~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (572)

Twenty-five people, including six minors, were charged in Paris over a spate of kidnappings and attempted abductions in France’s cryptocurrency world, said the city’s public prosecutor office on Saturday, May 31. “Eighteen people have been placed in pre-trial detention, three have requested a deferred hearing and four have been placed under judicial supervision,” the public […] The post They are solving for the (crypto)...

About 156,000 Italians left the country last year for Germany, Spain, the UK and elsewhere, a 36.5 per cent increase over the number who emigrated in 2023. At just under 191,000, the total number of people who left Italy in 2024 — including 35,000 long-term foreign residents, mainly Romanians returning home — was at the […] The post Italy facts of the day appeared...

1. Fentanyl seizures from Mexico are dropping dramatically (trend is pre-Trump), a good piece. 2. Good essay on Flushing, Queens. 3. Claims about Planet Nine. 4. “The analysis finds that legislators in the top wealth quintile are significantly more successful at advancing their policy agendas than their less-wealthy colleagues, while those in the bottom quintile […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

Visitors don’t seem to know about this place yet, but it is one of the finest artistic venues in Spain.  Taken from the royal collections and opened only a few years ago, it has one of the best displays of 16th Brussels tapestries you will find, perhaps the best, beautifully hung with plenty of space.  […] The post Madrid’s Galería de las Colecciones Reales...

Your suggestions are most welcome, thank you! The post Travel bleg for Avila, Salamanca, Segovia, and other smaller places nearby appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Jim195. Tunas—one of the most underrated ... by ZagrebbiIn Salamanca: – Tapas 2.0 was locally recommended and good ... by Harry-Cochinillo at Restaurante El Barnardino in Segovia -You can ... by JARIn reply to yo....

In an earlier post I detailed my history of how I got started collecting Haitian art.  There is more to that story, but for now the point is that buying Haitian art led me into buying Mexican art as well. I was visiting the New Jersey home of famed author and art dealer Selden Rodman, […] The post My days collecting Mexican art, part...

As a result, Mexicans face the paradox that giving more power to the public may undercut their democracy. Predictions for Morena’s success on Sunday are driven by the unusual nature of the vote. Just roughly 20 percent of voters are expected to cast ballots, the electoral authorities say, in part because voters hardly know the candidates. Polling […] The post Mexico has been electing its federal...

1. The confluence of Britain’s problems, written by a sitting MP.  In response, o3 tries to summarize market trends for real estate. 2. Speculative but very interesting thread on Russian opinions on various drone developments. 3. “By revenue, UPenn is bigger than BNY Mellon; Columbia is as big as Coinbase.” 4. Snitching LLMs? 5. Progress […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

Here is Olivier Blanchard on Fischer.  And from Haaretz.  Here is the FT.  And from the NYT. The post Stanley Fischer, RIP appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsLate in life, Stanley Fischer endorsed money-financed fiscal ... by Benjamin Cole the Tin-Foil Hat EconomistIn reply to Cancelled for wongthink. I saw the GFC coming ... by Cancelled for wongthinkThe Haaretz article calls him an...

By Joseph Torigian, this could easily end up as one of the twenty or thirty best biographies of all time.  It is about Chinese history, and is a biography’s of Xi’s father.  The subtitle is The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping.  The dense (and fascinating) exposition is difficult to excerpt, but here […] The post *The Party’s Interests Come First* appeared...

Jason Cameron, North York, Ontario, high school and incoming RBC, AI privacy. Opemipo Odunta, Winnipeg, hydroponics. Benjamin Arya, Harvard, California, Australia, longevity. Aida Baradari, Harvard, audio privacy. John Denny, Galway, to visit SF and NYC. Zelda Poem, SF/France, artistic and cultural patronage programs for San Francisco. Lauren Pearson, Toronto, genomic origins of focal epilepsy. Charles […] The post Emergent Ventures winners, 43rd cohort appeared...

From a November Bloomberg column: Many Republicans are very excited about DOGE. But its governance structure is undefined and untested. It does not have a natural home or an enduring constituency. It cannot engage in much favor-trading. Its ability to keep Trump’s attention and loyalty may prove limited. And it’s not clear that deregulation is […] The post Redux of my advice to DOGE...

1. Swiss landslide before and after. 2. Aella on childhood. 3. Danny Chau on the Indiana Pacers.  And on Inside the NBA (NYT). 4. Mormon tanktop undergarment geographically segregated somewhat thwarted markets in everything (NYT). 5. Caldwell on Guilluy on France. 6. Will a tax on AI help labor? And should the tax code treat […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Here is more Scott Alexander on aid and overhead. First, on overhead Scott is still promulgating various confusions, for instance making the simple mistake of mixing up “Mercatus” and “Emergent Ventures.” When it comes to overhead (rather than aid), the substantive point in question is whether the affiliated NGOs, and also the various government aid […] The post Scott Alexander replies appeared first on...

That is my podcast with Marian Tupy of the Cato Instiute.  Here is the podcast version, below is the YouTube link:   The post Progress, Classical Liberalism, and the New Right appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Lawyer2. If you want to read what ChatCPT ... by MikePIn reply to Lawyer2. I see that ChatGPT also suffers from the ... by...

That is the new book by John H. Cochrane, Luis Garicano, and Klaus Masuch, and the subtitle is Challenges, Evolution, and Future of the Euro.  Excerpt: Our main theme is not actions taken in crises, but that member states and EU institutions did not clean up between crises.  They did not reestablish a sustainable framework […] The post *Crisis Cycle* appeared first on Marginal...

1. Steve Davis is leaving DOGE (NYT). 2. 18 minute podcast with 3takeaways. 3. TV show about SBF and Caroline? 4. Where the tariff case stands. 5. Finding talent in Ghana in the age of AI. 6. “Mayor Daniel Lurie plans to close San Francisco’s massive budget deficit by slashing about 1,400 city jobs and […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

The United States has some of the lowest prices in the world for most drugs. The U.S. generic drug market is competitive and robust—but its success is not accidental. It is the result of a series of deliberate, well-designed policy interventions. The 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act allowed generic drug manufacturers to bypass costly safety and efficacy […] The post How America Built the World’s Most...

…in 2024, Americans didn’t spend a greater percent of their income on health care than they did in 2009. And in fact, the increase since 1990 has been pretty modest — if you look only at the service portion of health care (the blue line), it’s gone up by about 1.5% of GDP over 34 […] The post Noah on health care costs appeared...

Kia ora Tyler. I have to correct you (or the AIs will perpetuate it!) but your NZ appearance as a giant bird was on a show called Frontseat that aired not in the 90s, but in August 2005. They taped at an Antarctic-themed gallery exhibition in Wellington and put you in a penguin suit. Here is […] The post From the Antipodes, a correction, from...

Regarding your recent post on reading and media, I would be curious for your thoughts about my observations teaching junior high and high school for the last few decades. I (and some of my other colleagues) have noticed the following: 1. On the one hand, I can say definitively that the ability of students to process […] The post On the decline of reading (from...

1. “Scam victims in Singapore suffer some of the highest losses in the world.” (FT) 2. Redux of some now published, newish results on the minimum wage. 3. Another veo 3 short video. 4. Number of national referenda in each European country’s history. 5. The correct take on the China shock (WSJ). 6. Texas state […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

Via Nabeel Qureshi, from Claude 4 Sonnet, from this tweet. The post Why LLMs make certain mistakes appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Bob. Except the LLM is not trying to explain its ... by BCIn reply to Stendell. They hardcoded in guide rails in most ... by Steve SailerIn reply to John. It's getting its own error wrong. You ask...

A new front for drone warfare has opened a two-hour flight south of Miami. Haiti’s besieged government is using drones strapped with explosives to strike gangs that have turned the nation’s capital into a hellscape. The government is relying on lightweight drones carrying rudimentary bombs to reach beyond the 10th of Port-au-Prince it controls. But the hundreds […] The post Haiti fact of the day, the...