I've been accused of worse. What would you have me change with a different approach? Are the questions bad ones? The answers will certainly impact people, the country, programs & institutions.

Unleash public sector enterprises with flexible transaction authority and bonding authority in the market you construct = GOATed.

Mamdani is cutting red tape and unleashing the market, from the left

Nuclear, Hydrogen, or CCS. Pick at least one at massive scale... Otherwise no deep decarb, full stop.

A backstopped load sink needs more popularization. @buddyyakov.bsky.social jokingly calls it the world’s biggest escalator. Whether it’s a battery or a peaking generator, someone needs to ensure the “marginal resource” remains bankable. Preferably without relying solely on escalating prices.

glad to see that my “lyman stone gives off hitler particles” intuition was correct

The following variables are not good indicators of whether the US is in / about to be in fiscal crisis: - current size of the debt stock - current size of the deficit - current expenditure for healthcare, social security, interest - exchange rate in 2025 - treasury yields or mortgage rates in 2025

There is a lot of optimism from solar and storage gains and it’s warranted but sitting in NYISO and NEISO you are very worried about the coming of winter peaking.

The assessments of 1 and 2 on this list are about as well-trodden as any macroeconomic discourse get and absolutely impervious to the empirical reality of how bond and currency markets treat Treasuries and the USD.

Mamdani setting up a permitting reform and land inventory task force is some real sickos yes stuff.

The split between degrowthers versus the alternative viewpoint shared by many of us climate action advocates that we need to transition as quickly as possible without causing major economic turmoil is a lot like contrast between Democrats and unaffiliated leftists it seems to me.

Place-based policy for rural areas isn’t an answer to YIMBYism. There’s no way to “shift growth” without affecting the whole pie. Nor is there a reason to halt or slow growth in urban areas; anything you try is almost certainly regressive or worsens current under-investment.

No.

Head of the Revolving Door Project is baselessly accusing Jesse Jenkins of being a hyperscaler shill. No path to decarb that is this hostile to private sector engagement. You can’t transform sectors, deploy technology, or build state capacity this way.

Focusing so much ire on tax credits is a dead end for progressive policymaking. Particularly if cast as an alternative to other vital reforms. Uncapped, “statutory contracts,” elective pay, transferability, tech neutrality. The credits were innovative, complementary, and can be taken further!

Transforming energy demand by rationalizing the planning, permitting, financing, and building of enabling infrastructure > hopeless modulation of consumption via restrictions on O&G supply. If you want the assistance of price incentives, support a carbon tax!

Watching A Christmas Carol. One of my strange 2012 election memories was a libertarian post justifying Scrooge’s miserliness on the basis that he was a job creator and his accumulated capital was invested.

Reading Ben Pimlott. I’m struck by his casting of Beveridge v. Keynes in the 30s being about planning v demand management. This is familiar. My sense is efforts to recast a similar dichotomy in 2015-23 came to little. They’re different spheres of policy that *can* be integrated.

I’m QTing because it’s locate is in a “post takes for dunking” thread. No technology is going to obviate basic levers governments have for redistribution, macroeconomic management, industry cultivation, or active labor market policy.

I do think it's probably important for the US (or one of our allies) to have a serious commercial drone industry to support a drone DIB but like... stupid import substitution is the worst way to do that lol

Official data is in today, and US solar continues to grow rapidly, with generation up 21% compared to last year!

This is a broader point folks need to consider for congestion mitigation. There’s a ton of people currently on the road who wouldn’t choose to be on the road with the right mix of pricing and transit investments. That’s huge benefit to *drivers* and hopefully also traffic safety.

The point I wish got emphasized more is that the big winners from congestion pricing are *people who urgently need to drive*. Because they are ones that travel times really matter for. I always thought that instead of congestion pricing it should be called "free streets" - free from other cars.

I was about to ask how you find the book and then realized who was posting. Congrats! Looking forward to reading.

The GOP blowing up the fillibuster over federal permitting would be a hilarious multi-dimensional chess win for the Democrats lol

2029 should be the year of American structural reform. Democratic institutional reform. Pro-growth reforms for housing, energy, transit, care, trade. Anti-corruption push. Civil rights and immigration revival. The contempt people have for this presidency should be fuel for reformist majorities.

these are the kind of numbers that, *at the end of a president's term*, herald a total wipeout for his party in the next election. we are in december of year one.

Can we get a liberal navalist think tank going?

Republicans blowing up the SPEED Act with unforced targeting of wind energy and then threatening to undo the filibuster in response is just hilarious. Uniting Dems and threatening to hand them their parliamentary white whale all at once.

I’m a big Peter Hennessy fan. Finally got his entire trilogy on postwar Britain plus “The Secret State.” His forward to Ben Pimlott’s “Harold Wilson” is remarkably timely for contemporary left-liberal discourse on industrial policy.

Anything lacking Indian restaurants that have gotten really good at one or more dishes or regional styles. Can be as simple as good dosa or biryani. As an aside, will take any and all recs for US places that do "Dilli-style" and / or Mughlai Khana.

With the US in particular, there are cost-competitive options at AWD whose ranges are closer to 280-300 miles. Think Prologue and Volkswagen ID4. Sad because this is otherwise a beautiful machine.

This is the Hegelian march of progress and civilization we've all been waiting for.

>Keep it in the ground is an outcome not a strategy I feel like you see this sort of rhetoric a lot in left of center discourse. I’d argue that emphasis on “Housing as a human right” also misattributes an outcome or a principle with a strategy.

Generally I agree, with one big caveat - Ds should do absolutely nothing to facilitate permitting reforms while Trump remains POTUS unless with legally binding permitting that *sidesteps/overrides POTUS authority for all renewables.* Anything short of that is setting up to kick Lucy’s football.

1The other issue is that AI will probably create ever-increasing power demands, in contrast to the stagnant power demand of the last 2 decades, meaning the oil and gas industry becomes much more relevant than previously (though solar + batteries is getting cheap enough to rival natural gas).

good thread the policy claims in that Casten thread don't stand up to scrutiny

The @seancasten.bsky.social thread on @mattyglesias.bsky.social's O&G article gets basic stuff wrong. - "keep it in the ground" is an outcome, not a strategy - US net exports of O&G are good for decarb, particularly if we redistribute producer earnings and invest in clean energy + electrification

I can’t speak to shows, but the 90s and early-00s recessions (sans the tech bust) def seem absent from policy discourse too. Bill Clinton signaled activist industrial policy as a cure for the 90s recession. The poor fiscal response to the early-00s recession is what gave the China Shock teeth.

The bill basically lacks anything Dems can point to as a win.

This is great news for a New England grid that desperately needs a non-intermittent source of clean power to satisfy both state climate and clean energy laws and rising electricity demand. (1/2) www.nbcboston.com/news/local/c...

The tariffs represent a large-scale contractionary fiscal shock. It squarely hits profits and consumption. We're seeing the result. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/b...

This is a constructive demand but 200 million for NYPA is literally already Hochul’s budget ask. publicpowerny.org/press-releas...

The entire project of rapprochement seems a hideous failure. A misguided effort to woo or mollify an increasingly revanchist regime at the expense of European state-building.

I absolutely love the argument that this is somehow due to European warmongering. When the Cold War was over, Europeans couldn't wait to destroy their militaries and if it weren't for Russian aggression, the entire EU put together would probably make like 7 tanks a year

They finally put a biography of Talleyrand on Audible (the one by Duff Cooper). So that’s what I’ll be reading during chores or commutes for a bit. Very exciting! (And what a fun cover.)

This is incredible (good news too): “After a 40% fall in 2024 in battery equipment costs, it’s clear we’re on track for another major fall in 2025…The economics for batteries are unrecognizable, & the industry is only just getting to grips with this new paradigm” www.pv-magazine.com/2025/12/12/b...

China surplus discourse is back. Vital we analytically separate: - miraculous use values of green tech - damningly insufficient global demand cultivation for green tech - domestic demand contribution of Chinese export surpluses - needs of Chinese growth An analogue imo is Hartz IV Germany.

shoutout to the crowd that insisted it was a political loser to stand up for abrego garcia’s rights

There's a sentence that Hochul hasn't made use of the BPRA to its fullest extent, which is wholly without justification. It cites a short description of opposition from climate & labor groups whose position neglects to consider problems of interconnection, finance, or the Clean Path project.