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Even if Trump chickens out, you should still be worried about the economy

2 days ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith

In general, people don’t like to think about the economy. When the economy is running well, they can ignore it and think about their own personal situation — their business, their job, etc. It’s only when there’s a recession, or a surge in inflation, or a stock market crash, or some other calamity that regular people have to sit up and pay attention to the broader economy. Back in April, everyone was paying attention.
It's time for Abundance to get mad

5 days ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith

One thing I’ve learned, in my time as a pundit, is that many people claim to have read books that they have not actually read. This is true of giant dense tomes like Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but also — perhaps surprisingly — true of light, quick reads like Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance. The text of Abundance is only 222 pages long, and the font is large.
The anti-economists have overreached

1 week ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith

Oren Cass, the founder of the think tank American Compass, is probably the leading intellectual voice of MAGA economics. In a recent blog post, he discusses the question of whether economic forces are like gravity. He writes:[Y]es, the physical world is governed by the laws of gravity. But it is not governed only by the laws of gravity. Indeed, anyone who thought he could reliably predict the motion of bodies with knowledge only of gravity would be something of a moron. Oh, really?
Service costs aren't exploding anymore

1 week ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith

In the 2010s, economics discussions went mainstream. Blogs and (especially) social media meant that data-driven, high-level debates about economic issues were no longer confined to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and the talking heads on CNBC. This was a good thing, but I think it had some unintended consequences.
America needs its foreign students

1 week ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith

The Trump administration has just paused all visa interviews for all foreign students seeking to study in the United States. This means that until and unless that pause is lifted, the number of new students who can apply to come study in the U.S. is zero.
The Age of Twitter is finally ending. Can Substack take its place?

1 week ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith |Chris Best

This post does not reflect the views of Chris Best. He is listed as an author because he is included in the video chat portion. The other day I had a chat with Chris Best, the CEO of Substack, which you can watch above. We talked about the future of the media, focusing on how people share and consume news and analysis.
Memorial Day chat with Matt Yglesias

1 week ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith |Matthew Yglesias

I really enjoy Substack’s chat feature! Today Matt Yglesias joined me for a wide-ranging discussion about politics, policy, technology, and other fun stuff. We didn’t do Q&A, but next time we will!Here were my key takeaways from the chat:Electric technology (batteries and motors and some other stuff) is incredibly important, and will eventually take over. But almost no one in America seems to realize how important it is. Fortunately, I think I have fully electric-pilled Matt.
At least five interesting things: Stubborn optimism edition (#64)

1 week ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith

We have a Statue of Liberty on the East Coast; why not build a Statue of Justice on the West Coast? Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay would be the perfect place to build it. In fact, I’m not the first to think of this; it was suggested in 1963 and rejected. But it’s never too late! Now if we can only find someone to build it for us…Anyway, some readers have been disturbed by the recent pessimistic turn in the tone of my blog posts.
Shops make a city great

2 weeks ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith

Eight years ago, around the time I moved to San Francisco, I watched the Disney movie Big Hero 6. It’s set in a city called “San Fransokyo”, which is supposed to be a mashup of two of my favorite cities — basically a denser San Francisco with some Japanese-style roofs and electric signs:Around that same time, I became acquainted with the YIMBYs, who onboarded me into the broader urbanist revival that was happening throughout the United States.
White Americans as a normal minority

2 weeks ago | noahpinion.blog | Noah Smith

I haven’t written about racial issues in a while, and it’s not hard to see why. After a decade where it often seemed like Americans talked and thought about nothing else, I think people are generally tired of the topic.