some cool experiments reincarnating "the village":

So this is a great question. State capacity is an annoying political science term, and classically the definition is something like “a state’s ability to achieve its goals.” If you’re assessing early states, you’re asking a couple basic questions about state capacity: - Can

Santi Ruiz David Schleicher and I pull through the academic literature to bring a little rigor to the term, which is protean and is used differently in political discourse and in political science, on p. 11 to 25 here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

The dumbing down of America, new at The Permanent Problem brinklindsey.substack.com/p/americas-int…

New at The Permanent Problem: American society in cognitive decline (link in bio)

This is Olympic-level DNC'ing. You can't DNC any harder than this. nbcnews.com/politics/elect…

New up at The Permanent Problem: Steve Teles and I discuss all things abundance-related. brinklindsey.substack.com/p/steve-teles-…

New from the Permanent Problem: Brink Lindsey & Steve Teles discuss: –The wide range of ideas and views that abundance pulls together –Why state-level reforms hold promise – Post-Trump abundance policy opportunities on the left and right niskanencenter.org/future-of-abun…

“It is extremely alarming that the only candidates who genuinely excite our voters are the ones making absolutely insane promises on politically toxic positions,” one Dem strategist tells Playbook’s Adam Wren. “Leaving us in the spot of trying to execute on bad policy and losing

An AI oopsie--compare the confident statement above with the actual quote from Adam Smith below.

The impossible has become possible: we've passed a clean CEQA infill exemption. This is probably the most important thing California has done on housing in the present YIMBY moment.

I honestly can barely believe this happened. Total YIMBY victory in California today. After Newsom signs this bill; CEQA will no longer apply to *any* infill housing under 85’. No inclusionary zoning or labor provisions.

60 percent of the time, it works every time!

New up at The Permanent Problem: my podcast with Jonathan Chait on the abundance movement and the future of the Democratic Party. brinklindsey.substack.com/p/jonathan-cha…

America's housing crisis contains two problems: Above-cost housing & low incomes YIMBYism can cut rents down to construction costs, but it can't help poverty. Or can it? Turns out an Austin-style 15% rent drop would cut Californian poverty by as much as the Child Tax Credit 👇

We certainly wouldn't want this completely new, unprecedented phenomenon on our campuses.

Particularly excited that they are emphasizing need for greater state capacity to deliver on policy goals.

Since it happened at a Coldplay concert, I think the correct term for that jumbotron maneuver is self-conscious uncoupling.

Old family story: when my mom (born 1938) was a little girl, she excitedly told her visiting grandma that their cat had just had kittens. Grandma, utterly mortified at the vulgarity, exclaimed, "I have lived too long!"

This is genuinely unbelievable. These antitrust goobers don't seem to realize that I have a telephone. This whole pathetic, pissy thread is about how I'm lying about my conversation with the real estate analyst Lance Lambert and misrepresenting him in my article. So, guess