This is mostly a podcast about Benjamin Britten, and in particular his War Requiem, with Rebecca Lowe (former singer and conductor, in addition to philosopher and also her current role at Mercatus).…
That is the theme of my latest Free Press column, here is one excerpt: Principle five: Run experiments. This is a more general version of the healthcare point.…
1. As meat prices rise, the economics of Texas barbecue. 2. Economic historian Eric Jones has passed away. 3. Claims about the Pope and Claude. If true, further evidence for my Straussian hypothesis. 4. Koyama reviews Tyler Goodspeed on business cycles.…
Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him. Richard does have a new book coming out, Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster. While I liked the book (and blurbed it), I do not feel our conversation about the book would be that interesting — too much…
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Most of all, we cover Ptolemaic Egypt. Here is part of the episode summary: Tyler and Toby cover how Alexander took over the empire almost without a fight, why Alexandria became the Manhattan of the ancient world,…
The first review of the pilot for AI prescriptions refills in Utah is out and it looks very reasonable. In the 72% of cases where the AI recommend a refill at least one of two physicians agreed in 97% of cases.…
Russia has passed a law authorizing its central bank and other financial institutions to repel drone attacks with their own defense systems, as the country struggles to defend against Ukrainian strikes.…
1. “Robinhood launched agentic trading and an agentic credit card today that will allow AI agents to trade equities and make credit card purchases on customers’ behalf.” With cash back, of course. 2. Cultural Tutor and beauty. 3.…
Quality-adjusted AI production in the United States grew at over 2,000 percent per year in 2024 and 2025, driven by three compounding forces: expanding data-center capacity, hardware efficiency gains, and—the largest of the three—algorithmic progress.…
It may seem like a distant memory now, but as of the mid-2000s, U.S. natural gas production had been flat for a decade, and the U.S. was importing liquefied natural gas (LNG), with plans to import much more. Then shale gas happened.…
We document a new source of fluctuations in inflation inequality. When the cost of upstream inputs rises, varieties within a product category tend to have similar absolute price increases.…
In 2015 I wrote Baltimore Arrests are Down and Crime is Way Up and, as I predicted, Baltimore tipped into an high crime equilibrium. After the Freddie Gray riots, arrests declined and crime shot up but crime stayed high even after arrests rebounded.…
Patrick offered his observations here, I will add a few points of my own. I very often think in terms of regions and geographic places. Currently, artistic movements (of most sorts, not just “New Aesthetics”) seem to lack a centrality of place.…
1. Where are the economies of scale in homebuilding? 2. Peter Thiel and Argentina (NYT). 3. Discourse on classical guitar. 4. How many dissertations are AI-written? 5. NYT talks with Macca. 6. New algorithm for ranking VCs.
With deadly precision, the Trump administration has launched dozens of attacks on small boats in the waters off South America, killing nearly 200 people in a campaign U.S. officials say is meant to curb the flow of illicit drugs to the United States.…
A tenth of a percentage point of extra productivity growth — well within the range of plausible near-term AI effects — raises the fundamental value of U.S. government debt by $1.3 trillion.…
