I've seen a lot of people discussing Trump's tariffs, especially on X. One thing I was surprised by was the lack of general understanding of how taxes influence equilibrium price. I decided to write up an explanation of how this works, hopefully accessible to people with no economics background. Topics covered: marginal benefit, marginal cost, equilibrium, inefficiencies caused by government, and a bit more. View article →

GM Nostr! #memes #memestr

Most of us, as children, were taught the value of planning for, working for, and saving for the future. As a result, low time preference behavior (put money in the bank, but frivolously spend) is what we intuitively know is "good." That's why it's so important that the other side portray low time preference behavior as _evil_ (because it slows down the economy... yes it's a stupid argument) and, at the same time, point to their own version of "investment": putting money into wars, "climate" protection, and other things that don't benefit us directly, but show that we're good people. Low time preference and making the best decisions for you, personally, will be better for you _and_ the overall human species.

It's not that I don't believe in feminism. I think feminism achieved its goals, which were on the whole the right goals: rights for women. I appreciate the fact that society made those strides. In that view, seeing someone today say "I'm a feminist" is like hearing someone say "I'm pro-electricity." And if you say "I think we have electricity pretty well established as a good thing today" they say "what, have you never dreamt of going off for a weekend and living in a log cabin? See, you've got internalized Amish!"

Real economics (Austrian) examines the behavior of individuals. If we know that a group of people tend to always buy car tires and whipped cream together, we treat these as complimentary goods. If the price of tires goes us, all else being equal, the price of whipped cream goes down. Psychology examines why an individual behaves in a certain way. It can explain why a group of people buy tires and whipped cream together. Economists don’t care why, because understanding the economy doesn’t require that level of individual introspection. Fake Keynesian economics would observe an overall poetic increase in the transportation sector and drop in luxury food items and recommend going short on restaurants. #economics #psychology

There's a new trend on X/Twitter, and I find the psychology hilarious. It's at the very least targeting my demographic, 40s males. My posts get liked by some various obvious camgirl account, complete with a link to an onlyfans-sounding domain name. I clicked a few times to see what the scam was... it's been crytpo ads on Telegram everytime. In other words, scammers are finding it a useful strategy to bait men with sex to sell them a scam.

“The US government is already mired in $5.8 trillion of debt” Oh boy book, you will not be happy to find out what happened next.

I’m glad decorum is leaving politics. I’m glad we see politicians cursing and insulting each other. I’m glad we see Fetterman showing up in basketball shorts. And I loved seeing RFK call out Bernie on good funding, without even giving him the respect of the title. These pele have collected stolen away control of our lives. This isn’t a civilized forum for rational debate. This is a battlefield where we’re fighting for our basic rights. In other words, fuck totalitarians.

I was proud of this one, from a blitz game #chess #chesstr

For the Mario fans

GM Nostr! #memes #memestr

Medieval army discussions. Socialist version: I've assembled the best minds of the kingdom to discuss the matter of the enemy's walls and how to breach them. We will have 2 hour slots for presentation per person. Capitalist version: 500 gold coins and my daughter's hand in marriage to whoever figures out how to blow that fucker up.

There’s no better way to make my food tasteless and unappealing than my three year old daughter shoving her open mouth in my face to demand her tithe.

It blows my mind how much of the debates in the modern world seem to stem from low vs high time preference.

GM Nostr! #memes #memestr

Anyone have a recommendation for learning the basics of anarchocapitalism? #asknostr #economics #politics

#memes #memestr

I love leftist memes like this because they’re so self congratulatory about the quote, while the rest of us can read it and say, “Yup, these policies have been bullshit for about 100 years now.”

GM Nostr! #memes #memestr