Steve Cicala

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we...

The marketing folks at Chase decided up the ante on that "satisfying clank" of metal cards.

The new ones are pushing 20 grams. They may not be allowed on airplanes.

The next ones will require a porter to schlep it around for you.
@bencollins.bsky.social

theonion.com/fuck-everyth...

🤣...😭

Here is the ungated paper from the author, Luis Martinez, whose research is covered in the Economist article:

bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/u...

AEA Statement on Dismissal of BLS Comm.

"The independence of the federal statistical agencies is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy. Accurate, timely, and impartial statistics are the foundation upon which households, businesses, and policymakers make critical decisions."

Fed independence and reliable statistics are important, but for me the scariest thing is that Trump clearly has no fucking clue how ANYTHING works.

Powell doesn’t set interest rates, for example.

This man is surrounded by buttons labeled “self destruct” and he’s just banging happily away.

🎯

Called to account The disturbing prosecution of Greece’s chief statistician

Would you consider your loans to this country a risk-free asset?

www.economist.com/finance-and-...

When all of these tariffs get tossed by the courts for their naked violation of the constitution, only the countries who said, "we have nothing to offer you" are going to come out looking good.

The part of this that strikes a chord with me most is the unguarded expression of disgust on her face when she says, "just capitulated."

Recall that Trump v Anderson didn't rule on eligibility, but determined it was up to the federal government to determine. There was no process, so no one could be ineligible. Voilà!

So...can someone point me to the process at the federal level that implements the 22nd amendment?

Pair this with AG lawsuits to demand appropriated funds and you've put the burden of fighting the federal government on the states rather than individual institutions, where it belongs.

If your argument for cutting rates is that the economy is at full employment, the only counter argument needed is to explain what the words "full" and "employment" mean.

It would be complicity to do anything less than max gerrymandering so long as any state is gerrymandered at all.

To fail to do this is to deny constituents voice in legislation, and to empower the worst actors.

Adopt this map with a law that bans gerrymandering once it is banned everywhere.

And higher prices for American consumers.

ROSENBERG: “.. The one development nobody is talking about is what will happen on Thursday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the federal circuit begins to hear oral arguments in the case of whether the President’s tariff actions are legal.” ..

If you’re crafting one of these statements, I urge you to think about deterrence, not condemnation.

The major actors affected by this decision (carmakers, generators) think about long-term investments.

Promise future stringency without grandfathering.

goingelectric.substack.com/p/where-is-t...

National Popular Vote has been enacted into law by 18 jurisdictions, including 6 small states (DC, DE, HI, ME, RI, VT), 9 medium-sized states (CO, CT, MD, MA, MN, NJ, NM, OR, WA), and 3 big states (CA, IL, NY). These jurisdictions have 209 of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the law. It has also passed in legislative chambers in 7 additional states with 74 electoral votes (AR, AZ, MI, NC, NV, OK, VA). Over 3,800 state legislators have sponsored or cast a recorded vote in favor of it.

Court — 8 states, 91 districts: Connecticut (5), Minnesota (8), North Carolina (14), New Hampshire (2), New York (26), Pennsylvania (17), Virginia (11), and Wisconsin (8). Independent Commission — 4 states, 82 districts: Arizona (9), California (52), Colorado (8), and Michigan (13). Political Commission — 5 states, 28 districts: Hawaii (2), Idaho (2), Montana (2), New Jersey (12), and Washington (10).

This is the gerrymandering analog of the National Popular Vote law, which assigns all electoral college votes for President *only after* the adopting coalition reaches 270.

Look at the states who are part of NPV, but still retain non-partisan redistricting:

People clearly understand the logic!

In Fight for House, New York May Follow Texas in Redrawing Maps

Bills that conditionally redistrict depending on TX is the right approach for states that *already* have partisan districting.

States with nonpartisan maps need to catch up w conditional laws that ban gerrymandering once it's banned everywhere--partisan until then.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/n...

Harvard Is Said to Be Open to Spending Up to $500 Million to Resolve Trump Dispute

But are they open to spending $500M so the administration can cook up a new pretext for pulling grants?

That’s the only offer on the table. There is no “resolution” to be had with a settlement.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

“I didn’t want to go to his island…”

Your best friend has a private island in paradise, and you’re not interested in a visit?

Why not?

Did he know there was something going on there and didn’t say anything?

I would bet that Columbia gets more funds frozen and the EU’s tariff rate won’t be 15% by the end of 2025.

A deal with Trump is never final. It’s just a first of many humiliations.

Not to mention give them the $30k bonuses mentioned by an agent on another horrific video.

The trick is reminding them that it wasn't obvious before they started reading.

*Ex post* obvious is the 🎯.

But the argument is, basically, we do not need to subsidize these technologies. Why is that wrong? Flegal: Having abundant electrons that we can use to fuel economic growth and meet rising demand for energy in the United States — which is happening for the first time in decades — is a public good. We subsidize all kinds of energy development because we know that a robust and large and abundant energy system is good for economic growth. It underpins the entire economy. And it’s good for our national security. Even if you didn’t care about climate change, solar and batteries are the most rapid way — and in many cases the most cost-effective way — to meet growing demand. There’s absolutely a public argument for subsidizing this stuff, even if it’s relatively mature, in the same way we subsidize all kinds of things that are relatively mature because they’re good for society. Then, of course, an argument is that most Republicans will not deny that climate change is a problem. Some do, but many Republicans now will acknowledge climate change is a problem. They’ll just argue for a different solution set than Democrats. If you believe climate change is a problem, then you’re subsidizing not just the public good of abundant energy that’s affordable but also the climate benefit. What is the solution set? I try to be fair to Republicans on this show, but I have not heard many Republicans arguing for something that would qualify as a solution set for climate change.

More constructively, the right answer to this question is that we massively subsidize fossil fuels, which has skewed our economy toward making us sick and dying early.

Short of taxing those things, we need to subsidize substitutes to encourage less use of the bad stuff.

I don't think that's right either. Sure, I like cheap power, but I don't see how its of greater use to society beyond its consumer.

This harkens back to that silly period when we called "infrastructure" everything we liked & wanted subsidized: nurses, teachers, etc.

Words lose meaning this way.

In this sentence, electrons:physicists::public goods:economists.

No, it’s not what that means. For the physicists this is a pedantic difference, but the substance of the statement is about policy. And for that, it determines whether the thought is coherent or word salad.

And the Lakers are a good enough baseball team to qualify for the World Cup.