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6 days ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
Well, I suppose Trump doesn’t actually chicken out of everything. The U.S. has bombed Iran’s three nuclear enrichment facilities. Here was Trump’s announcement of the strikes on social media:The consequences of these strikes aren’t yet clear. I’ve seen a lot of hyperventilating takes about how World War III is now underway, but this seems obviously false.
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1 week ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
Analyzing American economic policy isn’t that interesting these days, except perhaps as a grim spectacle. So I’ve been thinking a little about Chinese economic policy. China’s leaders leave much to be desired, but to their credit, they still think economic policy is about strengthening their nation, enriching their people, and improving their technology, instead of pursuing domestic culture wars by other means.
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1 week ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
“They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too.” — William T. ShermanI am not a military analyst or expert. Usually I look at the world through the lens of economics, which I actually have some training in. But if you want to get a good holistic picture of the world, you need to understand at least a little bit about war and conflict.
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1 week ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
It continues to be the case that almost none of Abundance’s critics seem to have actually read the book. The first wave of critics basically ignored the ideas in it, and talked about their own ideas instead. Later critics became more aggressive, frenetically lobbing insult-words at the authors — “libertarian”, “Republican”, “oligarch-funded”, etc. — that completely ignored the book’s argument that excessive regulation is holding back big government.
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1 week ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
I went to a protest today, for the first time in years. It was the “No Kings” protest in San Francisco, part of a nationwide series of protests against Donald Trump’s authoritarianism. The protests reportedly drew about 5 million people across the country — about the same as the Women’s March in 2017.
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2 weeks ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” — Robert FrostI still stick to my prediction that American society is slowly calming down from the unrest of 2014-2021. But as new rounds of protests erupt across the nation and Senators are wrestled to the ground and maskedunidentified government agents rampage through workplaces and communities looking for “illegals” to arrest, it’s worth remembering that the decline of unrest can be very slow and bumpy.
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2 weeks ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
Everybody seems to be fixated on the anti-ICE protests, but I’ve just written about that twice in a row, and I need a break. So today’s roundup is a grab-bag of random unrelated stuff. First, here are a couple of episodes of Econ 102, where Erik Torenberg and I talk a lot about ideas that are popular on the Tech Right:Anyway, on to the roundup:With Elon having left the government and publicly feuded with Trump, there’s now a general bipartisan consensus that DOGE was a big fat failure.
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2 weeks ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
Anti-ICE riots are continuing in L.A., with protests spreading to some other cities. It remains to be seen how big the movement will become, or how harsh Trump’s reprisals will be. In the meantime, the rhetoric on social media around the whole immigration issue is getting pretty hyperbolic.
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2 weeks ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
Why is social media buzzing with photos of masked protesters waving Mexican flags over burning cars in Los Angeles? Why are there clashes between police, protesters, and ICE? Why has Trump called in the California National Guard, and why is the administration threatening to send active-duty Marines to the city? Why is California governor Gavin Newsom daring the administration to arrest him? Why are progressives on social media shouting that a fascist takeover is here?
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3 weeks ago | 
noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith
“O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other.” — Winnifred Wygal“Put the fork down!” — Denis LearyI was going to write about the Elon-Trump blowup, but some things are just too ridiculous and extremely-online even for me, so I’ll skip it for now — at least until it starts seeming like it might have some economic ramifications.