasing a home rose 93%.
-
korrents.com
Rebuilding American manufacturing is a decades-long educational and cultural project, not something tariffs can do.Their words
America needs an educational and cultural transformation to compete with China and reverse the decline in living standards that Americans have suffered over decades.
22 December 2025
-
Their words
A good overview of his work in labor economics.
9 December 2025
-
korrents.com
Cheap clean energy has broken the old trade-off between raising living standards and cutting environmental harm.Their words
The rapid drop in renewable energy costs in the last decade (alongside huge improvements in battery technologies) has started to break this deadlock.
-
Their words
economists have this fantasy of the world of companies in direct competition driving down price and increasing efficiency while supplying the same thing which is based on a false premise that people know what they want to begin with. Now I would argue when you don't create differentiation, everybody suffers.
8 December 2025
-
Their words, before
we will see batteries aggressively displace transmission as the most cost-effective way to ensure continuity of electricity supply, leading to an eventual pruning of the grid and drastic reduction in the average distance that power travels between production and consumption, even as the average time that power is stored increases.
Their words now
Do we need to drastically expand the grid in order to metabolize renewables? No.
From one piece Energy Predictions 2025 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Storing electricity for months is economically difficult, but storing heat is easy.
-
Their words
The only highly populated industrial country unable to trivially meet its electricity and synthetic fuel needs with solar alone is the United Kingdom, due primarily to a high population density and high latitude. The Nordic and Baltic countries are tiny by comparison. Among other problems, the UK needs to decide if it wants the future where energy is cheap and it is rich, or the future where energy is expensive and it is poor. If the former, it is time to get serious about large scale deployment of wind power, using home-grown vertically integrated technology at prices as low as $10/MWh.
-
Their words
Do we need to drastically expand the grid in order to metabolize renewables? No.
+ 1 more
-
Their words
By 2045, natural gas will be used as LNG primarily for high performance supersonic aviation, shipping, and industrial heat.
1 December 2025
27 November 2025
-
korrents.com
Widespread AI-driven performance tuning agents will meaningfully reduce global energy waste.Their words
In future there will be AI performance agents that can be run on everything, helping to save the planet by reducing energy usage.
25 November 2025
-
Their words
But I think the idea of very rapid economic growth for some time, I think it's very possible from broad deployment.
23 November 2025
From one piece China bows to de-industrialization 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
There's even a case to be made that those policies actually depressed the manufacturing share of GDP: by boosting output and capacity above where they would have been otherwise, subsidies probably contributed to the sustained decline in prices for China's manufactured goods over the past few years, weighing on their share of nominal output.
-
korrents.com
A declining manufacturing share of GDP as an economy matures reflects economic success rather than decline.Their words
Both of these trends are a consequence of economic success, in terms of higher output and productivity: at least some of what is decried as "de-industrialization" is good actually. It is also good for China's planners to recognize that reality and not distort the economy in pursuit of an impossible outcome.
17 November 2025
16 November 2025
-
Their words
AI has been compared to various historical precedents: electricity, industrial revolution, etc., I think the strongest analogy is that of AI as a new computing paradigm (Software 2.0) because both are fundamentally about the automation of digital information processing.
12 November 2025
From one piece Satya Nadella – How Microsoft thinks about AGI 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
even if the tech is diffusing fast uh this time around for true economic growth to appear it has to sort of diffuse to a point where the work the work artifact and the workflow has to change and so that's kind of one place where I think uh the change management required for a corporation to truly change I think is something we shouldn't discount
-
Their words
ultimately I think what matters is the use of AI in their economy to create economic value right I mean that's the uh the diffusion theory which is ultimately it's not the leading sector but it's the ability to use the leading technology to create your own comparative advantage right so that I think will fundamentally be the core driver
26 October 2025
-
korrents.com
Renewables now account for the bulk of the growth in electricity generation, whatever their opponents believe.Their words
there are many people who still refuse to believe that renewables can be practical even as renewables keep growing around the world, in fact accounting for the bulk of growth in electricity generation
17 October 2025
-
Their words
I do, but it's business as usual because we're we're in an intelligence explosion already and have been for decades. And when you look at GDP, it's basically the GDP curve that is an exponential weighted sum over so many aspects of the industry. Everything is gradually being automated has been for hundreds of years.
14 October 2025
From one piece Falling Fertility Is Not About Opportunity Cost 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
The empirical evidence strongly refutes the idea that rising opportunity costs of childbearing are driving low fertility. Declining marriage due to exogenous technology and economics shocks is tanking fertility irrespective of child direct or opportunity costs.
Falling Fertility Is Not About Opportunity Costlymanstone.substack.com
-
Their words
Although the cross-sectional relationship between national income and fertility is negative, the longitudinal relationship between national income and fertility is positive: economic booms create baby booms, economic busts create baby busts.
Falling Fertility Is Not About Opportunity Costlymanstone.substack.com
13 October 2025
-
Their words
In general your body would rather use glycogen than fat, because glycogen loses almost no energy in the conversion from and to sugar and fat loses a lot.
-
Their words
Over the past few decades, journal editors and peer-reviewers have increasingly insisted that papers must present large datasets that have been treated using complex statistical methods in order to make even the mildest claims about what caused what.
10 October 2025
From one piece Data centers & electricity - part 1: as of 2025 they haven't raised national prices 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
That data centres have not raised national electricity prices so far is no promise that they never will.Their words
This is not to say that data centers won’t affect national prices in the future.
-
korrents.com
The American states with the fastest electricity load growth saw prices fall rather than rise.Their words
A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study found that state-level load growth from 2019 to 2024 — including growth driven by data centers, manufacturing, and electrification — was associated with lower average retail electricity prices, not higher ones.
-
inflationdata centersenergyAmerica
Their words
This is the first conclusion of my deep dive: Data centers have (so far) not affected national average household electricity bills.
5 October 2025
From one piece Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com) 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
I think especially if you have a product that has daily frequency like that's actually the retention that matters the most is that like of your existing user base that has developed a habitual pattern how sticky is your product and it's that retention rate that really compounds and build that builds that daily habit.
-
Their words
I saw some of the highest performers just being people that had very high agency, had that clock speed, had that energy. Um, yes, they they cared about the mission, but they didn't necessarily need to have deep experience on that matter. And in fact, sometimes that experience could be a crutch in certain ways. Especially in this world where the grounds are shifting so fast with AI, a lot of your like learn habits actually need to be intentionally discarded. You know, you need to have a beginner's mind on this type of stuff.
30 September 2025
-
Their words
Because today, if you take France for example which is a beautiful country with a lot of talented people, but public expenses are 58% of the country's GDP, it's maybe as much more than in the latest stage of the Soviet Union.
23 September 2025
19 September 2025
-
korrents.com
LSD is not a truth drug and never could be — it takes you toward your own truth, not out of it.Their words
They miserably failed because LSD… Is not the truth drug. LSD maybe leads you closer to your own truth, because when suddenly the default mode network receives less energy and other parts of the brain think more, and the neuroplasticity of the brain is enhanced and stimulated, you might understand something about your life.
18 September 2025
-
Their words
no one carries the full legitimacy inside of a company. Legitimacy is a currency in a companies. No one carries the full legitimacy in a company, even the CEO. The CEO just has a lot of input on the plan. The plan carries the legitimacy.
-
Their words
The average European and UK voter, once he or she moves on from immigration, will notice how Europe and the UK have made energy unaffordable, stopped its growth-exactly as degrowthers wish-and deindustrialized, on the altar of climate policies that do nothing to improve the climate.
17 September 2025
10 September 2025
-
Their words
This must be Europe's Independence Moment. I believe this is our Union's mission. To be able to take care of our own defence and security. To take control over the technologies and energies that will fuel our economies.
8 September 2025
-
Their words
What we need, ultimately, is a return to a holistic, humanistic vision of what school is for, and we need a robust social safety net to protect those who are not lucky enough to be naturally academically talented.
6 September 2025
4 September 2025
-
Their words, before
There are obvious pricing problems in this scenario. With a new fab, a company can’t turn a profit selling a lagging-edge chip at the price that was previously dictated by a fully depreciated fab. Prices have to go up.
Their words now
The COVID super-cycle, plus a new China supply line that does not care about capacity economics, points to a forever glut.
29 August 2025
From one piece Historical trajectories of local government in India and China 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
China's stronger local-level state capacity than India's helps explain their diverging long-run economic performance.Their words
On this measure, state capacity at the local level looks much stronger in China than in India, which helps explain some of the long-running economic differences between them.
-
korrents.com
Competition and experimentation among local officials has been a major driver of China's economic growth.Their words
China does much better in basic service delivery-and its local governments have also played a very obvious and important in driving growth, thanks to the competition and experimentation among local officials driven to develop their jurisdictions.
18 August 2025
-
Their words
I don't think all parts of the economy can absorb intelligence equally. So let's just say we develop fairly generalized super intelligence. I always use the analogy like you can invent a lot of drugs, but if clinical trials still take a long time, you're not necessarily going to get new therapies rapidly.
13 August 2025
From one piece Open Banking and payments competition 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Almost all discussions of it center on “data”, but it’s actually a fight about payments, and whether banks have a right to monopolize and charge for all economic activity their users engage in, irrespective of whether the bank operates the payment method.
-
korrents.com
Letting banks ruin the economics of businesses they dislike by demand letter will inevitably be abused.Their words
We should not allow banks to get into the habit of sending demand letters to ruin the economics of businesses they simply do not like.
From one piece Keyu Jin: China's Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism | Lex Fridman Podcast #477 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Tariffs, this kind of highly protectionist method is very distortionary and it’s going to be bad for the US. I’d actually argue that both China and the US have totally taken advantage and also enjoyed the global economic realm under the US liberal order.
-
Their words
The biggest misunderstanding is somehow that a group of people or even just one person runs the entire Chinese economy. It is far from the reality. It is a very complex, large economy, and even if there is an extreme form of political centralization, the economy is totally decentralized.
-
Their words
The US will lead for some time on breakthroughs on disruptive technologies, the zero to one technologies that ultimately change the world. But innovation is a process. It goes from invention to production and commercialization and diffusion, diffusing technology throughout all parts of the economy. And on those two stages, I think that China has a unique advantage, even if it still can’t do the zero to one breakthroughs, because in the end, how much this technology is adopted by the countries and by the various parts of the economy is fundamentally crucial to how much productivity will be unleashed.
+ 2 more
-
Their words
And what’s more, you use your leverage once, and that leverage has a half-life. It becomes a lot less effective the second time around because other countries, other companies are going to try to substitute away. If China uses the rare earth leverage, which I think it is now a little bit, there will be alternatives and substitutes.
-
Their words
I’ve rarely seen a more capitalist society than China, from the pure economic side. I’ve rarely seen companies that are as competitive as Chinese companies. People as ambitious and obsessed with making money as Chinese people. Kind of ruthless actually. And look, consumers shop, firms invest. If you invest well financially, you’ll get great returns. What is not capitalistic about the Chinese economy? At the same time, the social fabric is highly socialist.
-
Their words
But for a variety of reasons I think it makes more sense to stay agnostic about forecasts of potential GDP growth, and focus more on the signals the current performance of the economy is sending.
7 August 2025
23 July 2025
From one piece Demis Hassabis: Future of AI, Simulating Reality, Physics and Video Games | Lex Fridman Podcast #475 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
Information is the most fundamental unit of the universe, more fundamental than energy or matter.Their words
And it sort of fits with the way I think about physics in general, which is that I think information is primary, information is the most sort of fundamental unit of the universe, more fundamental than energy and matter.
-
Their words
I think fusion and solar are the two that I would bet on. Solar, I mean it's the fusion reactor in the sky of course, and I think really the problem there is batteries and transmission.
16 July 2025
From one piece The Jamie Dimon Interview: How JP Morgan Became an $800 Billion Bank 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
And the interest rate exposure was hidden by accounting. It was called held to maturity, where you don't have to mark even treasuries to market.
-
Their words
So you if you look at the leverage in some of these securitization books and mortgage books if you have 30 times leverage and you're getting 20% of the profits you'll go to 40 times leverage. It's just going to it's literally will add you know 25% to your bonus.
-
korrents.com
A bank should be managed against the fat tails it can imagine, not against the stress test its regulator hands it.Their words
And so, I always look what I call the fat tails and manage that we can handle all the all the fat tails. And not the stress test the Fed gives us, but all the fat tails.
6 July 2025
-
Their words
If a new monetary network with its own unit (i.e. not pegged to an existing currency as a credit rail on top of it, but rather a fully parallel system to central banks) is going to bootstrap from zero to massive, it requires upward volatility.
5 July 2025
30 June 2025
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
In My TribeTheir words
There is something highly refreshing about the way Kling offers his own consistent old school economic libertarian perspective, takes his time responding to anything, and generally tries to understand everything including developments in AI from that perspective.
16 June 2025
-
Their words
Shoulder generation (in late summer) of any given year is generally a higher share of global electricity demand than the peak generation (spring) of the year prior.
5 June 2025
-
Their words
Many years ago, I think it might've been 2017 or 2018, I said at the time, AI is the most profound technology humanity will ever work on. It'll be more profound than fire or electricity. So, I have to back myself. I still think that's the case.
30 May 2025
From one piece The Trump Tariffs 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
There is everything to play for, and we can still all come out better off.
-
korrents.com
Tariff announcements function as political theater and can be reversed as easily as they were imposed.Their words
The tariffs create political headlines that distract. But just as they can be easily announced, they can just as easily be changed or removed.
24 May 2025
-
Their words
And this is why I say that history doesn’t repeat itself. Of course it doesn’t. It can’t possibly repeat itself because we’re always living in a constantly evolving time. But patterns of human behaviour do. And what you always get after economic crisis is political upheaval, always, always, always.
21 May 2025
-
korrents.com
Means-testing the winter fuel payment is a tough decision that has to be taken, and it should stand.Their words, before
No Prime Minister wants to do what we have to do in relation to the winter fuel allowance, but we have to take the tough decision to stabilise our economy to ensure that we can grow it for the future.
Their words now
However, I recognise that people are still feeling the pressure of the cost of living crisis, including pensioners, and as the economy improves, we want to make sure that people feel those improvements each day as their lives go forward. That is why we want to ensure that more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments as we go forward.
19 May 2025
From one piece Lessons from Spain 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
It's all part of the political culture wars where everything gets weaponised to push an agenda, score points against opponents or curry favour.
-
korrents.com
The failure of wind or solar power to show up has never been the primary cause of a major grid blackout.Their words
While renewables are almost always blamed in the aftermath of major power cuts or grid disruption - and the way they have been integrated into the grid has certainly been found to compound problems - the simple failure of wind or solar power to show up has never yet been found to be the primary cause.
15 May 2025
From one piece Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
That’s because most clean energy jobs are in deployment and maintenance rather than manufacturing, and since higher costs slow down the rollout of renewables, increasing prices reduces the total number of people working in clean energy (even if the number working in manufacturing increases).
-
Their words
But, China mainly dominates these markets because it has produced a long-term industrial strategy for these technologies and has honed an optimised, modern supply chain as a result.
12 May 2025
-
Their words
this technology, consistently underestimated, now adds more capacity to the global grid than anything ever and will soon add more power in any given year than anything ever as well.
-
korrents.com
Carbon capture and storage cannot be economically competitive without a policy that prices carbon.Their words
CCS can never be competitive in the sense of working economically in the absence of a policy framework to price in the cost of carbon, unlike clean electricity.
Why Tony Blair needs to reset his climate resetliebreich.com
8 May 2025
-
Their words
The gravity of existing decisions in current systems requires so much energy to reach escape velocity that you tend to conform rather than explore. Essentially you're bent back to where you started, rather than arcing out towards a new horizon.
5 May 2025
From one piece Janna Levin: Black Holes, Wormholes, Aliens, Paradoxes & Extra Dimensions | Lex Fridman Podcast #468 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
The hardest step on the road from chemistry to us was multicellularity, and it was strictly a problem of energetics.Their words
I would say, multicellularity which is strictly an energy problem, I think. Again, it’s just like can electrons flow the right way. And is it energetically favorable for multicellularity to exist because if it’s energetically expensive, it’s not going to succeed.
-
Their words
It becomes impossible to imagine that life was not sparked somewhere else, in our Milky Way galaxy, and maybe even in our local neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy, maybe within a few hundred light years of our solar system.
-
Their words
And so I would say, yes, we are just giving proxy names to things we don’t understand, but to dismiss that as some kind of, “Oh, they just don’t know…” It is actually quite the opposite.
29 April 2025
-
korrents.com
The US-China trade imbalance is driven mainly by capital flows, not tariffs or trade deficits.Their words
Tariffs and trade deficits are a distraction from the deeper source of the US-China current account imbalance, namely capital flows.
21 April 2025
From one piece Programming Notes 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
there is no such thing as a high-income, low-electricity economy.
-
korrents.com
Electrification is a process shift across industries, not just a change in energy source.Their words
Electrification is not just a change of energetic inputs; it's a process shift through and across industries.
14 April 2025
From one piece Tariffs, saving, and investment 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
The right answer on trade is unilateral free trade, and the hard part is only explaining why the objections fail.Their words
Tariffs are easy: The right answer is unilateral free trade.
-
Their words
But the spike in interest rates require to do this would be huge. And the trade shock will cause a sharp recession, or worse, putting even more stress on the budget. A debt crisis is likely along the way as the US finds it impossible to roll over debt.
-
Their words
Cure the disease, not the symptoms. Reform taxes to tax consumption, not saving and investment. Stop funneling borrowed money to consumption.
+ 1 more
-
korrents.com
The American trade deficit is foreigners choosing to invest in America, not America being cheated.Their words
this story tells us how an increase in foreign demand to save in the US rather than at home will push up the dollar, and cause the trade deficit, which is in effect how foreigners send us factories which they would rather build here than in their own countries.
10 April 2025
7 April 2025
-
korrents.com
Efforts to rebuild American industry will fail until global trade and financial imbalances rebalanceTheir words
Until the global economy rebalances, efforts to rebuild American industry are fighting economic gravity.
6 April 2025
From one piece America Underestimates the Difficulty of Bringing Manufacturing Back 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
When the United States applied tariffs to China, it shifted huge amounts of manufacturing to Vietnam, which did not have tariffs applied to it.
-
korrents.com
Uncertainty about how long a tariff will last, not the rate itself, is what stops anyone from building a factory.Their words
The tariffs have frozen business activity because no one wants to take a big risk dependent on a policy that may change next week.
-
Their words
Since the year 2000, US electricity generation per person has been flat.
1 April 2025
-
Their words
These systems will be absolutely central to the economy, technology, and national security, and will be capable of so much autonomy that I consider it basically unacceptable for humanity to be totally ignorant of how they work.
31 March 2025
-
Their words
But, tariffs are unavoidable, even within the ringfence that is US energy trade, and even within electricity trade more specifically.
27 March 2025
-
korrents.com
The old Canada-US relationship, built on ever-deeper economic integration and tight security cooperation, is over.Their words
The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over.
19 February 2025
From one piece Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Since signaling, not building human capital, is the main function of education, the main effect of government subsidies is credential inflation.
-
Their words
Despite misleading statements by mainstream education economists, college attendance in particular is not a good career investment for most of the population.
12 February 2025
-
korrents.com
American aid spending has been flat in real terms since 1945 even as the American economy grew tenfold.Their words
Even as GDP has grown tenfold, US aid budgets have remained basically flat in real terms—the result (one might guess) of a delicate balancing act between bipartisan consensus among elites and a wariness of attracting too much negative attention.
3 February 2025
From one piece DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters | Lex Fridman Podcast #459 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
if you believe we're in this sort of stage of economic growth and change that we've been in for the last 20 years, the export controls are absolutely guaranteeing that China will win long-term.
-
Their words
it won't be one person rule them all, but it will be, the thing I worry about is it'll be few people, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe millions of people rule whoever's left and the economy around it.
2 February 2025
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Who We Are and How We Got HereTheir words
Foundation, The Lessons of History, Unqualified Reservations, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Selfish Gene, Albion's Seed, War and Peace and War, Stalin's War, Energy and Civilization, Who We Are and How We Got Here, The Ancient City, The Fourth Turning, The Grey Lady Winked
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
The Selfish GeneTheir words
Foundation, The Lessons of History, Unqualified Reservations, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Selfish Gene, Albion's Seed, War and Peace and War, Stalin's War, Energy and Civilization, Who We Are and How We Got Here, The Ancient City, The Fourth Turning, The Grey Lady Winked
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Albion's SeedTheir words
Foundation, The Lessons of History, Unqualified Reservations, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Selfish Gene, Albion's Seed, War and Peace and War, Stalin's War, Energy and Civilization, Who We Are and How We Got Here, The Ancient City, The Fourth Turning, The Grey Lady Winked
+ 2 more
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Stalin's WarTheir words
Foundation, The Lessons of History, Unqualified Reservations, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Selfish Gene, Albion's Seed, War and Peace and War, Stalin's War, Energy and Civilization, Who We Are and How We Got Here, The Ancient City, The Fourth Turning, The Grey Lady Winked
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
The Fourth TurningTheir words
Foundation, The Lessons of History, Unqualified Reservations, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Selfish Gene, Albion's Seed, War and Peace and War, Stalin's War, Energy and Civilization, Who We Are and How We Got Here, The Ancient City, The Fourth Turning, The Grey Lady Winked
21 January 2025
-
On changing their mind
Having fallen into the East Asia - Africa Trap before, I can tell you precisely why so many people make this mistake.
20 January 2025
From one piece The Inaugural Address 3 beliefs · whitehouse.gov
-
korrents.com
The inflation of the early 2020s was caused by government overspending and rising energy prices.Their words
The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices, and that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency.
-
Their words
President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent — he was a natural businessman
-
Their words
America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have — the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth — and we are going to use it.
19 January 2025
From one piece Jennifer Burns: Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Economics, Capitalism, Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #457 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
And almost single-handedly, Friedman will introduce political and ideological diversity into the field of economics because, from his beachhead in Chicago, he will develop the theory of monetarism.
-
Their words
Friedman and Schwartz becomes the playbook for the Federal Reserve. We have lived through this, the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve is ready to loan. Covid, the Federal Reserve does all kinds of new things, because no Federal Reserve chair wants to be in Friedman-Schwartz 2.0 that somebody writes, where they're the bad guy who let the economy meltdown.
-
inflationimmigrationgovernment
Their words
And so my argument is, that has now opened the door to the presidency of Donald Trump, which is potentially a deeply transformative moment that will change the size and shape of government, that may change our foreign policy profoundly, that may change our immigration policy, that may change the demographics of our country, all of that, and my thesis is that that's all been made possible by inflation.
+ 1 more
-
Their words
And so the great mistake of the past years was to forget how fundamental inflation was to the rise of the last political order and to profoundly underestimate how much inflation would change the current political order.
8 January 2025
From one piece Full Steam Ahead: All Aboard Fiscal Dominance 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
The United States is not at risk of a financial crisis caused by the size of its government debt.Their words
Stabilizing factors such as the global demand for U.S. dollars and debt denominated in its own currency suggest an era of fiscal dominance in the U.S. that's less dramatic than alarmists predict but more persistent and intractable than optimists hope.
-
Their words
Since inflation is not primarily driven by private-sector lending in the current environment, making borrowing more expensive will not significantly cool the economy.
-
Their words
Structural fiscal deficits have surpassed private sector lending and monetary policy as the primary drivers of economic activity and inflation, marking a fundamental shift in the economy's liquidity dynamics.
31 December 2024
-
Their words
There’s still plenty to worry about with respect to the environmental impact of the great AI datacenter buildout, but a lot of the concerns over the energy cost of individual prompts are no longer credible.
-
korrents.com
Reading fiction is necessary to an engineer's creative capacity; reading only technical books drains itTheir words
Yet, I also need to read fiction because if I only read tech books, they take away my creative energy rather than grant it, as fiction does.
22 December 2024
-
Their words
There's the first law of thermodynamics, which is just about the different forms of energy. Then there's the second law, which is about when you use that energy, Kardashev wasn't thinking about the second law. If you get all that energy and you use it, there is waste heat. You don't get to use it all.
17 December 2024
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
The New MapTheir words
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin explores the changing landscape of energy, geopolitics, & climate change.
1 December 2024
From one piece Does Women’s Rise trigger Backlash? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Since women did not pose an economic threat, far-right politicians have instead galvanised society-wide opposition to immigration.
-
korrents.com
A backlash against women's economic rise is not automatic; it happens only where politicians choose to mobilise it.Their words
So even though women’s economic advancement did displace some men, and triggered some private hostility, it was never actually catapulted into social antagonism. This is primarily because it was never leveraged by political entrepreneurs!
1 November 2024
-
korrents.com
Japan's decades of stagnation were caused by its shrinking working-age population rather than by its monetary policy.Their words
The key difference wasn't policy - it was demographics. Japan's working-age population is shrinking.
13 October 2024
1 October 2024
-
korrents.com
Meaning in human life comes mostly from relationships and connection rather than from economic labour.Their words
In any case I think meaning comes mostly from human relationships and connection, not from economic labor.
27 September 2024
-
Their words
Each shift takes its toll, and everyone has a limit of how much energy they’re willing to expend on a new platform that will eventually, like its predecessors, join the graveyard of defunct websites.
15 September 2024
1 July 2024
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
The Wages of DestructionTheir words
Some audiobook recommendations: The Story of Civilization by Durant Iliad (Penguin Edition) The Road to Serfdom by Hayek American Caesar by Manchester Masters of Doom by Kushner The Wages of Destruction by Tooze The Storm of Steel by Junger The Guns of August by Tuchman
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
The IliadTheir words
Some audiobook recommendations: The Story of Civilization by Durant Iliad (Penguin Edition) The Road to Serfdom by Hayek American Caesar by Manchester Masters of Doom by Kushner The Wages of Destruction by Tooze The Storm of Steel by Junger The Guns of August by Tuchman
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
The Guns of AugustTheir words
Some audiobook recommendations: The Story of Civilization by Durant Iliad (Penguin Edition) The Road to Serfdom by Hayek American Caesar by Manchester Masters of Doom by Kushner The Wages of Destruction by Tooze The Storm of Steel by Junger The Guns of August by Tuchman
+ 2 more
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Storm of SteelTheir words
Some audiobook recommendations: The Story of Civilization by Durant Iliad (Penguin Edition) The Road to Serfdom by Hayek American Caesar by Manchester Masters of Doom by Kushner The Wages of Destruction by Tooze The Storm of Steel by Junger The Guns of August by Tuchman
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
American CaesarTheir words
Some audiobook recommendations: The Story of Civilization by Durant Iliad (Penguin Edition) The Road to Serfdom by Hayek American Caesar by Manchester Masters of Doom by Kushner The Wages of Destruction by Tooze The Storm of Steel by Junger The Guns of August by Tuchman
22 June 2024
From one piece Meme Weeding: High Wages and Baumol's Cost Disease 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
In fact, even though growth in average infrastructure costs over time is documented, there is very little cross-national correlation between GDP per capita and per-km subway construction costs.
-
korrents.com
New York's subway cost premium is overstaffing, oversized stations and procurement, not high wages.Their words
Well, we’ve divided the New York cost premium into three tranches: labor (mostly overstaffing, not high wages), station and system design, and procurement and soft costs.
13 June 2024
-
Their words
I think for me, the frontier in modern physics, where the new physics lies is not in high energy particle physics, it’s not in quantum gravity, it’s not in any of these sort of traditionally sold, “This is going to be the newest deepest insight we have into the nature of reality.” It is going to be in studying the problems of life and intelligence and the things that are sort of also our current existential crises as a civilization or a culture that’s going through an existential trauma of inventing technologies that we don’t understand right now.
10 June 2024
From one piece How to Build an AI Data Center 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
But many of these gains have already been achieved: the best data centers already use just 10% of their electricity for cooling and other non-IT equipment.
-
korrents.com
Available power, not land or capital, is what now limits how many data centres get built.Their words
In particular, operating a data center requires large amounts of electricity, and available power is fast becoming the binding constraint on data center construction.
-
Their words
But there's also reason to believe that data center power consumption will nevertheless rise substantially.
+ 1 more
-
Their words
Utility companies see major electrical infrastructure as a long-term investment to be built in response to sustained demand growth.
2 June 2024
29 May 2024
-
Their words
The biggest barrier of all, of course, is that the majority of neighborhoods are not allowed to add any housing at all.
25 April 2024
22 April 2024
From one piece Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
I tear my hair out when people who are not physicists accuse physicists, like you say, of losing the plot because they need dark matter and dark energy. I don’t want dark matter and dark energy; I want something much cooler than that. I’ve tried. But you got to listen to the equations and to the data.
-
Their words
This is the 2001 monolith hypothesis. I would be less surprised to find a quiescent alien artifact in our solar system than I would to catch a radio signal from an intelligent civilization.
-
Their words
I think this is one of the biggest things that physics can help with, and it’s an obvious kind of low-hanging fruit situation where the heat generation, the inefficiency, the waste of existing high-level computers is nowhere near the efficiency of our brains. It’s hilariously worse, and we haven’t tried to optimize that hard on that frontier.
18 April 2024
From one piece How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordable 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
A data centre powered by solar and batteries alone needs an array so oversized that the design is not worth building.Their words
The solar array sizes under these assumptions are prohibitively large.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
-
Their words
The cooling systems in most data centers are energy hogs and contribute no direct value.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
2 April 2024
-
Likedrcmnd.app
The Little House on the PrairieTheir words
There are children's books that have summoned this energy for us—Torbjørn Egner, The Little House on the Prairie, Harry Potter—but generally speaking, children's books are a drag.
-
Likedrcmnd.app
Harry PotterTheir words
There are children's books that have summoned this energy for us—Torbjørn Egner, The Little House on the Prairie, Harry Potter—but generally speaking, children's books are a drag.
25 March 2024
-
Their words
If a Chinese spacecraft can dock with a friendly satellite to refuel, repair, or transport it, the same robotic arm can also disable a US satellite’s solar panels and antennas. Alternatively, China can use these spacecraft to tow satellites into locations where they can, at best, only sub-optimally perform intended duties such as early warning, surveillance, or geolocation.
18 March 2024
From one piece Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
But compute is different. Intelligence is going to be more like energy or something like that, where the only thing that I think makes sense to talk about is, at price X, the world will use this much compute, and at price Y, the world will use this much compute.
-
Their words
The way I think about it is not what percent of jobs AI will do, but what percent of tasks will AI do on over one time horizon. So if you think of all of the five-second tasks in the economy, five minute tasks, the five-hour tasks, maybe even the five-day tasks, how many of those can AI do?
-
Their words
I think when a system can significantly increase the rate of scientific discovery in the world, that’s a huge deal. I believe that most real economic growth comes from scientific and technological progress.
+ 1 more
-
Their words
I think the question behind that question is, do people who create valuable data deserve to have some way that they get compensated for use of it, and that I think the answer is yes. I don’t know yet what the answer is. People have proposed a lot of different things. We’ve tried some different models. But if I’m like an artist for example, A, I would like to be able to opt out of people generating art in my style. And B, if they do generate art in my style, I’d like to have some economic model associated with that.
4 March 2024
From one piece Serhii Plokhy: History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis & War | Lex Fridman Podcast #415 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
And each major accident, that means global freeze on the nuclear reactor production for at least another 10 years. So that’s what I mean that nuclear industry is politic, not just in terms of technology and not just in terms of radiation, impact on health, but also politically a very, very unreliable option.
-
Their words
And then guess what? A few years later, the Soviet Union collapses very much also thanks to the mobilization of people over the issue of Chernobyl and nuclear energy.
28 February 2024
-
Their words
With more and more models being developed, each with different capabilities and a cost structure, model routing has clear economic values.
22 February 2024
-
Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
JamesTheir words
Briefly, James is Huckleberry Finn retold from the perspective of Jim. It has all the energy and humor of Twain's work—in Everett's own unique voice of course—and adds a whole new level of depth to the story.
6 February 2024
-
korrents.com
Most projects fail before they even begin because the activation energy required to start is too high.Their words
Most projects fail before they start. They fail because the activation energy is too high.
23 January 2024
-
Their words
And Xi Jinping has formally de-prioritized economic growth as China’s top task.
14 December 2023
From one piece Jeff Bezos: Amazon and Blue Origin | Lex Fridman Podcast #405 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Compromise, the advantage of compromise as a resolution mechanism is that it's low energy, but it doesn't lead to truth. And so in things like the height of the ceiling where truth is a noble thing, you shouldn't allow compromise to be used when you can know the truth.
-
Their words
So if I generalize what you're asking, you are talking in general about truth-telling and we humans are not really truth-seeking animals. We are social animals.
-
Their words
I would love to see a trillion humans living in the solar system. If we had a trillion humans, we would have, at any given time, 1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins. That our solar system would be full of life and intelligence and energy.
9 December 2023
From one piece Food, land, work and rent: the real story of Vallis Veg 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
wherever in the world can be found the cheapest assemblage of land, labour, energy and capital to produce a given food commodity, that will be a preferential site of its production.
-
Their words
In my opinion, normal market economics is incentivising the wrong things. I think its preference for horse liveries or campsites over vegetables and other local food production will lead us to disaster
3 December 2023
From one piece Lisa Randall: Dark Matter, Theoretical Physics, and Extinction Events | Lex Fridman Podcast #403 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
In fact, I would say it’s more surprising that the matter that we know about is constitutes as big a fraction of the universe as it does. We’re limited, we’re human. The fact that we see 5% of the energy density of the universe, about one sixth of the energy density in matter, that’s remarkable.
-
korrents.com
Physicists actively want the standard model to break down, because only the deviations can tell us what underlies it.Their words
One of the things we do as physicists is we actually want it to break down at some level, we’re looking for the precision measurement or the energy or whatever it will take where the standard model is no longer working. Not that it’s not working approximately, but we’re looking for the deviations.
27 November 2023
17 November 2023
-
korrents.com
Economic interdependence does not prevent war, because survival always trumps prosperity.Their words
The point is that economic interdependence at its root has prosperity as the core variable. In the realest story, the core variable is survival, and survival always trumps prosperity.
9 November 2023
-
Their words
So energy usage right now is roughly one third, very rough terms, one third electricity, one third transport, one third heating. And so in order for everything to go sustainable, to go electric, you need to triple electricity output.
8 November 2023
6 November 2023
-
Their words, before
If the future is like the past, this implies that debt rollovers—that is, the issuance of debt without a subsequent increase in taxes—may well be feasible. Put bluntly, public debt may have no fiscal cost.
Their words now
Across advanced economies, the celebrated ( r - g ), i.e., the difference between the interest rate and the growth rate, appears to have durably changed sign or, at a minimum, to have gone from a substantially negative number to a number closer to zero.
From one piece If markets are right about long real rates, public debt ratios will increase for some time 2 beliefs · piie.com
-
Their words
Thus, once current debt has been refinanced and the average interest on debt reflects the higher long rates, absent changes in policy, debt ratios will increase.
-
Their words
It is fair to say that, while economists expected the short end of the yield curve to reflect the higher rates needed to win the fight against inflation, the sharply steeper long end of the yield curve in the last few months has come as a surprise. I shall freely admit that I did not predict it.
25 October 2023
From one piece Age of Invention: Lessons from the Rise of Coal 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Yet lime is a huge blind spot for economic historians, despite it increasing the productivity of what was still by far the largest portion of the economy: agriculture.
Age of Invention: Lessons from the Rise of Coalageofinvention.xyz
-
Their words
The Dutch Republic’s Golden Age did not fail because it lacked energy sources.
Age of Invention: Lessons from the Rise of Coalageofinvention.xyz
16 October 2023
-
Their words
We believe technology is a lever on the world – the way to make more with less. Economists measure technological progress as productivity growth: How much more we can produce each year with fewer inputs, fewer raw materials. Productivity growth, powered by technology, is the main driver of economic growth, wage growth, and the creation of new industries and new jobs, as people and capital are continuously freed to do more important, valuable things than in the past.
1 October 2023
From one piece GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter? 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
It is a sign that Hayek was not so great at seeing the viewpoints of other people, and that (political moralizing aside) also should count as a weakness of him as an economist and social scientist.
-
Their words
Of all the contenders for GOAT, Smith seems to be clearly the worst economist, with the possible exception of Malthus.
-
korrents.com
Interest rates have little effect on investment, and central banks have limited control over real interest rates.Their words
In the actual data, interest rates don’t seem to drive investment that much, and furthermore central bank influence over the real rate of interest typically is limited.
+ 2 more
-
korrents.com
Milton Friedman was the best economist among the plausible candidates for greatest economist of all time.Their words
Friedman has one big factor in his favor, namely that he is clearly the best economist on the list of contending names.
-
Their words
Virtually all contemporary economics of note is empirical work
4 September 2023
16 August 2023
-
Their words
Physics, chemistry and biology can point out problems, but we need history, economics and philosophy to solve them.
3 July 2023
-
korrents.com
Vertical farming swaps a land problem for an energy problem, and the energy cost is what stops it feeding the world.Their words
I explain why in the essay; the TLDR is that they’re energy hogs. The sun is a really awesome source of calories, and it’s kind of dumb not to take advantage of it.
The Food Problem Is Bigger Than Lettucemichaelgrunwald.substack.com
29 June 2023
-
korrents.com
Survival can be guaranteed without a universal basic income, by making housing, food and above all energy dirt cheap.Their words
You can make survival guaranteed without UBI. What you have to do, is make housing and food dirt cheap. Right? And that’s the good world. And actually, let’s go into what we should really be making dirt cheap, which is energy.
-
Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
The Great Depression: A DiaryTheir words
This fantastic work is a primary source material to one of the darkest times in American economic history.
6 June 2023
From one piece A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solution 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
an acre of solar panels generates as much energy as 100 acres of corn grown for ethanol.
A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solutionmichaelgrunwald.substack.com
-
korrents.com
Land is good at growing food and storing carbon and bad at growing energy, and we have better ways to grow energy.Their words
Land is really good at growing food and storing carbon, but it sucks at growing energy—and fortunately, we have better ways to grow energy.
A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solutionmichaelgrunwald.substack.com
25 May 2023
30 April 2023
21 March 2023
-
korrents.com
An AI can already earn an A on a university economics midterm, years earlier than informed forecasters expected.Their words
To my surprise and no small dismay, GPT-4 got an A. It earned 73/100, which would have been the fourth-highest score on the test.
13 March 2023
9 March 2023
4 March 2023
-
Their words, before
My view is that it’s going to take more than this regulatory campaign to defeat dynamism in China.
Their words now
What I did not sufficiently appreciate is that a state that would so casually decapitate a sector like online tutoring would also have the will to visit catastrophe upon whole cities.
From one piece 2022 letter 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
And on balance I believe we should think of the Chinese state today as an autocratic regime that is occasionally capable of economic pragmatism rather than a technocratic regime that slips occasionally into Marxist faults.
-
Their words
Consider the solar industry, for which the US laid the scientific groundwork, only for Chinese firms to make all the photovoltaic cells.
2 February 2023
-
korrents.com
Maintainers of widely used open source software are not adequately funded, and that is a real and unsolved problem.Their words
This experiment started from the observation that despite being critical for the functioning of the Internet—and, by extension, the economy—the role of open-source maintainer has not yet found a sustainable manifestation.
14 January 2023
-
Their words, before
The Fed needs PCE inflation to average 1.96% for the remainder of the decade in order to hit their AIT target.
Their words now
I assumed they intended inflation to average roughly 2% during the 2020s.
10 December 2022
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about ItTheir words
Although his training is not in economics, Richard Reeves draws on economic research, as well as research from the fields of sociology, psychology, and political science, to tell an under-told story. The book explores the problems faced by boys and men, the roots of those problems, and possible policy solutions.
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and InequalityTheir words
I particularly appreciated The Journey of Humanity because it is an ambitious and deep story about the past tens of thousands of years of economic development that is also well grounded in a growing economics literature into the deep origins of growth
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant SuccessTheir words
Absolutely. It is incredibly enjoyable and readable. The authors, in a way that is very rare for economists, find small stories that paint big pictures for the points they make.
+ 1 more
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth CenturyTheir words
Slouching Towards Utopia is a rich, nuanced story of the interplay of politics, economics, and ideas and how they shaped progress.
1 December 2022
13 October 2022
-
Their words
A fascinating account of the economic transformation of Germany under the Nazis
27 September 2022
12 September 2022
-
Likedrcmnd.app
Wild ProblemsTheir words
How to improve your HUGE major life decisions, like whether/who to marry, whether to have kids, where to live, career paths, and such — where you can’t use the usual checklist/data approach. This economist addresses self-identity, “deepest self”, and “something I was meant to do”. You can’t use a pro/con checklist with an item that says “lose respect for myself”.
7 September 2022
-
Their words
But the thing is, you can’t have this if you don’t have an oxygenated planet because it’s all, in the end, it’s about how much energy can you extract from the food you eat? And if you don’t have an oxygenated planet, you can get about 10% out, not much more than that. And if you’ve got an oxygenated planet, you can get about 40% out.
26 August 2022
From one piece Collections: Why No Roman Industrial Revolution? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
All of which is why simple graphs of things like ‘global historical GDP’ can be a bit deceptive: there’s a lot of particularity beneath the basic statistics of production because technologies are contingent and path dependent.
-
Their words
Roman economic growth, because it was a product of institutions instead of technologies, was not durable in the face of those institutions collapsing.
8 July 2022
-
Their words
The drone-like architecture of the multicopters is simple, but as the rotors are responsible for keeping the unit at a constant altitude with hover power, they represent an energy-intensive version of VTOLs. Their range is, therefore, short, typically less than 20 miles.
22 June 2022
-
Dislikedrcmnd.app
End the FedTheir words
It's a book by a politician, about what you expect. Some interesting tid bits on the history of the Fed but you could get it from Wikipedia.
6 June 2022
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
How the World Really WorksTheir words
But I highly recommend reading him on the subject because he is so good at explaining how the world’s energy systems work today.
1 June 2022
From one piece Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Rates 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
A longer maturity of debt protects the government from a temporary increase in the short run interest rate, and it gives it more time to adjust to a permanent increase.
-
Their words
If a fiscal expansion takes place when output is already at potential, monetary policy is likely to tighten, leading to higher interest rates and thus a smaller effect or even no effect of the fiscal expansion on output.
-
korrents.com
There is no tight relation between growth rates and interest rates, either theoretically or empirically.Their words
while the growth rate may well affect saving and investment, there is no tight relation between growth rates and interest rates, either on theoretical or empirical grounds.
1 March 2022
28 January 2022
-
Their words
the electric technology used for cars only has to beat energy hogs that are below 10% in efficiency, our everyday car. But to qualify for aircraft use, the technology has to equal or beat what is used today, which is at the 30% to 40% efficiency level using modern turboprop or turbofan engines.
3 January 2022
1 January 2022
From one piece 2021 letter 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
It has displayed a stronger record of reform than any other developing country, as the leadership keeps pulling off politically-difficult tasks: shrinking the state sector, re-orienting the economy towards export-led growth after WTO accession, and so on.
-
korrents.com
China's cultural and intellectual output to the world is far smaller than its economic weight.Their words
Never has any economy grown so much while producing so few cultural exports.
1 December 2021
-
Mixed onrcmnd.app
A Random Walk Down Wall StreetTheir words
A fine intro to investing if you think you can reliably beat the market or that active trading is a good use of energy. If you're already bought in on index funds though, you won't find much here.
1 August 2021
20 July 2021
-
Their words
The problem that companies like Apple need to solve is not preventing exploits forever, but a much simpler one: they need to screw up the economics of NSO-style mass exploitation.
A case against security nihilismblog.cryptographyengineering.com
16 May 2021
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
The British Industrial Revolution in Global PerspectiveTheir words
The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective is the best book on the country’s adoption of sustained economic growth at the turn of the nineteenth century, full stop.
7 April 2021
7 March 2021
-
Usesrcmnd.app
FeedlyTheir words
I use Feedly to follow most of the usual economics blogs, as well as dozen or so journals
1 March 2021
-
Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Thinking, Fast and SlowTheir words
Still the definitive book on cognitive biases and behavioral economics.
1 February 2021
From one piece Does energy imbalance (calories in > out) cause obesity? 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
Common obesity is not caused by a slow metabolism: people with obesity burn more energy, not less.Their words
This tells us that common obesity is not the result of a reduced metabolic rate– a common but erroneous belief.
-
korrents.com
The brain, not insulin or fat tissue, is what ultimately controls the energy balance equation.Their words
However, whichever side of the energy balance equation is giving orders, the brain appears to be the commander-in-chief of the equation as a whole.
-
Their words
No matter what your model of obesity is, in order to explain the development of an obese body, energy imbalance has to be a link in the model’s causal chain.
1 January 2021
28 October 2020
-
Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Economics in One LessonTheir words
This economics thought experiment is a classic book originally written in 1946. Like most books that follow Nassim Taleb's "all books worth reading are at least 20 years old" rule, it has timeless lessons throughout. It tackles all kinds of ongoing political/economic concepts like rent control, minimum wage, tariffs, "saving industries", and more.
29 September 2020
-
korrents.com
The tech industry's economic and intellectual energy is directed away from human flourishing rather than toward itTheir words
The economic and intellectual horsepower in Silicon Valley and the wider tech world seems to be pointed away from these goals.
16 June 2020
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
Enemy Of All MankindTheir words
is both a great story and also an object lesson in how single event can have a compounding effect on global politics and economics
4 June 2020
-
Their words
Using history to understand our present is a great impulse, but it means some of the false myths we tell about the Black Death and Renaissance are doing new damage, one of the most problematic in my view being the idea that sitting back and letting COVID kill will somehow by itself naturally make the economy turn around and enter a period of growth and rising wages.
22 May 2020
-
Their words
when the main communication channels are asynchronous text and video calls (as would be the case in a remote work setup) the influence of the loudest person in the room wanes. It's transferred to the best communicators.
14 May 2020
-
Their words, before
And beyond that, by the time solar scale has doubled 4 more times, to the equivalent of 16% of today’s electricity demand (and somewhat less of future demand), we should see solar at 3 cents per kwh in the sunniest areas, and 4.5 cents per kwh in moderately sunny areas.
Their words now
Both of those forecasts were wrong. Solar has plunged in price faster than anyone – including me – predicted.
From one piece Solar's Future is Insanely Cheap (2020) 5 beliefs · rameznaam.com
-
korrents.com
Solar's future price should be predicted from how much has been built, not from how much time has passed.Their words
We can use the last decade to predict the future prices of solar power. Not by looking at the cost of solar as a function of time, but by looking at the cost of solar as a function of cumulative scale of the solar industry.
-
Their words
In short solar prices have dropped faster and lower than almost anyone has expected.
-
korrents.com
Demand for electricity will rise to absorb far more solar than is currently considered feasible.Their words
Add these up, and it’s plausible that solar’s contribution to the energy system could double or triple the amount currently considered feasible for solar to provide.
+ 2 more
-
korrents.com
Average solar electricity prices in sunny parts of the world will fall to one or two cents per kwh by 2030 or 2035.Their words
This incredible pace of solar cost decline, with average prices in sunny parts of the world down to a penny or two by 2030 or 2035, is just remarkable.
-
Their words
The data paint an incredible picture: One that shows the price of solar electricity from utility-scale systems dropping by anywhere from 30-40% with each doubling of cumulative solar deployment.
30 March 2020
20 August 2019
-
Mixed onrcmnd.app
REAPERTheir words
It's basically the Vim of audio editing software, so I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have the time and energy to heavily invest in customizing it for your workflow, but I can move like lightning in this thing.
28 May 2019
-
Recommendsaffiliate linkrcmnd.app
Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us about Economics and LifeTheir words
Alan B. Krueger, Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us about Economics and Life: From the economist who revealed the secrets of the minimum wage comes this look at the economics of the music industry. Its disruptions by technology to economics of songwriting and concert tours, the music industry offers important financial lessons. Kreuger, an economic rock star himself (he was former chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers) left us far too soon.
2 April 2019
27 February 2019
7 February 2019
28 October 2018
-
Usesrcmnd.app
EconTalkTheir words
Economics or Business Interviews Conversations with Tyler with Tyler Cowen EconTalk with Russ Roberts General Interviews North Star Podcast with Dave Perell The Tim Ferriss Show
-
Usesrcmnd.app
Conversations with TylerTheir words
Economics or Business Interviews Conversations with Tyler with Tyler Cowen EconTalk with Russ Roberts General Interviews North Star Podcast with Dave Perell The Tim Ferriss Show
-
Usesrcmnd.app
The Tim Ferriss ShowTheir words
Economics or Business Interviews Conversations with Tyler with Tyler Cowen EconTalk with Russ Roberts General Interviews North Star Podcast with Dave Perell The Tim Ferriss Show
19 September 2018
10 September 2018
18 May 2018
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Phenomenology of SpiritTheir words
In order to understand Marx, you really do need to know something about Hegel. It's a mistake to think you could read Marx as a scientist or an economist without understanding the Hegelian framework of his thought. That's why I chose to begin with Hegel.
5 January 2018
1 January 2018
22 December 2017
16 March 2017
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
Seeing Like a StateTheir words
Seeing Like A State is the book G.K. Chesterton would have written if he had gone into economic history instead of literature. Since he didn't, James Scott had to write it a century later. The wait was worth it.
1 March 2017
From one piece Acemoglu & Restrepo, "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets" (NBER working paper 23285) 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
In a model where robots compete with human labour task by task, robots can reduce both employment and wages.Their words
Using a model in which robots compete against human labor in the production of different tasks, we show that robots may reduce employment and wages
-
Their words
Using this approach, we estimate large and robust negative effects of robots on employment and wages across commuting zones.
-
Their words
As robots and other computer-assisted technologies take over tasks previously performed by labor, there is increasing concern about the future of jobs and wages.
From one piece Acemoglu & Restrepo, "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets" (NBER working paper 23285) 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Using this approach, we estimate large and robust negative effects of robots on employment and wages across commuting zones.
-
Their words
As robots and other computer-assisted technologies take over tasks previously performed by labor, there is increasing concern about the future of jobs and wages.
-
korrents.com
In a model where robots compete with human labour task by task, robots can reduce both employment and wages.Their words
Using a model in which robots compete against human labor in the production of different tasks, we show that robots may reduce employment and wages
1 January 2017
-
Readrcmnd.app
The Vital QuestionTheir words
A fascinating book exploring the role of energy in biology and evolution. It explains how eucaryotic life emerged and why it grew in complexity, while bacteria have remained unchanged in their simplicity for billions of years. It also presents the best theory of abiogenesis we have, and a lot more.
1 October 2016
-
Their words
Behavioral science can play an even more important role in the policymaking process in coming years if practitioners instead begin with some of the large-scale questions that economic policymakers face and then develop insights that, often as a complement to more traditional policy tools, can help solve them.
1 August 2016
1 January 2016
-
Readrcmnd.app
NarconomicsTheir words
If you’ve enjoyed Narcos, you’ll like this book. The world of drugs, cartels, gangs, violence, and prisons looked at from the perspective of an economist.
-
Readrcmnd.app
Whole Earth DisciplineTheir words
An ecopragmatist book making a compelling argument that urbanization, nuclear energy, and genetic engineering are good for the environment and must be pursued. This is all counterintuitive — environmental movement traditionally despises those things. But we’ve gone so far changing Earth, there might not be another choice.
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
SapiensTheir words
The history of humankind from 2 million years back all the way until today. Fascinating read. I liked that it wasn’t just a list of events, but an overarching “theory of history”. Also enjoyed that this one topic was presented through many lenses: history, evolutionary biology, archeology, economics, even philosophy and theology.
18 November 2014
-
korrents.com
How much to test is an economic calculation a team should actually run, not a matter of principle.Their words
The point isn't that you should definitely write more tests, it's that you should definitely do the math to see if you should write more tests.
18 September 2014
-
korrents.com
The goal of spaceflight is the whole solar system, not any single destination the experts are arguing over.Their words
The ‘horizon goal’ isn’t Mars, it is the entire solar system.
27 June 2013
-
korrents.com
What keeps poor countries poor is political and economic instability, not a shortage of well-designed programmes.Their words
The real problem is the absence of firms small and large to employ people productively. The root of the problem is political instability, economic uncertainty, and a country’s high cost structure, among other things. A government’s attention is properly on these bigger issues.
21 November 2012
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
The Economy of EsteemTheir words
This is a book by a philosopher and an economist about a topic that was neglected for a very long time in social analysis. So there's lots about it in the 18th century – Adam Smith and people like that – and it's about how esteem, which is their word for the respect that you give to people who have achieved things against a certain standard, can be used to motivate people to do good things.
11 May 2012
-
Recommendsrcmnd.app
Why Nations FailTheir words
Why Nations Fail is by two of my favourite economists, two very close friends and co-authors of mine, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. They're tackling a subject that I've worked on with them, and they do a great job of bringing it to life and making it vivid.
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
A History of Interest RatesTheir words
This is one of my favourite type of books, which are just about data.
23 January 2012
-
Their words
This is a roundabout way of telling you that companies are not sensitive to small differences in employee wages because employees are so darned expensive anyhow.
3 January 2012
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
Empire of WealthTheir words
In the meantime, below are a few of my favorite books from 2012: Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power – Gordon (my favorite, though it was published in 2005) Jackass Investing: Don’t do it. Profit from it – Dever (unfortunate title, good book) What Works on Wall Street, Fourth Edition: The Classic Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time – O’Shaughnessy (good update and review of quant stock screens)
-
Likedrcmnd.app
Jackass InvestingTheir words
In the meantime, below are a few of my favorite books from 2012: Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power – Gordon (my favorite, though it was published in 2005) Jackass Investing: Don’t do it. Profit from it – Dever (unfortunate title, good book) What Works on Wall Street, Fourth Edition: The Classic Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time – O’Shaughnessy (good update and review of quant stock screens)
-
Likedrcmnd.app
What Works on Wall StreetTheir words
In the meantime, below are a few of my favorite books from 2012: Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power – Gordon (my favorite, though it was published in 2005) Jackass Investing: Don’t do it. Profit from it – Dever (unfortunate title, good book) What Works on Wall Street, Fourth Edition: The Classic Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time – O’Shaughnessy (good update and review of quant stock screens)
28 October 2011
-
Their words
You really want to be attached to Profit Centers because it will bring you higher wages, more respect, and greater opportunities for everything of value to you.
24 October 2011
-
Usesrcmnd.app
TextEditTheir words
Articles happen in Word, but I'm leaving it behind more and more, and just writing in Textedit to save myself all the time and energy associated with Microsoft.
-
Usesrcmnd.app
ScrivenerTheir words
I write my books and comics scripts in Scrivener. Articles happen in Word, but I'm leaving it behind more and more, and just writing in Textedit to save myself all the time and energy associated with Microsoft.
21 March 2011
-
korrents.com
Nuclear power is the wrong technology for cutting carbon: efficiency and renewables can do the job without it.Their words, before
Some of our arguments against nuclear power have collapsed, but it seems to me that the case is still robust.
Their words now
The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power.
1 March 2011
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
What Investors Really WantTheir words
Meir Statman, one of my favorite behavioral economists, has written a great book on how investors can overcome their base urges and make better decisions:
6 September 2010
-
quantitative easinginterest rates
Their words, before
Any effective monetary stimulus would be expected to raise long term rates.
Their words now
I predicted that aggressive QE would raise long term interest rates, a view which seemed to be refuted by the response on T-bond yields to the March 2009 Fed QE announcement.
-
korrents.com
Monetary policy operates with long and variable lags, so attempts to fine-tune the economy make things worse.Their words, before
In the 1970s I thought monetary policy operated with long and variable lags, and thus fine-tuning would make things worse.
Their words now
In the 1970s I thought monetary policy operated with long and variable lags, and thus fine-tuning would make things worse.
29 November 2008
-
korrents.com
Warnings of an imminent US recession in 2006 are partisan gloom rather than a real signal about the economy.Their words, before
For these pundits, the most dismal indicator is that we have a Republican Administration. They have been gloomy for six years now.
Their words now
I will add that I was definitely not expecting Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to have ventured so far away from the idea of investment-quality mortgages that they had enough exposure in subprime loans to wipe out their capital.
3 November 2008
From one piece Sustainable Energy — without the hot air 5 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
Just like Britain, Europe can’t live on its own renewables. So if the aim is to get off fossil fuels, Europe needs nuclear power, or solar power in other people’s deserts (as discussed on p179), or both.
-
Their words
Solar thermal water heaters are a no-brainer. They will work almost everywhere in the world.
-
Their words
So to fix climate change, we need to sort out a new way of getting energy. The climate problem is mostly an energy problem.
+ 2 more
-
Their words
For most materials, the embodied energy per unit weight is greater than or equal to 10 kWh per kg – the same as the energy per unit weight of fossil fuels.
-
Their words
planes are already almost as energy-efficient as they could possibly be. Planes unavoidably have to use energy for two reasons: they have to throw air down in order to stay up, and they need energy to overcome air resistance. No redesign of a plane is going to radically improve its efficiency.
1 April 2002
From one piece Systematically Biased Beliefs about Economics: Robust Evidence of Judgemental Anomalies from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
Differences between the public's and economists' economic views do not solely reflect economists' self-serving bias.Their words
The paper first tests and decisively rejects the hypothesis that the differences solely reflect economists' self‐serving bias.
-
Their words
Differences between the general public's positive economic views and economists' resemble other judgemental anomalies: Laypeople and experts systematically disagree.
1 January 1998
1 May 1977
1 October 1975
Nothing matches.
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.