Derek Thompson

I'm going to lose my mind here.

Lance said he sees no evidence for your position.

Your whole Dallas oligopoly case is: Big builders use market share to create shortages and drive up profits.

Lance just said: Nope! I don't see any evidence that they do.

What sentence in the article is a lie?

There's a thread from Matt Stoller going around accusing me of lying and purposefully misrepresenting my conversation with the real estate analyst Lance Lambert.

Well, I knew that was wrong.

So I called Lance.

Here's what happened next.

The Anti-Abundance Critique on Housing Is Dead Wrong Antitrust critics say that homebuilding monopolies are the real culprit of America’s housing woes. I looked into some of their claims. They don’t hold up.

Antitrust critics of Abundance claim homebuilding oligopolies are holding back supply and driving up prices, esp in Texas.

I did something really simple. I called up their sources.

Everyone I spoke to told me the same thing: Their claims are bullshit.

www.derekthompson.org/p/the-anti-a...

frequent theme of today's episode: there are 2 housing americas now

if you live in the northeast or midwest, prices are rising, everywhere around you.

if you live in the south or west, prices are falling, everywhere around you.

The New Geography of Housing in America Podcast Episode · Plain English with Derek Thompson · 07/30/2025 · 44m

New pod: This is the worst housing market for first-time homebuyers in modern history.

How we got here, what's happening now—prices falling in the south, rising in the north, and what comes next, with @conorsen.bsky.social

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

oh calm down, that was as arch as arch can be

This chart from @dkthomp.bsky.social is a great example of what traditional economic indicators miss when it comes to human welfare. Socializing is an extremely valuable part of life, and Americans are getting less of it these days.

Some commentators talk about the GOP being too obsessed with economic efficiency and the Democrats being too obsessed with identity.

But on energy, GOP lawmakers have assigned solar the identity of "lib" and so they're willing to make our grids less efficient as long as they can own the libs.

American Energy Policy Cannot Afford to Be This Dumb While China builds the economy of the future, Trump’s agenda combines the energy policy of the 1980s with the trade policy of the 1880s.

The MAGA energy agenda is pretty simple.

It's about combining the energy policy of the 1980s with the trade policy of the 1880s. And it's about trying so hard to own the libs at any cost, you raise electricity prices everywhere.

derekthompson.substack.com/p/american-e...

It was a fair hit!

I mean, in my mild defense, I don't have a 5 year old (she's 2) and I've never written memos, so it was an abstract logistical scenario rather than a description of an ideal life.

But anyway, getting roasted on social once in a while is good: a controlled burn for humility.

Plain History: How Norman Borlaug Stopped the Apocalypse Podcast Episode · Plain English with Derek Thompson · 05/16/2025 · 1h 11m

If you're interested in a super-nerdy podcast about agricultural history and development (and an explanation if what yrs truly thinks Norman Borlaug actually did), this may scratch that particular itch. My thanks to @dkthomp.bsky.social for letting me ramble on.

I went to an acting camp between junior and senior year. We did a talk back with Richard Kind after a show in Chicago. "Ppl tell you 'Be an actor only if you can't do anything else,'" he said. "They're wrong." Dramatic pause. "Never be an actor. Even if you can't do anything else for shit: don't."

The Disturbing Rise of MAGA Maoism Trump seems to be ceding the future to China while emulating its past.

By targeting academics, embracing nostalgia economics, purging society of opposition ideology, rationing toys, and demolishing our global reputation at the moment we need scale, Trump has responded to the threat of China by mimicking the ghost of its Maoist past.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

it's a great video. it also makes points that yglesias, and demsas, and schleicher, and glaeser have been making for years, and in some cases even more than a decade.

Something Alarming Is Happening to the Job Market A new sign that AI is competing with college grads

For more on this, read my essay in The Atlantic from last week

www.theatlantic.com/economy/arch...

New pod: Something very strange is happening to the labor market for college graduates. Their unemployment is rising much faster than the overall economy—in a way that's unprecedented in the last 40 yrs.

Why?

Harvard's David Deming and I talk thru the evidence.

open.spotify.com/episode/3Feh...

AI (slash, basic programming) is good enough now that should be a popup if the Spotify user is over the age of 37 that's like "Hey! I've got a hunch you might not want to watch every podcast as a video on your phone? Mind if I default to audio only? Btw, here's a playlist of alt rock from 2011..."

This is actual US policy right now

Great episode of “Plain English” by @dkthomp.bsky.social . Rarely would I recommend a 2-hour podcast, but the stakes here deserve this type of attention.

As a trainee, I need people to work for our future w/ constructive reform. The current carnage is terrifying!

open.spotify.com/episode/4Pee...

Megapod: The Crisis in American Science Plain English with Derek Thompson · Episode

Interested in learning more about the value of US university-led basic science, the importance of NIH funding, & how American science works and could work better?
Checkout this podcast w/ @dkthomp.bsky.social @holdenthorp.bsky.social, & others.
#research #Innovation
open.spotify.com/episode/4Pee...

The unemployment rate for recent grads is worse now relative to the overall economy than any time on record. Three flavors of explanation:

Short-term: It's Trump.
Medium-term: It's the flagging college premium.
Long-term: Is Gen-AI substituting for new hires?

www.theatlantic.com/economy/arch...

Is This the Chinese Century? Plain English with Derek Thompson · Episode

New pod: IS THIS THE CHINESE CENTURY?

That's the question I asked China experts Rush Doshi and Kurt Campbell on today's show. "The Chinese cannot believe what we are doing," they said: The Trump admin is like a CCP fantasy of accelerated American self-destruction.

open.spotify.com/episode/3YB8...

I think Democrats have an easy job thru 26/28, in that Trump is pursuing terrible policy in terrible ways; but they have a hard job, in that they’re still the party of institutions and establishments in a country that hates institutions and the establishment, and that’s partly what this poll is

New pod: What's behind the extreme rise in ADHD diagnoses in the last decade?

Paul Tough joins the show, to plot a middle path between "ADHD was invented by Big Pharma to sell kids pills" vs. "There's absolutely no downside to the boom in stimulant prescriptions"

open.spotify.com/episode/6Gga...

When you consider that Tesla was a world leader in its category until a top exec made a series of unforced and eccentric errors, which tarnished its image and demolished growth, all while a Chinese industrial giant threatened to leave it in the dust ... you really get what drew Musk to this admin

Washington is the shining example of what a blue state can do when it takes abundance seriously.

WA has spurned the everything bagel approach of some other blue states in favor of strong, clean pro-housing laws – arguably America's strongest.

CC: @ezraklein.bsky.social & @dkthomp.bsky.social

An Astrophysicist Explains the "Strongest Evidence Yet" of Alien Life Plain English with Derek Thompson · Episode

New pod: I talked to the visionary astrophysicist @saraseager.bsky.social about:
- the recent announcement that we found alien life on a faraway ocean planet
- why many scientists blasted the finding
- the new science of detecting life on exoplanets via spectroscopy

open.spotify.com/episode/1KZn...

Why America Will Lose Its Trade War With China - The Ringer The U.S. is in the opening innings of a full-blown trade war with China. What does that actually mean? What do we sell to China? What does China sell to us? How is each country dependent…

Listen to @dkthomp.bsky.social and Jason Miller explain all sorts of dumb effects the tariffs will have that you wouldn’t think of if you’re not a trade/supply chain expert www.theringer.com/podcasts/pla...