Joe Shaffer

Washington D.C. shrunk its police force to its smallest size in 50 years, and crime fell to pre-pandemic lows. Today we're releasing new research on what actually keeps cities safe. Our key findings: 🧵

@BridgetPhetasy Freakenomics motto for the US, even its worst critics stay.

Peter Theil is leaving America because he recognizes that too many Americans hate America.

@thomaschattwill He drives for the racing team, so obviously yes. But it seems more of an endorsement of the EV than the brand.

@Shoelessshaffer Is he being paid?

The electric Ferrari is one of the worst brand moves I can recall seeing

@thomaschattwill Maybe accept Lewis Hamilton’s endorsement? x.com/TrungTPhan/sta…

@Shoelessshaffer I realize I may be forced to get an EV, but I don’t see myself wanting it

@thomaschattwill That feels like an unnecessary extreme take for no reason. Why make it? I’d never own a hat? I’d never go to Africa? These are all silly statements. Shocked it’s coming from a guy that’s expressed super reasonable stuff on difficult subjects. Harper’s letter was such a relief

I don’t ever want to own an EV if I can help it

@johnarnold @BlatantlyDumb What about limiting consecutive terms. One can serve as many years/ terms as they want just not consecutive. That way they aren’t just focused on immediate reelection.

@BlatantlyDumb I would support limits long enough to get ensure there is institutional knowledge exists in the chamber but that still create more turnover. Maybe 12-18 years in Senate and 12 years in House.

Still a skeptic. But one of the standard anti-term-limit stories is that inexperienced politicians will be pawns for lobbyists….. Are we positive that’s worse than the alternative?

@bungarsargon @realDailyWire Yes it was the right that showed up to Charlottesville to stop “Jews will not replace us” crowd.

You see the same antisemitic tropes on the Left and the far Right, but that's where the similarity ends. The Right has proven itself committed to fighting Jew hate. The Left has proven itself committed to embracing it. So great joining @realDailyWire's Friendly Fire!

Will Mamdani's government grocery stores solve food deserts? Maybe there is a supply side market failure. Or maybe the nutritional inequality is caused by demand. The research has a clear answer.

@Jesse_Leg @bungarsargon Slopulist?!?! Trump invented slopulism. Massie has been consistently conservative/ libertarian. Unlike this wish washy cult of grievance that Trump offers.

Thomas Massie is going to lose tomorrow. And it’s not going to be because he’s anti-Israel. He’s always been anti-Israel. He’s going to lose because Kentucky has closed primaries—and MAGA Republicans do not like libertarian conspiracy mongers who vote to defund ICE, dox random Americans to insinuate they’re guilty of child rape, and whose super PACs pump out grotesque, low-IQ antisemitic garbage. His brand of slopulist politics may have some appeal among leftists, right-coded pundits who share policy goals with the far-left, and America-haters across the Third World, but not within MAGA.

@IngrahamAngle @bungarsargon Because he has principles and sticks to them. Not this bullshit, ‘the truth is whatever I say it is’ ‘it’s not illegal when the president does it’. Trump has no principles other than narcissism

If Massie is a “true conservative,” then why does everyone on the Left want him to win?

A thread on the 50 best fortifications to go and visit in the world according to me. They are all fun for at least one in the family. They are listed in reverse rank order as determined by how much fun, unique and awesome they are.

@nikicaga But Biden wanted more money (3-4 trillion) which would have made the problem worse. Manchin held firm and limited the bill to 750 billion. So shouldn’t Manchin and Powell get the credit? Instead Dems vilified Manchin

What Biden and Powell pulled off with the soft landing was genuinely insane and no one but policy nerds will ever give them credit for it

@pmarca Baumol effect also affects this, not just subsidies or regulation

This is almost as true in the US.

@johnarnold I learned this the hard way. Started my investing career trying to time and day trade. Thats the flat part of my chart. Once I bought and held, returns just grew.

There’s a reasonable argument that small investors were better off before finance was democratized, when a stock trade cost $20 and research wasn't easy. Those frictions discouraged active trading in favor of 'buy and hold' investing, a far better strategy for the average person.

@bungarsargon Placing tariffs on everyone doesn’t reassert US dominance. American soft power is on the decline. I get the sense that Trump wants to devalue the dollar. Alienate traditional allies weakens the US.

The Trump agenda in a nutshell: Reassert global dominance for the goal of protecting and enriching American citizens.

this clip blows my mind. @waymo out here saving lives every day

@epaleezeldin @bungarsargon Sacrificing so much? Retard interpretation of what’s happening. His family’s wealth has ballooned. He’s getting everything he wants as Congress has been neutered.

President Trump is sacrificing so much to Make America Great Again. The radicalized left wants him dead, and are being emboldened to take violent action by rhetoric peddled by Democrat “leaders”. The rampant political violence against Republicans since President Trump took office in 2017 has been beyond alarming, and in some cases has cost the lives of great Americans.

@Shageletic1 @DKThomp Not true. Look at Austin. Dallas. Declining rents.

@DKThomp Classical economists have clear policy ideas: unfettered free market, supply and demand explaining all things, externalities don't count. The problem is all these ideas have been proven over the last 50 years to be pure shit.

I'm glad that the author of "Rent Control Is Fine, Actually" calls themself Unlearning Economics, bc it's good to just state things clearly, such as the open animosity that many left economic populists have for the field of economics and economists themselves. Economists aren't gods, and economics isn't a divine truth, but economists are good--better than most--at something critical for making public policy: They're good at identifying tradeoffs. "Rents are too high, so freeze them" is compelling politics. But in the absence of other pro-supply policies, if you make it illegal to increase rents, landlords will stop upgrading units and convert them to condos, which reduces the supply of units for rent, reduces mobility, and drives up rents for everybody else. The left econ populists have some clear, and clearly stated, policy ideas: - Rents are too high, so freeze them. - Electricity is expensive, so stop rate increases. - Homes are too expensive, so ban institutional investors. - Power prices are rising, so ban data center construction. ... All these policies feel like solutions because they're brisk, they name enemies, and they take on the most visible source of frustration. But they are much better as villain-naming exercises than they are as a complete public policy. On their own, each creates other problems: less housing built, less clean electricity built, abdicating energy policy by encouraging AI firms to build data centers abroad in unsavory countries with more emissions, etc. I can't think of a single economic populist idea that wouldn't be helped with a little dose of economics, which is why it's troubling when I see the left participating in, and even celebrating, the great unlearning of economics.

@DKThomp @Noahpinion I guess the ‘in this household we believe in science’ crowd actually doesn’t. They want to believe in warm fuzzy feeling policies that don’t work in the real world. But vibes? They rock that shit.

@TheRewatchables @VanLathan No love for Jeffrey Jones for 80s dicks? Bonus points for real life dick?

'Ghostbusters' and the eight biggest movies of the '80s