James Medlock

The federal income tax is already quite progressive. This will only fuel conservative talking points about how x% of people don't pay it (which conveniently ignores all the payroll taxes, state & local taxes, etc that everyone pays).

This is a bad plan, it would give nothing to the bottom 40% while giving the most to people in the 60-80th percentiles of the income distribution.

Nope

Estimating the Cost and Impacts of the SSI Restoration Act Stephen Nuñez and Jack Landry find that the SSI Restoration Act would cut poverty among SSI households by nearly 60 percent while updating and strengthening the program.

Instead of doing bad things I’d simply do good things rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

Hey that’s about the cost of the SSI Restoration Act, which would cut recipient poverty by 60%, eliminate marriage penalties, and modernize draconian asset limits.

Estimating the Cost and Impacts of the SSI Restoration Act Stephen Nuñez and Jack Landry find that the SSI Restoration Act would cut poverty among SSI households by nearly 60 percent while updating and strengthening the program.

SSI supports 7.4M low-income seniors & people with disabilities but outdated rules and low benefits leave millions in poverty.

Our new paper from @socio-steve.bsky.social and @jacklandry.bsky.social models what would happen if Congress modernized SSI. The results are striking. 🧵👇

Full report:

I get why so much of the Trump admin messaging is done through extremely online memes - when they open their mouths and try to speak in complete sentences they usually make things worse.

Strange times for someone whose engagement with politics began with protesting the Iraq war, but you know what, big tent!

The concept of "the linear progression of time" has defeated so many over the last few years

Hell yeah

I'm far from an anti-interventionist, but whatever real challenges there are to making policy in our own country, we should have an additional measure of humility when it comes to shaping other countries (especially when the policy is implemented via bombing).

It's funny to me when people who love to go on about second order effects of economic policies and the challenges of central planning without local knowledge suddenly drop all of that when it comes to foreign policy.

There are two types of Trump II appointees. Guys you haven't heard of because they're 23 year old groypers, and guys you vaguely remember from some scandal revealing poor moral character.

"...taking a great financial burden off the people that I love." To be specific, billionaires.

Based and Shoup-pilled

ah, the discourse...

Three Ways Terminal AI Has Changed How I Work (And Whether It's Coming for My Job) How terminal AI compresses setup, robustness checks, and iteration without replacing judgment, and whether Olivia Rodrigo caused the inflation wave.

If you're not burned out on thoughtful, well-reasoned posts that look at the pros and cons of using AI (LLMs) as a tool, this from @mtkonczal.bsky.social is a good one.

If you get bogged down in the middle, do still read the concluding paragraphs.

newsletter.mikekonczal.com/p/three-ways...

Emergency pod time

Looking into it

Having humiliated myself in the arena of sports analytics, I must now relegate myself back to economics where the standards are much lower

@grantbrisbee.bsky.social can you print this skeet out and slip it under the giants analytics office door, it's very important

One year ago...

As a Giants fan I'm doing some research on our new starter.

Years he puked during a game:

2018: 3.29 ERA
2019: 3.72 ERA
2025: 3.31 ERA
Average: 3.44 ERA

Years he didn't puke during a game:

2020: 5.30 ERA
2021: 3.22 ERA
2022: 4.73 ERA
2023: 4.12 ERA
2024: 5.84 ERA
Average: 4.64 ERA

This is the way...

And where it does, it'll often be a disruptive reallocation of labor. But I still am bullish on our ability of finding new jobs to do, so I don't think it'll change the labor force participation rate over the long run.

Yea I should have said not necessarily a huge *measurable* economic impact in my case - it's quite significant to me, but since it's just me, it's not really going to show up in productivity stats or employment stats. That being said, elsewhere I'm sure it will.

thanks diego

Indeed, AI = fax machine