José Ancer
58.9K posts
@ancerj
Cringemaxxing hobbyist intellectual & consigliere to elite startups. Dad to 3 w/ Mrs. of 15+ yrs. Unapologetic statue pfp. @UTAustin (Philo/Econ)+ @Harvard_Law.
Let me explain exactly why every new subdivision in America looks like the top photo, because the math is wild. A mature tree increases a home's value by 7 to 19 percent. On a $400,000 house, that's $28,000 to $76,000. A single shade tree produces the cooling equivalent of ten room-size air conditioners running 20 hours a day. One tree on the west side of a house cuts energy bills by 12 percent within 15 years. The bottom photo is worth more, costs less to live in, and sells faster. This has been documented by the University of Washington, Clemson, Michigan State, and the USDA. The data is not in dispute. Removing those trees saves the builder roughly $5,000 per lot. Concrete trucks need twice the dripline radius of every standing tree. Utility trenches need flat ground. A bulldozer flattens 200 lots in an afternoon. Preserving trees adds weeks and thousands per home. So the developer pockets $5,000 in savings and the buyer eats $50,000 in lost value for the next two decades. The person making the decision and the person paying for it have never been in the same room. The Woodlands, Texas is the proof of what happens when they are. George Mitchell bought 28,000 acres of Houston timberland in 1974 and preserved 28% as permanent green space. He forced McDonald's to build behind the tree canopy. That McDonald's became one of the highest-volume locations in Texas. The first office building, designed to reflect the surrounding forest so you couldn't see it from the street, leased completely. The Woodlands median home price today: $615,000. Katy, a comparable Houston suburb that clear-cut: $375,000. Named #1 community to live in America two years running. Fifty years of data. The trees are worth more than removing them saves. Developers clear-cut anyway because they sell the house once and leave. You live in it for 30 years.
America’s foreign policy toward Southeast Asia under Trump has been: 1. Slap them with the some of the highest tariff rates in the world 2. Launch Section 301 investigations of their trade practices 3. Create a global energy and commodities crisis that singles them out for special pain bc of the region’s reliance on Strait of Hormuz The scenario below is dark, dark, dark … but we have basically waged slow-motion economic warfare against our allies in one of the most important regions in the world. (via @alexbhturnbull)
After 10 weeks of a U.S. oil blockade, Cuba's grid is near collapse. Russia may be sending a lifeline: a state-owned tanker full of crude. But a Chinese-owned tanker, spooked by U.S. threats, abandoned its Cuba delivery and is now looking for a buyer elsewhere. w/ @jacknicas
🚨BREAKING: Scott Bessent says Iranian leadership is FLEEING and their bank accounts are being FROZEN: “We’re starting to see defections at Treasury. We now know where the Iranian leadership bank accounts are, and those are being frozen.”
Wealth is positive-sum but power is zero-sum. Always has been, and always will be. Anyone suggesting otherwise is trying to shield theirs or has accepted they’ll never have any. And wealth depends on order, which is downstream of power.
Deputy Camille Chamoun congratulates the "Israeli army on its humanity": "The only army I've seen in my life that gives notice to the area it's going to bomb and asks for the evacuation of civilians." You should listen to him arguing with the host. The dialogue in Lebanon has changed completely for the better.
🚨BREAKING: SUPER MICRO CO-FOUNDER ARRESTED FOR SMUGGLING $2.5B IN NVIDIA GPUs TO CHINA >SMCI co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw arrested today >personally holds $464 MILLION in SMCI stock >charged with smuggling BILLIONS in Nvidia servers to china >used a southeast asian shell company to funnel $2.5B in servers to chinese buyers >$510 million worth shipped in just THREE WEEKS in spring 2025 >built thousands of fake dummy servers to fool U.S compliance auditors >caught on surveillance camera using a HAIR DRYER to swap serial number stickers >coordinated the whole thing over encrypted group chats >SMCI down 12% after hours >faces up to 30 years in federal prison ITS SO OVER…
If a non-American asks you what America is like, show them this video
.@SecScottBessent: In the coming days, we may unsanction the Iranian oil that's on the water. It's about 140 million barrels, so depending how you count it, that's 10 days to 2 weeks of supply, that the Iranians had been pushing out, that would have all gone to China. In essence, we'd be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days, as we continue this campaign. So, we have lots of levers.
