Nick Knipe

this metaphor in Musk v. Altman closing statements is SENDING me

BREAKING: The California Coastal Commission told a Dana Point couple they could rebuild their aging home — but only if they agreed to demolish it whenever the government says so. We filed suit to stop this unconstitutional shakedown.

The largest supermarket in Britain, that operates on razor-thin margins, is about to be crushed for the crime of paying different jobs different salaries, while our legislature shrugs. How dare they suggest that “so-called market rates” can exist in Soviet Britain.

@RoKhanna Minimum wage serves to mollify the masses. Increase fast food wages, it gets paid by people who buy fast food. Does that seem like the wealth transfer you were looking for? This freakonomics episode fairly dissects the debate: freakonomics.com/podcast/the-tr…

I co-introduced historic legislation to increase the minimum wage to $25. As someone who taught economics at Stanford, here is why it makes sense. The real minimum wage was $14 in 1968. Today it is half, but productivity has increased 2.5x. Instead of extractive capitalism, we need a free enterprise system that pays workers what they are worth.

@Sean90884195 @AXELKAISER Here is the prior mayor's response to that claim: x.com/ericadamsforny…

@AXELKAISER Dijo que heredaron al déficit. ¿Lo escuchaste?

Alcalde izquierdista de Nueva York, diciendo que la ciudad está quebrada. Que lindo es el socialismo.

@KevinDoll11 @jarvis_best Exactly why lawyers don't tell you this.

@jarvis_best If my lawyer told me this I would fire him.

You guys don’t know this but most civil trials are coin flips and clients HATE it when we tell them this.

@adamcarolla Went out to eat and sent his kids to school

This dictator shut down beaches, parks, small businesses and schools and then went out to eat

@Mistrbrojangles @romanhelmetguy @ShawnRyan762 you'd still have to deal with the ballistic missiles and drones that would have been animated in response to the blockade. but in your scenario, USA wud not have chance to disable as many systems as we could in a surprise attack. do you see why that bad?

@romanhelmetguy @ShawnRyan762 couldn't Trump have just done the blockade without the whole war for israel thing tho? that's all he needed to do from the get go.

The petrodollar is the foundation of American power. Since the 1970s, oil has only been sold in dollars, forcing every nation on earth to hold dollars, fund our debt, and keep us dominant. Iran just systematically dismantled that. They closed Hormuz, cutting 25% of global oil supply. Spiked oil to $118 a barrel. Then forced ships to pay in Chinese yuan for passage. Now Gulf states are dumping US treasuries, bond markets are selling off, inflation is surging, Deutsche Bank is warning of a petroyuan era. Every link in the petrodollar chain is snapping at once. When it's gone, your borrowing costs explode, your savings erode, and America loses the financial weapon that has kept us dominant for 50 years. China wins without ever pulling a trigger.

@adamcarolla Exactly. Exhibit 2: Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor x.com/kniborg/status…

This is why they can’t solve the problem

@Eta_Miraklo @PacificLegal CCC staff is the issue. The commissioners are just figureheads who rubber stamp anything advanced by the Commission's bureaucracy.

@PacificLegal California Coastal Commission members.

BREAKING: The California Supreme Court just unanimously ruled that the California Coastal Commission unlawfully overrode a county-approved building permit — one of the most significant checks on the Commission's power in the 40 years since Nollan v. CCC.

In a previous tweet, I pointed out that China will have a harder time catching up with the United States. China’s GDP was about 78% of the U.S. level in 2021, but by 2024 that share had fallen to roughly 64%. Some argued this was simply an exchange-rate effect, while others questioned the metric itself and suggested that purchasing-power parity, or PPP, tells a different story. It is true that the renminbi has weakened from around 6.3 to roughly 7.2 per dollar, a depreciation of about 13%. That does reduce China’s GDP in dollar terms. But the divergence between China and the United States is visible in underlying growth. In nominal terms, the U.S. economy has expanded more rapidly. American GDP rose from about 23 trillion dollars in 2021 to roughly 28 to 29 trillion in 2024, an increase of around 25%. China’s grew from approximately 114 trillion yuan to around 130 trillion yuan, closer to 15%. Even allowing for differences in measurement, the gap is widening, not narrowing. The same pattern appears in capital markets. U.S. equities, represented by the S&P 500, increased from roughly $45 trillion in 2021 to around $55–60 trillion more recently. Chinese markets have moved in the opposite direction. Indices such as the CSI 300 and the Hang Seng have seen their combined market value fall from around $13 trillion at their peak to closer to $10 trillion. If this were primarily a currency story, it would be difficult to explain why U.S. markets have surged while China’s have contracted in absolute terms. This points to a deeper structural shift. China’s growth model, long driven by investment, construction and credit expansion, is running into constraints, including diminishing returns and rising debt burdens. The United States, by contrast, continues to benefit from stronger consumption and more resilient capital markets. There is also a historical lesson. During the Cold War, Nobel economist Paul Samuelson projected that the Soviet economy would eventually catch up with or even surpass that of the United States in late 20 century . Those forecasts extrapolated from USSR’s strong growth trends but underestimated geopolitical realities. As for PPP, it serves a specific purpose but has clear limitations. It is useful for comparing domestic purchasing power, yet far less informative when assessing global economic weight, financial influence or technological leadership. For instance, India’s economy already appears significantly larger than Japan’s. Few would argue that India offers a higher level of development. Finally, headline GDP figures themselves have limits. Investment can boost output and employment in the short term while generating little long-term return, especially when financed by rising debt. This concern has long been raised in discussions of China’s infrastructure and construction-led model. Questions around data transparency add another layer of uncertainty. For policymakers, the implication is straightforward. Treating this as a currency-driven fluctuation, or relying on PPP-based comparisons, risks misreading China’s trajectory. The evidence points to a more durable divergence, shaped by structural factors rather than short-term financial movements. This is not simply a cyclical slowdown. It marks a shift in relative economic momentum.

@jenvanlaar x.com/kniborg/status…

The Governor appoints 4 of the 12 members of the Coastal Commission, and he appointed the Chair. So spare us all

Is there confirmation of this? I've heard accounts of supposed innuendo, and I've always been curious how people like Will Smith seem to have been granted a permit for what looks like a fucking LAKE in supposedly sensitive habitat. But never heard of confirmed cases of raw corruption.

@kniborg @KevinKileyCA They also have a history of taking bribes from the “correct” type of people

The latest absurdity from the CA Coastal Commission: no fireworks on the Fourth of July. I've introduced legislation to rein in this runaway agency.

oh, I'm very much for change: subject the centers of accumulated power to ravenous competition and revising the tax code so the employees and builders can better share in the risk (and thus success) without penalty. apologies if this does not align with the single direction of change you understand possible

@kniborg "Let the elite continue to accumulate insane amounts of capital and tech power while continuing to decimate the middle and lower classes all because in my little pee brain, if anything changes--- it will be worse" truly unbelievable

Hayek expressed this better in Road to Serfdom. To the gentle socialists who want big gov b/c they hate the sociopaths running big corporations, just wait until you centralize the power into a single source. You'll be shocked to discover who gravitates there and ends up on top.

@0xrwu same

I swear to god Opus 4.6 went from 1 month ago = 110 IQ 2 weeks ago = 90 IQ a few days ago = 50 IQ It can barely implement anything w/o bugs! What is going on?!?!

This is quite something. The new Hungarian PM goes on state TV to announce the end of state TV.

@micsolana @TomSteyer Doubt that this guy would actually find state law enforcement stupid enough to try to do these things. It's all theatre.

@TomSteyer so frustrating man bc you could have just bought a sports team or a fleet of yachts and bimbo models to massage that ego in old age, but instead you decided to larp a civil war. can you please just stop, you old ass goofy piece of shit? would be great if things just worked again.

"Wow" is right. ICE is a criminal organization. As governor, I'll prosecute them like one.

@dickclucas he's open minded about going nuclear

What if Swalwell goes nuclear. Stays in the race with no chance of winning solely to split the Dem vote and ensure two republicans advance to the general. Guy has some crazy leverage right now.