I WANT TO BELIEVE IN ABUNDANCE
For the Odd Lots newsletter, I reviewed the new book from and . I talked about the political opportunities it presents, and aspects that left me unsatisfied.
Here are some sections of it:
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You can read the full review here. Big thanks to for the edit, that ended up being way longer than I originally expected.
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And here's my proposal for how the Democrats and solve their wonk-populist split. Bring back the lawyer jokes!
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But I took the plunge anyway.
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What does it all mean?
Who knows!
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What does it all mean?
Who knows!
But I'm loving the growth!
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interesting - you are correlating abundance with private sector excess capacity which implies 'line go down'?
I admire the implicit argument here that for Abundance to work we need some kind of (whisper it) forced reset of the American economic system
I do find the stagnant nature of the SSE interesting, but I'm not sure about your explanation that it's because of China reinvesting profits into further development when AMZN crossed $1T with the same strategy. Wouldn't capital controls be the better explanation?
There is a certain irony to it, in that the person most exemplifying the outcomes he advocates for is Elon.
I started a newsletter with zero writing skills and no clue about newsletters.
But I took the plunge anyway.
Here's how the first official full month went:
What does it all mean?
Who knows!
But I'm loving the growth!
Want to be boring with us?
What does it all mean?
Who knows!
But I'm loving the growth!
Want to be boring with us?
I did not yet read "Abundance" but I did get to read "Stuck" recently which is a review of the development of zoning law in the USA. Did you know SFH zoning was only "invented" in 1915 in Berkeley? It is not clear to me how we get out of the current bureacratic quagmire that is
The causes of contemporary inefficiency have been the subject of several recent books, which is positive as this question needs all of the addressing it can get.
My intuition is that beyond regulatory capture explanations and the possibility that we have become accustomed to it
I’ve seen speak for years. He’s a low IQ theater kid that just learned that “regulation can be bad” a simple concept he dismissed for 20 years because a commie community college professor couldn’t articulate the idea meshing with his entire world view.
They did mention in the book about financial assets need to rise as a barrier to Abundance
I'm curious how we could work with banks to rework this problem so the country can build aggressively
A lot of Abundance is state and local reform, but this seems like a federal task
The last section you link really reminds me of this: drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/09/17/abu
Not even specific to 'abundance agenda' but I think there's been a real lack of critical thinking around the conflict between a society that produces consumer wealth vs. stockholder wealth.
Interesting to think about the tension between societal goods and the economy’s need for rising financial asset valuations.
I started a newsletter with zero writing skills and no clue about newsletters.
But I took the plunge anyway.
Here's how the first official full month went:
What does it all mean?
Who knows!
But I'm loving the growth!
Want to be boring with us?
What does it all mean?
Who knows!
But I'm loving the growth!
Want to be boring with us?
The problem with the book is that it's grift. There are tons of things wrong with that 2050 fantasy. The main thing wrong is that it's actual a 2025 fantasy from 2000.
Your conclusion is that we need to keep the stock market going up so rich people get richer?
We can't keep reinvesting in the American people. We have to engage in stock buybacks so a small number of people can get insanely rich while everyone else struggles?
GIF
You're wrong in saying that the California High-speed Rail project has "achieved nothing." It has transferred billions of taxpayer dollars to certain favored parties. That's clearly the entire point of it.
I'm willing to sell my stocks in order to have a better country to live in 10 years from now. The alternative is scarier...
Yep the quiet part that is purposefully ignored so as to be less controversial or just missed entirely is that an abundance agenda that creates supply side dynamics that 
competition means maybe higher revs but falling margins & less FCF for shareholders tho maybe not creditors
competition means maybe higher revs but falling margins & less FCF for shareholders tho maybe not creditors
What is it about the way contemporary popular non-fiction is written that you don’t like?
Ezra is trying to do what no democrat politician will… admit they have made bad decisions.
Can a 2028 or 2032 Dem party greatly succeed in the way Trump did in November? Yes.
They need to become anti establishment -procedures / and push for real change just as Trump did.
The first four days of the Trump Administration have been packed with news.
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The level of incompetence here is mind-blowing.
But what shouldn’t be overlooked is the specific substance of the group chat.
There was no emergency.
The executive branch unlawfully sidestepped Congress, taking military action that top officials admit was elective.
The
Quote
The Atlantic
@TheAtlantic
American war planning usually takes place in highly secure facilities. But the Trump administration planned its strikes on the Houthis using a group chat—and accidentally included The Atlantic’s editor in chief, @JeffreyGoldberg. theatlantic.com/politics/archi
What a truly pathetic effort at governance this has all been. From Elon’s non stop lying and destruction, to Trump’s bizarre Canada obsession, and the world’s worst group chat opsec, if they were really serious about a return to meritocracy they’d all resign in disgrace.
Very annoying they messaged “Jeff Goldberg” and not, for instance, “Jeff Stein”