Nick Hagerty

A reminder to East Coast based media. Here in Bozeman winter just never came.

There's no such thing as a best fruit. All types of fruit run from terrible to life-affirming. All preferences across varieties vanish in the face of within-variety differences in quality.

I love this America so much. I am aware that I am in a constant fight, one with existential stakes but which will not be conclusively resolved, to determine whether the America that exists is the one I love or the one people like Rubio love. But it is a fight to which I am wholly committed.

Should we be climate adaptation optimists? — ECHO: Environmental Change and Human Outcomes Lab | Stanford University by: Marshall B , with helpful feedback & additions from Andrew W and Chris C Yes, argues a recent working paper by Matt Burgess, Patrick Brown, Matt Kahn, and Roger Pielke Jr.  The pa...

Should we be climate adaptation optimists? A nice new paper by Matt Burgess, Matt Kahn, and colleagues argues yes. I'm not so sure. Optimism is not a plan, and we need a plan. Some thoughts: www.stanfordecholab.com/blog/should-...

Ah I can do this too! The secret to memorizing which type of error is Type II is just to memorize that a false negative is Type II. Problem solved!!

My approach is even more AI-proof! Draw the function, stop and stare at it, sheepishly comment "I can never remember whether concave means up or down," realize none of the students is going to rescue you, and just stand there awkwardly for a while

Looks like an attempt to redefine "abundance" as its opposite, for both the colloquial and recent political senses of the word

picture of Alex Pretti

Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse serving veterans. He died trying to protect protestors being assaulted. A group of anonymous & masked men fired chemicals into his face, beat him, disarmed him, and shot him in broad daylight in front of witnesses. Then his government smeared him & defended his murder.

Air pollution is incredibly bad for human health. It causes a large share of chronic disease and deaths. This is one of the strongest empirical findings in all of economics and epidemiology. The EPA saying it's "uncertain" is not based in science. It's a pretext.

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution

Human health benefits are by far the largest benefit from most environmental regulations.

By not monetizing these benefits moving forward, the Trump EPA is essentially saying there are no human health benefits to reducing air/toxic/climate pollution, improving drinking water quality, etc. 1/

Banner saying the same thing as the post

Call is open! Submit your abstracts for the BIG SKY WORKSHOP on the Economics of Agriculture and the Environment

June 18-19, 2026, in Bozeman, Montana, hosted by Montana State University and PERC. Travel funding available for grad students

www.bigskyworkshop.net/abstract-sub...

"This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation."

Fire alarm from the Fed Chair, explicitly calling out political intimidation from the president.

The Fed never, ever releases videos speaking directly to the American people like this.

Interfering with the Fed is the road to instability and inflation much worse than we've seen since Covid.

To test that idea we would need careful empirical research. But there are good reasons to doubt the casual relationship is straightforward.

The comment and headline are incredibly misleading -- its "analysis" is a spreadsheet tabulation of R&D expenditures. It provides no support whatsoever for the claims about how research funding affects food prices.

Land sparing's global "brutal math" is inescapable: from 1961-2020, global population grew 2.6x and agricultural output increased nearly 4x, but total ag land grew by only about 7.6% and croplands by 20-25%. www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/.... 8/

Super helpful thread, thanks. I also see a lack of counterfactual thinking here. Yes, deforestation today has various causes and is happening despite land intensification in ag. But it would very likely be even worse if we had lower crop yields!

My New Year's resolution is improve how I start Bluesky threads. I forget to announce what they're about. So: please check out this thread if you're either highly critical or gung-ho about the merits of the Green Revolution, "land-sparing" and maximizing yields using industrial agriculture.

Only if depts don't adjust standards downward. I feel like most places got more lenient with exams over the last decade but are now going to have to be strict if they want to make sure their students have learned things

There are mechanisms that could align incentives but they're not great. Firms could require a commitment to stay with them for a long time (creating a type of indentured servitude). New grad programs with more soft skills might sub for early jobs (creating more debt & delay in starting careers).

Isn't it a classic case of firms not internalizing the benefits of training? Their entry-level employees can leave and become mid-career employees somewhere else

Finally caring about the federal budget deficit after spending nearly my entire adult life wanting more deficit spending

Exactly what textbooks say you should do as conditions change... But sounds like I'm just getting more fiscally conservative as I age

These Young Adults Make Good Money. But Life, They Say, Is Unaffordable.

Like the real reasons I suspect most people are upset, this article is supposedly about "affordability" but is actually entirely about housing

People complain about the price of eggs but eggs don't ruin your hope of a secure middle-class life. Housing does.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/u...

This is a terrible development.

The Administration is destroying the scientific institutions that helped make America great. It will take years to rebuild from this.

People are already having smaller families. Please look at the graph I linked, and maybe this as well: ourworldindata.org/fertility-ra... Your wish has already been achieved in birth rates, it's just going to take another century or so to be reflected in total population.

They already are. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_p...

Are you volunteering to leave? If it's you or me, I'd like to stay please

Great piece overall. One factual correction: the Central Valley does not use Colorado River water. You're thinking of the Imperial Valley.