I guess what I don’t get is why a shutdown would force R’s to the table? As I understand the shutdown allows them to declare certain jobs essential and furlough everyone else. Isn’t that exactly the power DOGE wants? What am I missing?

There has been a notable decline in grand theories as opposed to empirical work in fields like economics. Maybe that’s because all the good ideas are taken or maybe it’s because no one reads books anymore. Gotta run a really good RCT to know for sure….

Does the Social Security privatization example in the intro show the limits of this strategy? It famously failed to pass because it was unpopular!

Any pieces you’d recommend for a better understanding? Would be particularly interested in what a degrowth legislative agenda looks like.

In Trumpian lore, Mitt Romney is a key figure in discrediting that kind of conservative masculinity. The right came to feel that being honorable was weak and ineffectual, allowing the left to steamroll them with ruthless exercises of power (lol). Hence Trump’s focus on not being a “dupe”.

Yeah I just don’t think the quoted tweet makes that proposition!

* Reads NYT Headline *

* Gets seriously alarmed *

“Why are they not raising the alarm on this!? People need to KNOW!!”

lol wut? I have literally said in this thread that I think DOGE is terrible and agreed with someone who called him evil. My whole point is that evil people can also be good at stuff. If they couldn’t be there wouldn’t be much to worry about!

More broadly I think the people that god worship him on X for his business accomplishments and the left wing people who say he’s dumb because of his terrible politics make the same mistake, which is to assume that all good or bad traits go together and are constant across fields.

Yeah I agree with all that (although the Twitter acquisition has clearly worked in some sense).

Tesla and SpaceX are also improbable achievements and his hand in both implies he’s very capable on certain dimensions. I think the Tetlock take below is a good one.

I think that reads far too much into his statement. Perhaps he’s stanning for DOGE elsewhere that I’m unaware of, but “Elon is clearly smart and accomplished” \= “all rich people are smart and DOGE is legitimate”. I think Elon is smart, many rich people are dumb, and DOGE is terrible!

But “sometimes rich and powerful people are dumb” and “sometimes brilliant people are evil” are not mutually exclusive propositions?

Some counter examples tho, no? Obama took the squishy mod line of “civil unions not gay marriage” and both public opinion and policy broadly on gay rights broadly moved left in the subsequent years. Maybe that playbook doesn’t work again, but it’s not like that theory has no evidence.

Very anecdotal, but for multifamily I think the more impactful spillover from the GTA may be building costs, rather than demand.

Oh wow, didn't know you could read those... kind of a trip lol.

If you find the data you should post it! (plz)

Thanks! Yeah I saw this article a while back that has actual approvals, but I can't track down the data source. I wonder if they get it directly from IRCC. www.applyboard.com/applyinsight...

Annoying data question: does "issued" mean newly approved permits or when the permit becomes effective? I've had a hard tracking down the approved permit data.

(It also seems like choking off PGWP in the future by cutting back on student visas will not be enough to hit the announced targets)