As you assess the DEAL we're striking with Korea, remember: We ALREADY have an active free trade agreement with Korea that provides tariff free trade in nearly everything. Expect this new agreement to... Provide for tariff free trade in nearly everything. Just like 6 weeks ago.

Latinized vs saxon sounds, one more melodic and the other more viscerally impactful.

He really just thinks that a trade deficit is a measure of wealth flowing out of the U.S. and into other countries.

Quick story about nuclear power and MAGA's approach to "abundance." Last week, we got news that 60% of staff at the Dept of Energy's Loan Programs Office would be let go. LPO, as it's called, finances big energy projects. It's one of the only orgs in the US offering the sort of

These guys know how unpopular the moron tariffs are going to be with consumers. Their strategy--"make Amazon lie so consumers don't blame Trump"--reeks of desperation.

Want to hear me talk about many of your favorite topics? Check out this interview with me with Alex Kaschuta on The Subversive Podcast

Maybe a spicy take: liberals have a mild taboo against talking about personal choices making their lives better (systemic issues! It’s Privilege!), and conservatives don’t, so people looking for stuff about how to make choices to make their lives better tend to find conservatives

the notion of a “fake email job” is structurally the same as a belief in communism. the communist looks at a system far more complex than he can understand and decides the parts he doesn’t understand must have no real purpose & are instead due to human moral failing of some kind.

How bad in RFK on vaccines? I decided to read a chapter of his book on Fauci. It has this seemingly impressive quote. But it turns out it is both edited very inappropriately and the authors are not making the claim he wants. They are saying that vaccines did not cause a decline

If Trump is serious about tariffs on movies, it's a very dangerous escalation. Tariffs have not traditionally been applied to services, and the United States is a massive net exporter of services. We would be extremely vulnerable to any service-based retaliation.

Safetyism : if the acceptable amount of risk is zero, the acceptable amount of activity is zero

I think there’s a parental safety arms race happening where a fringe group decides something is super dangerous, slightly less crazy people are convinced, and within 5 years so few people are doing it that people call the cops on you for it

cc: Alex Kaschuta

common manipulative writing tactics to hijack I see (I want more people to immunize against this nonsense) many of these can be fine in subtle ways but the combo of them and repetition of them in conjunction with selling expensive things or an idealized identity of success can