Category: Worth Your Time

1. The Year in Climate Chaos shows just how messed up 2024 was, and how much worse 2025 will get.
2. Related(?): “Some Economics of Global Warming” — a view from 1992.
3. “By 1900, 23 of the 25 largest U.S. cities, and 85 percent of all cities, used primarily lead service lines. Many local building codes also mandated that service lines must use lead pipes for construction.”
4. Listen to the last episode (of 12) on The Power Broker… maybe after you’ve listened to the first 11?
5. “It turns out that cryptocurrencies do have a very concrete use case. They are a technology that has latched on to, and then helped build, a culture that celebrates greed and speculation as virtues just as it embraces volatility.” In 2025 with Trump, I think we’re going to see a lot of “innovating” that will take cash from many, which will lead to (a) a worse reputation for some (all?) crypto, (b) calls for regulation, and (c) a lot of learning, gained at great cost.
6. The average Dutch man was 165cm around 1870. The average height for both men and women rose by 15-18cm in the next 120 odd years (to 183 and 169cm, respectively), due to better nutrition, hygiene, social care and natural selection (tall men make tall babies?). Here’s more on nutrition. Fun fact: South Korean men are also about 20cm taller than 100 years ago.
7. Listen to this update on academic fraud, and pay-to-publish [garbage] “open access” journals.
8. Listen to Adam Grant on achieving greatness.
9. A look at renewable energy from centuries ago, when Brits consumed 2% of what they do these days.
10. Global temperatures are now 1.9C higher than the pre-Industrial age, which is around 25 years ahead of schedule our worst (and second-to-worst) fears. (They were +0.9C in 2015 and some sources claim they are now only getting over +1.0C, but there are disagreements over whether higher temps are “normal” or an “anomaly”.)
11. Listen to Alain Bertaud on fixing sick cities.

1. As water scarcity increases, people are getting creative about finding “new” water. In Athens, that means re-opening a 2,000 year old aqueduct.
2. I “met” Pete the shipwright when he was working on Tally-Ho. Now he’s got his own YT channel about “rough and tough” ship restoration. Nice to see how working boats are handled, rather than just yachts.
3. The Netherlands is introducing a heat index because that’s how CC will mess with us.
4. Listen to How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War
5. Waterless urinals use some interesting technology
6. Listen to Why Industrial Policy Is (Almost) Always a Bad Idea
7. Climate chaos is driving demand for weather derivatives to hedge risk.
8. Meanwhile in the Netherlands, people are turning away from EVs as the government removes subsidies and Amsterdam — in a move that strikes straight in my boating budget — has reduced the discount on permits  for boats with electronic motors (against the price of permits for gasoline engines) from 70% in 2024 to 35% in 2025. That’s NOT how you encourage people to drive (or boat) green!

H/T to DL

1. “The government should tax the super rich and burn the money.” Agreed. Listen in. And more by Gary — a very interesting explainer of his background and what to do when society fails.
2. More podcasts by Gary: How I lost faith in the economists and the rich won’t leave if you tax them, since their wealth is businesses and property!
3. Trump’s election and affinity for running cons means that the bad actors in crypto are going to get a free pass…. and a lot of people are going to lose money.
4. Listen to how the Japanese housing policy can help the “housing crisis”
5. Watch a few lawyers explain how The Onion™ bought InfoWars. This case will be in the legal settlements and auctions textbooks!
6. Where’s the dirty side of a hurricane? Watch.
7. How the crazy right (Jordan Peterson et al.) turned the “15 minute city” into a conspiracy. Listen.
8. “The US republic is, flaws and all, perhaps the most striking success in world history. Is it possible that its strengths are now combining with its weaknesses to overthrow that legacy?“
9. Listen to an interview with the economist (?) driving bureaucratic reform in Argentina. The discussion can apply to Musk’s DOGE, but this guy had 1.5 years to prepare the reforms; Musk has 1.5 months (and a tiny bit of attention).
10. Is the U.S. Sleeping on Threats from Russia and China? Yes. Listen.

H/T to GJ

1. When Idiot Savants Do Climate Economics, aka, we’re all gonna die (well, 90%) because of these idiots.
2. Listen to Musa al-Gharbi on Elite Wokeness (too many underemployed humanities majors?)
3. Watch for the 6 reasons Europe is “going down” [use subs] (not much discussion of why it’s not that bad, but let’s stay critical 🙂
4. Listen: How fraudsters are bilking the us government out of billions of dollars
5. Listen to this interview with Robert Caro, author of the Power Broker.
6. Watch Gary explain how rent, interest and profits are all the same thing 🙂
7. Listen and think about the fertility “crisis,” which is maybe a decent way to get to sustainability. (I disagree with Neil about abortion; still an occasional twat).
8. Watch: Robert Putnam on building communities to save democracy
9. We’ve lost 1200 km3 of fresh water (due to over-use) since 2015… and freshwater scarcity will only get worse…
10. We’re blowing way past +1.5C (it’s +1.64 right now), so mitigation is failing. Adapt adapt adapt!

1. Watch: The story behind QR (quick reaction) codes.
2. Jaywalking legalized in NYC. Good. Cities are for people, not cars. (The car lobby is how we got jaywalking laws in the first place!)
3. Listen to this really compelling argument for common law.
4. Watch Gary: Passive income is about who owns the resources.
5. Listen in on Masayoshi Son — a crazy (but right?) entrepreneur…
6. Listen and learn: “How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside The Global Supply Chain”
7. Listen: Artificial Intelligence: “Never mistake a clear view for a short journey.”

1. A late night Dutch commentator (Arjen Lubach) resigns the world to America’s (potential) loss of democracy. Watch, in English, from here.
2. Watch: A day with a barista at Grand Central Station.
3. The promise and peril of [a journalist deciding to] “just go independent”
4. Listen to how entrepreneurs “delivered” ship safety (via lighthouses) and pollination (via bees) — both of which “academics who didn’t leave the library to talk to real people” claimed must be provided by the state.
5. Listen to this insightful discussion of “Why Home Insurance in Florida Is a Mess“
6. “In welfare economics, government failure is what happens when authorities can’t fix market failures. But of course, governments are able to fail all by themselves and, frankly, on a scale that dwarfs market failures, for sheer social damage and human suffering.” Listen for more.
7. “Boys and men are trending downward in education, employment, and mental health.” How can that trend be fixed, without messing up women’s lives? Listen.
8. Listen to some really interesting history of Scotland.
9. An American reflects on how ugly the country looks from Europe. Watch.
10. Listen to a clear explanation of how politicians make housing more expensive.

1. This video rant [in Dutch] captures the paradox with Dutch government policies that call for “innovation everywhere” to solve problems while cutting the budget for higher education (as well as support for foreign students and lecturers).
2. Listen: America is Switching from Booze to Weed
3. Listen to this good discussion of the changing labor market, as in the jobs we do.
4. Are our tribal instincts the source of our success? Listen in.
5. Exporting Dutch bikes (best in the world for cities) to Canada.
6. So Dutch: Rather than relax regulations strangling Amsterdam’s creative night culture, they build an “institute” to promote insiders. FFS.
7. Water crises threaten our food supply, etc. Well, strike me down with a feather boa! (Yeah, I told you so!)
8. Listen: Why Housing Is Artificially Expensive. Related: Is your city dying?
9. Listen to the 10th episode of the Power Broker, i.e., where Robert Moses finally faces pushback for replacing communities with roads.
10. Listen: Cannabis Is Booming [in the US], So Why Isn’t Anyone Getting Rich?

H/T to DL

Archive.ph (or .md, etc.) is working again! Yay for sharing articles!

1. Listen to this political-economist downplay the risks of Trump (“too egotistical and disorganized to be a real dictator”). Slightly less worse?
2. Listen to this appreciation of manhole covers — as well as the origin of the name “99% Invisible” — i.e., an appreciation of the infrastructure that improves our lives.
3. Six Dumb Misconceptions About The Economy (that the Politicians Want You To Believe)
4. Watch this video on why Tokyo’s streets (and living) are better. I really liked the video, but here’s my comment on some additional weaknesses (looking at you, Google Maps, for directing us from safe streets to busy roads).

NB: archive.ph is NOT working, so I cannot help you get around paywalls. Let me know if you have a way!

1. The Dutch are facing a “mest (manure) crisis” after 30 years of letting farmers put more and more animals on their land. Farmers want more subsidies for their shit. I say we should stop taking their shit! Watch [in Dutch, so add subs].
2. Watch: How to get rich. (tl;dw? “be born rich” or “have a revolution”). It’s a good analysis. Related: The bank of mom & dad podcast
3. Not surprising [link may not work]: People decide to have kids by considering a combination of the “cost of baby” and their “taste for baby” — or what economists would call a combination of a “slide” and “shift” on the demand curve, respectively.
4. The call for “national disaster service” makes a lot of sense to me. First, young people (esp. guys) can benefit from service. Second, there’s a strong need for people to help, as the number of disasters increases.
5. Holy shit, this is fascinating: Two AI “humans” discuss my book, Living with Water Scarcity, in a podcast format.
6. I’ve been catching up with Mike Munger’s very interesting (to me) podcast “The Answer is Transactions Costs,” and here are a few good episodes: (a) The shit show of academic publishing, (b) Taking others into account, and (c) Permissionless innovation.
7. Why it’s so hard to tell which climate policies actually work (Sorry, archive.ph links are NOT working 🙁
8. Thinking about voting for Trump? Consider this: “Autocrats dump their democratic allies and keep the company of kleptocrats.“
9. What Really Fueled the ‘East Asian Miracle’? It wasn’t land reform as much as forcing (kinda) people off farms and into cities. Dickens would be proud.

H/T to GK

1. Listen to this interesting conversation on the “good old days” of (financial) blogging.
2. The Torah discriminates between meaningful work and dog-work.
3. Watch this nice funny summary of California’s water policy failures.
4. Wat? “Inspire elaborated on its methodology and touted its reliability in a white paper published on its website. According to the white paper, by relying on data science and analysis of faith-based screening data, the Inspire Impact Score “reflects a rules-based, scientifically rigorous methodology of faith-based ESG analysis which creates a level of consistency and reliability of results necessary for making well-informed, quantitatively sound, biblically responsible investment decisions.”
5. When in San Francisco — a low density city with insane housing prices — I suggested that the law allow for any building to add 1 floor (or 5%, whichever is greater) to its height, as long as its final height is lower than average. Such a regulation would allow owners to add space without overwhelming the neighborhood (looking at you, Salesforce Tower). Anyways, the Dutch have this law. I don’t know its impacts, but I’m curious.
6. Tariffs are not as bad as some economists are saying (but they can indeed be very bad, and I think that’s the version Trump would choose). Related: How to do industrial policy correctly — or incorrectly. Listen.
7. I’m shocked, shocked to read that “Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake“
8. European cities are building heat pumps that can heat/cool tens of thousands of homes at once.
9. This article on school kids making sexual deep fakes about each other led me to think a bit more: What if AI-generated deep fakes “flood the zone with shit”? I think that many people will (a) not trust that anything is real and (b) stop making their own sexy photos/porn, since theirs will not be credible. That reaction would mean that most porn/nudes would be fake, which would reduce exploitation (even trafficked children need more food than an AI) and worse abuses in the (child) porn world. Likewise, AIs could be used to make fake teams compete in sports, generate fake actors for television, etc. I am not sure that that’s such a bad thing (except for legitimate actors), to have more “phony” spectator sports. I do know it’s a bad thing for news and data, but we’re learning here.