It surely must be tempting for Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta and Apple to simply say "we're exiting your dumb market" and turn off every computer in Europe.
What if instead of just suing American tech companies they built their own
John Cochrane
3,929 posts
John Cochrane
@JohnHCochrane
The Grumpy Economist. Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution. Opinions are mine alone and do not represent the position of the Hoover Institution or Stanford Univ.
- When a politician uses "the derivative is worth less than the underlying" as his go-to metaphor, you know 1) he writes his own speeches 2) he means it that he treats people as equals, not little people for the self-appointed elite to govern.To me, this is @JMilei's best speech so far, every sentence is a memorable quote! I cut and translated it so the international audience can enjoy our Philosopher-President too 🇦🇷
00:00 - Who would have thought that the tousle-haired president of Argentina would be the best YouTube economics explainer of them all? The series is great fun.Technological progress and population growth. About: Milei, Argentina, economic growth, techno-optimists, techno-phobics, human capital.
00:00 - Tariff advocates want the US to do more manufacturing. What do they want the US to do less of? It must be something, as there are only so many workers and capital resources.
- All the "what should Democrats do?" miss the obvious. Govern. Competently. When the blue states and blue cities are booming, safe, great schools, business flocking, call America and say "we're ready to run the country now."Watching once-great cities being killed by terrible governance is a really painful part of the modern American experience. It's a similar story in San Francisco.
- And science it is. Not a long meandering book you puzzle over. The logic is explicit. It makes quantitative predictions. You can see where it fails (it does) and improve it, or reject it. Even when wrong, that's science.Economists will look you dead in the face and call this science
- A BMW driver's median net wealth is $1,000,000. People who take the bus have median net wealth of $1,000. Subsidize BMW ownership so people can build generational wealth!Replying to @JohnHCochranePer census bureau a homeowner’s median net wealth is $269,100 compared with 3,036 for renters. Building wealth through necessary housing expenses is good for households with little excees cash to invest.
- The single family home is a terrible investment. Low return, high leverage, illiquid, idiosyncratic risk, value depends on local politics, home value falls with local economy and your job. Build "generational wealth" in stocks, which are far more "accessible." Stop subsidizing!I hope some conservative economists will step up and explain to the Heritage Foundation (and the Trump administration in waiting) that in fact excessive government regulation can be very harmful and costly. thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/20…
- Replying to @ojblanchard1Even better. Eu should remove all trade barriers and become the center of the new global free trade zone. Let the us stagnate for 10 years while Eu roars past us, until we wake up
- A tragedy. And a warning to the rest of us. Growth is not automatic, an effortless trend. Every step of the way is hard work. Growth can stop.Italy’s 🇮🇹 dismal multi-decade economic performance 📉 Cc: @zingales @Noahpinion @RanaForoohar @sullydish
- You must be joking. GDP per capita 1790, about $1,000 real terms. 2024: $89,000. Even perfect redistribution of 1790 income is $1,000 per person, 1/30 of minimum wage. We are all insanely better off due to economic growth, not by redistribution of George Washington's pitiful (byYou do realize that 250 years ago the child mortality rate was 50%, right? And the vast majority of people lived short, disease ridden lives, right? It was largely the government spreading the wealth around that ended that. It's fine if you want to go back to that but be honest.
- In my view, economists should analyze tax policy based on incentives, not moral sentiments, where we have little comparative advantage. The wealthy may not "deserve" their comfort, but strangely confiscating the rewards to private success seems always to produce misery for theIn response to comments. I believe that those of us who have been financially successful, through a (varying) mix of effort and chance owe a lot to the society in which they have grown and lived. (A view I share, with all due respect, with Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and their
- Karl Marx also "explained" why capitalism won't work decades ago. Arrow too can be wrong. Read the argument, and the rebuttals, not the name. In reality, insurers can guess your health costs better than you. Arrow assumes the opposite. Markets break down because governmentsKenneth Arrow explained why the free market doesn’t work in health insurance decades ago.
- Economist open letters, based on some sense of a-political professional expertise, now devalued to zero.I'm happy to share an open letter to the Israeli government from 23 professors of economics across the US and Europe (including myself): drive.google.com/file/d/1D_Sv3J…
