https://t.co/mgWQbsFQGN
1/Today's @bopinion post is about Trump's taxes, and what they show about how America allocates capital.
We appear to have some big problems.
https://t.co/mgWQbsFQGN
Why would creditors give money to a guy who wastes the money on bad businesses and doesn't even pay them back?

Why hasn't an abundance of cheap capital caused the return on financial capital to fall? Interest rates are low, but stock returns have held up strongly.

When you increase the supply of loanable funds, prices are supposed to go down. In other words, cheap capital should fund a lot of marginal businesses that compete away profits...
Simcha Barkai and Matt Rognlie have both written about this:
1. https://t.co/OLln8npr8b
2. https://t.co/BY1EWyluD7
https://t.co/xNzE9SO8nY
https://t.co/BY1EWyluD7
And it doesn't really explain Trump, does it? He's not a monopolist, and he doesn't even make profit. He's just a huckster who can borrow cheaply because he's famous.
Financiers are willing to throw tons of cheap money at big powerful companies or at famous hucksters like Trump, but charge inordinate prices to fund new entrants or marginal businesses.
We need to figure out what's going wrong, and fix it!
(end)
https://t.co/dHVCEQGa9q
More from Noah Smith 🐇
"Competitive wokeness", like "virtue signaling" and "preference falsification", seems to be something people on the right say in order to pretend that people on the left don't really believe what they claim to believe.
Basically we have a whole bunch of ways of saying "You can't possibly believe that!!". Which helps us avoid the terrifying fact that yes, people generally do believe it.
Of course, "believe" doesn't mean what it means in econ class. It means that people get a warm feeling from asserting something, even if they don't know what it means. "God is omnipotent", etc.
A lot of times we believe extreme things, simply because asserting those things all together in a group gives us a warm feeling of having an army on our side.
It's not competitive wokeness. It's COOPERATIVE wokeness.
"Virtue signaling" isn't fake or pretend. It's real.
"Virtue", when it comes right down to it, means membership on a team.
Sometimes, to prove you're on a team, it helps to say something people on the other team could never bring themselves to say.
"She now finds herself in the uppermost echelons of the culture industries, where woke liberalism is de rigueur and departures from it are stigmatized." @reihan on Taylor Swift's swing towards politics: https://t.co/cKW4LoY9IV
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) October 11, 2018
Basically we have a whole bunch of ways of saying "You can't possibly believe that!!". Which helps us avoid the terrifying fact that yes, people generally do believe it.
Of course, "believe" doesn't mean what it means in econ class. It means that people get a warm feeling from asserting something, even if they don't know what it means. "God is omnipotent", etc.
A lot of times we believe extreme things, simply because asserting those things all together in a group gives us a warm feeling of having an army on our side.
It's not competitive wokeness. It's COOPERATIVE wokeness.
"Virtue signaling" isn't fake or pretend. It's real.
"Virtue", when it comes right down to it, means membership on a team.
Sometimes, to prove you're on a team, it helps to say something people on the other team could never bring themselves to say.
Time for panel #3: Big Tech and regulation!
I will be live-tweeting again, and you can also watch video at either the Twitter or Facebook links below!
Kaissar: Every industry gets regulated when it gets big. The question is what kind of regulation Big Tech will get,and whether the companies will be proactive in shaping it.
Kaissar: More profitable companies have higher returns. Why? Maybe it's a risk factor, because more profit = higher risk of getting regulated.
Bershidskyis showing a diagram of GDPR complaince pop-ups. What a massive ill-conceived bureaucratic mess.
Ritholtz: It's 2018 and we're still talking about Facebook privacy settings?! If you're still giving your personal data to Facebook, you just don't care about privacy!
I will be live-tweeting again, and you can also watch video at either the Twitter or Facebook links below!
Bloomberg Ideas conference now starting! I will be live-tweeting it. You can watch on our Facebook or Twitter pages (links below)! https://t.co/Mbr9dZzWBy
— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) October 25, 2018
Kaissar: Every industry gets regulated when it gets big. The question is what kind of regulation Big Tech will get,and whether the companies will be proactive in shaping it.
Kaissar: More profitable companies have higher returns. Why? Maybe it's a risk factor, because more profit = higher risk of getting regulated.
Bershidskyis showing a diagram of GDPR complaince pop-ups. What a massive ill-conceived bureaucratic mess.
Ritholtz: It's 2018 and we're still talking about Facebook privacy settings?! If you're still giving your personal data to Facebook, you just don't care about privacy!
Krugman is, of course, right about this. BUT, note that universities can do a lot to revitalize declining and rural regions.
See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:
And see this thing that I wrote:
And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:
And see this other thing that I wrote:
One thing I've been noticing about responses to today's column is that many people still don't get how strong the forces behind regional divergence are, and how hard to reverse 1/ https://t.co/Ft2aH1NcQt
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 20, 2018
See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:
And see this thing that I wrote:
And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:
And see this other thing that I wrote:
More from Trump
Having a Twitter account is not a right.
If you incite violence on Twitter, the company can - and should - stop you. Good call.
Plans for “future armed protests” are spreading on Twitter and elsewhere, the company warned, “including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021”.
Yes, people who boosted their careers off of Trump - his sycophants, his kids & people like Haley, who helped him attack and undermine human rights around the world - are boo-hooing right now.
Always beware of powerful people pretending to be victims.
https://t.co/0A5D5eJFvL
But no one should react with glee. The president of the United States has been inciting violence, and Republican Party leaders, along with a willing, violent mob, have been aiding his attempts to overthrow the democratic process.
That's the real story here.
The dangers are real, and we've all seen them. That Twitter even had to contemplate banning any politician for inciting violence is awful. That they had to ban the sitting president for it is even worse.
If you incite violence on Twitter, the company can - and should - stop you. Good call.

Plans for “future armed protests” are spreading on Twitter and elsewhere, the company warned, “including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021”.
Yes, people who boosted their careers off of Trump - his sycophants, his kids & people like Haley, who helped him attack and undermine human rights around the world - are boo-hooing right now.
Always beware of powerful people pretending to be victims.
https://t.co/0A5D5eJFvL

But no one should react with glee. The president of the United States has been inciting violence, and Republican Party leaders, along with a willing, violent mob, have been aiding his attempts to overthrow the democratic process.
That's the real story here.
The dangers are real, and we've all seen them. That Twitter even had to contemplate banning any politician for inciting violence is awful. That they had to ban the sitting president for it is even worse.
Allow me to offer some commentary on several SCOTUS cases that are NOT the #moab, but which, considered in aggregate, will reveal my impressions on the #TRUMPSMASH #lawOfFunny
Can someone give me a google number or something? I want a party line.
https://t.co/SlJCsjWMUa
I'm sorry, but #lawOFFunny #nominologicaldeterminism.
#thomists
This one is important:
Can someone give me a google number or something? I want a party line.
https://t.co/SlJCsjWMUa
We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2020
I'm sorry, but #lawOFFunny #nominologicaldeterminism.
#thomists

This one is important:
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A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.
Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.
6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices
https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x
PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.
735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices
https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ
The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.
The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.
Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.
6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices
https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x

PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.
735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices
https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ

The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.
The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.