If you were to apply a similar methodology to most workers, you’d find that their productivity in the beginning doesn’t justify their wages. It takes time to learn how to do something well, and in this case their pay depends on how well they do it.

*from whom they descended

If housing prices go up due to better schools or lower crime, they’re indicative of a good thing. But if house prices increase due to excessive regulation and skyrocketing construction costs (as is the case on the West Coast), that IS a bad thing.

Building more housing is going to make housing more expensive? Someone failed ECON 101.

It’s surprising to me when I still see people advocating for rent control, despite near unanimous academic and policy consensus that it’s a bad idea. The fundamental issue in CA is lack of housing growth. Rent control would limit new development even further (developers would be hesitatant to build more units when…

The more simple, and obvious, solution is to cut back on the excessive zoning and find ways to reduce construction costs on the West Coast. The NYTimes had a good article about the NIMBYism in Berkeley a few days ago, showing how even moderate developments are blocked by neighbors who want to be able to farm in their…

All the complaining about this bidding process almost invariably comes from residents of precisely those cities which don’t really need to offer too many incentives, because they’re already desirable. The ability to offer incentives gives cities the ability to compete. And it’s not a zero-sum game; if some cities…

OR how about Amazon locates in the location where it will be most productive (i.e. not Puerto Rico, sorry), and then it will become easier to provide assistance to Puerto Rico and everywhere else in the USA that needs it. We need to move beyond place-based thinking, and recognize that if we are all one nation we…

Considering what a big deal Amazon makes in their request for proposals about mass transit, and the fact that majority of their Seattle employees walk, bike or use mass transit to get to work, I’m more skeptical about DFW’s chances.

Spent a summer working in ABQ, had a lot of fun with hiking and camping, weather was nice and views were cool. But not bringing a car was a hugeeeeee mistake. The lack of decent public transportation alone knocks out Albuquerque.

I get the sentiment, because I’m feeling kinda the same in Chicago. BUT, the difference is stuff can actually get built in Chicago, whereas people in Denver seem to have decided they’re big enough (much like people in Seattle and SF have done) and have enacted some pretty surprisingly restrictive growth controls. I…

Amazon says they’re considering suburban locations and the 1 million population minimum refers to the metro, not the city itself. If Dallas is a contender then so is Frisco, to a lesser degree.

C’mon, the Doomsday Clock is a bunch of fearmongering nonsense. Does anyone really believe we are closer to nuclear war now than we were through most of the Cold War, or the height of Indian-Pakistani nuclear posturing, the collapse of the Soviet Union, etc. etc.? The Doomsday Clock does.