Summary: The text discusses economic challenges in the U.S. and U.K., highlighting issues like NIMBYism and policies that hinder growth. It suggests that America may need tax hikes to address debt and improve state capacity for infrastructure projects. The author emphasizes the need for more housing and energy development to reverse current economic stagnation.
washing clothes by hand is an awful, dangerous life-sucking experience (View Highlight)
America and Britain both make growth very hard; Britain often simply forbids it. (View Highlight)
Change is scary, and ensuring people that the government will prevent change is what I call a “stasis subsidy” — a promise that looks cheap in the present because it incurs no fiscal costs, but creates huge economic costs down the road. (View Highlight)
First, you need policy continuity — you can’t just have the other party upend and destroy the whole policy as soon as they get into office. Second, you need personnel continuity — the lessons of past successes and failures are too complex to be written down, so they’re embodied in the actual people who run the programs. And finally, you need personnel quality — you need to have public servants who are both intelligent and highly dedicated to the work. (View Highlight)
Their open-mindedness, reasonability, respect for the importance of the private sector, and obvious sense of dedication should force anyone who imagines American bureaucrats as stuffy, rule-obsessed martinets to do a deep rethink. (View Highlight)
In the U.S.’ freewheeling capitalist system, lots of smart people make money at the start of their careers instead of at the end, as in Japan. Why not have them come work in government after making some money in the private sector? That could partially solve the perennial problem of uncompetitive government salaries, and reduce well-known incentives for corruption. And it could lead to greater trust and understanding between government and the private sector. (View Highlight)
The basic message — that America needs to build a lot more housing, energy, and infrastructure than we’ve been building in recent decades — just needs to get out there more. Americans are wary of change, but they like the idea once it becomes familiar to them. (View Highlight)
“It’s like every choice or decision you make…the thing you choose not to do…fractions off and becomes its own reality, you know…and just goes on from there forever.” — Richard Linklater (View Highlight)
the lack of smartphones gave you isolation and anonymity — you could be cut off from anyone who wanted to find you, as well as the prying eyes of people wanting to judge you. You could reinvent yourself on a whim, remove yourself to a whole new setting, and forget whatever troubles you had had. (View Highlight)
In our pocket there’s always a screen waiting to suck us back into a world of strangers ready to judge us and lecture us — or maybe give us the attention we crave. And on the horizon, looming over it all, waits another multi-decade struggle against authoritarian powers. (View Highlight)