Edward Conard

Top Ten New York Times Bestselling Author

  • “…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
  • “…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • “Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
  • “…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
  • “…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
  • “A full-throated defense of economic dynamism.” - The Wall Street Journal
  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
  • “Unintended Consequences offers deep and well-argued analyses on almost every issue.” - The New York Times
  • “Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
  • “Unintended Consequences is far smarter and more thought-provoking than most economics written for the general public” - Greg Mankiw, Harvard University, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
  • “Unintended Consequences should be read by anyone who takes for granted the superiority of progressive taxation and has not thought carefully about the trade-offs involved.” - The New Republic
  • “…a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy.” - Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management
Upside of Inequality Oxford Unintended Consequences

Macro Roundup


Friday, September 20, 2024

AI Summary. For a two-adult, three-child family, existing taxes and government benefits bring take-home resources to about $58,000 with no earnings, $79,000 with $20,000 of earnings, and $90,000 with $80,000 of earnings plus $15,000 in employer health premiums. A $75,000 gap in earnings and work-related benefits narrows to $11,000 in take-home pay.

Kevin Corinth American Enterprise Institute
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database
Is Important:
Important

A 2-adult, 3-child US family with $20,000 of market income receives at least $61,000 in annual benefits and has $79,000 of disposable income. That same family earning a market income of $80,000 takes home only $11,000 more. @kevincorinth

How much do taxes and benefits compress income differences across families?

Core argument: A 2-adult, 3-child family with no earnings receives existing benefits worth about $58,000 per year.

The figure shows the total take-home pay—including earnings, employer provided benefits, government benefits, and adjusting for taxes—for a 2-adult, 3-child family with different earnings levels: a nonworking family with no earnings, a low-wage family with $20,000 of annual earnings, and a middle-wage family with $80,000 of annual earnings. The nonworking family receives total existing benefits worth about $58,000 despite having no earnings of its own. The low-wage family, after accounting for all existing taxes and government benefits, takes home $79,000. The middle-wage family has annual earnings of $80,000, and they receive health insurance from their employer, which contributes $15,000 per year to their premiums. In total, the family has earnings and work-related benefits that total $95,000—before counting the effect of any taxes or government benefits—which is $75,000 more than the earnings of the low-wage family. But once we account for existing taxes and benefits, the middle-wage family takes home only $11,000 more than the low-wage family, a total of $90,000.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. A 2-adult, 3-child family with no earnings receives existing benefits worth about $58,000 per year.
  2. A low-wage 2-adult, 3-child family earning $20,000 annually takes home $79,000 after accounting for all existing taxes and government benefits.
  3. A middle-wage family with $80,000 of earnings plus $15,000 in employer-paid health premiums has $95,000 before taxes and benefits—$75,000 more than the low-wage family—yet takes home $90,000, only $11,000 more.

Related Articles:

AI Summary. Government bonds serve both as insurance against flight-to-quality events and as risky investments whose returns depend on the government not inflating debt away in a crisis. The argument holds that investors should demand a premium compensating for inflation risk, and a larger one if inflation losses would coincide with other painful financial events.

John Cochrane The Grumpy Economist
Date Posted:

.@JohnHCochrane notes that long bonds benefit from “flights to quality” as in 2008, and did as well as stocks from 1970 to 2000, but pose the risk that in a crisis of unsustainable deficits, the government will “inflate them away. Caveat emptor.”

Should bond investors demand a premium for inflation risk?

Core argument: Government bonds are both hedges and risky investments, offering insurance against flight-to-quality events while delivering returns as good as stocks from 1970 to 2000 in exchange for the gamble that the government will not inflate them away in a crisis.

As 1979 followed 1975, a repetition of the 2021-2023 inflation, provoked by the next crisis, or even the Fed’s apparent return to 1978 monetary policy, is not an event that prudent risk-management should ignore. Is an inflation-induced loss a particularly painful time for you? If not, yes, insist on a premium that compensates for the probability of inflation. But [if] inflation comes with particularly painful other events in your financial life, insist on a good deal more. Bonds are both hedges and risky investment opportunities. In a nutshell, government bonds offer insurance against flight to quality events, useful for some kinds of investors. Bonds offer a return that can be as good as stocks, as seen from 1970 to 2000, in return for the [gamble] that the government will not inflate them away in a crisis. Caveat emptor.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Government bonds are both hedges and risky investments, offering insurance against flight-to-quality events while delivering returns as good as stocks from 1970 to 2000 in exchange for the gamble that the government will not inflate them away in a crisis.
  2. Prudent risk management should not ignore the possibility that the 2021–2023 inflation repeats, provoked by the next crisis or by the Fed's apparent return to 1978 monetary policy, just as 1979 followed 1975.
  3. Investors for whom inflation-induced losses coincide with particularly painful other events in their financial life should insist on a good deal more premium than those for whom they do not.

Related Articles:

  • Weaker Demand for Treasuries — Recent 10-year and 30-year US Treasury auctions each cleared three basis points above the yields trading minutes beforehand, signaling demand significantly weaker than the market expected. Larger and more frequent such gaps since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates make auction metrics an early indicator of weakening Treasury demand.
  • Government Debt in Mature Economies. Safe or Risky? — When governments insulate taxpayers rather than bondholders from unfunded spending shocks, government bond yields rise as debt is marked to market, shifting the risk to bondholders — a "risky debt" regime the authors argue better fits recent experience. In that regime, large-scale central bank asset purchases give government bonds temporary price support at a net loss to taxpayers.
  • Fiscal Influences on Inflation in OECD Countries, 2020-2022 — Across 21 economies, the authors find that headline and core inflation responded positively to a measure of government spending increases scaled by pre-pandemic debt-to-GDP and average debt duration. Estimated coefficients of 0.4–0.5 suggest 40–50% of the extra spending was financed through inflation, with the rest through conventional public finance.

AI Summary. Postings for software development jobs are down more than 30% from pre-pandemic levels, with tech companies shedding roughly 137,000 jobs, according to job-tracking sites. Firms have shifted from growth-at-all-costs and moonshot projects toward revenue-generating products, artificial intelligence investment, and greater use of consultants and outsourced roles.

Katherine Bindley and Joseph Pisani Wall Street Journal
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database

US tech firms have shed about 137,000 jobs since January 2024 and software development job postings are down 30% from the start of 2020, as companies focus on revenue-generating products and services, and rely more heavily on global talent.

Why have tech job postings dried up?

Core argument: Postings for software development jobs are down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed.com, while tech companies have shed around 137,000 jobs since January, according to Layoffs.fyi.

Postings for software development jobs are down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed.com. Industry layoffs have continued this year with tech companies shedding around 137,000 jobs since January, according to Layoffs.fyi. Company strategies are also shifting. Instead of growth at all costs and investment in moonshot projects, tech firms have become laser focused on revenue-generating products and services. At the same time, they started putting enormous resources into AI. The release of ChatGPT in late 2022 offered a glimpse into generative AI’s ability to create humanlike content and potentially transform industries. Workers with expertise in the field are among the few strong categories. [An unemployed tech recruiter] says most of the jobs he’s applying for are paying a third less than what they used to. What irks him is that tech companies have rebounded financially but some of them are relying on more consultants and are outsourcing roles. “Covid proved remote works, and now it’s opened up the job market for globalization in that sense,” he says.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Postings for software development jobs are down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed.com, while tech companies have shed around 137,000 jobs since January, according to Layoffs.fyi.
  2. Tech firms have shifted from growth at all costs and moonshot projects toward revenue-generating products and services while pouring enormous resources into AI, leaving workers with AI expertise among the few strong hiring categories.
  3. An unemployed tech recruiter says most jobs he applies for pay a third less than they used to, and that tech companies have rebounded financially while relying more on consultants and outsourcing roles.

Related Articles:

  • Society’s Technical Debt and Software’s Gutenberg Moment — Every wave of technological innovation has been unleashed by something costly becoming cheap enough to waste, and large language models are collapsing the cost and complexity of producing software. The authors argue that decades of underproduced software have left society with immense technical debt that is poised to contract, releasing a wave of innovation.
  • Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier — In a pre-registered experiment at Boston Consulting Group covering 18 realistic consulting tasks, consultants using ChatGPT-4 completed 12.2% more tasks, worked 25.1% faster, and produced 40% higher quality results than those without it. The tool acted as a skill leveler: the lowest-scoring consultants improved 43%, while top performers gained less.
  • A Severe Case of COVIDIA: Prognosis For An AI-Driven US Equity Market — Computing cycles move from infrastructure to platforms to applications, and NVIDIA data center revenues as a share of market-wide capital spending are projected to reach levels last seen at the 1969 mainframe peak and the dot-com boom. Large cloud providers spend more than twice as much training foundational models as running them for customers.

AI Summary. Across the developed world, the share of young men neither in education, employment, nor seeking work has climbed steadily for decades, and in the UK, France, Spain, and Canada young men now outnumber young women outside the economy for the first time. Over 80% of this group in the UK report long-term health problems.

John Burn-Murdoch Financial Times
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database

.@jburnmurdoch finds that across multiple developed countries “there are more young men than women in effect outside the economy for the first time in history,” neither employed, looking for work, or in education.

Are young men now outnumbering young women outside the economy?

Core argument: More than 80% of young men in the UK who are neither in education, in work, nor looking for a job report long-term health problems.

Across the developed world, the portion of young men who are neither in education, in work nor looking for a job has been climbing steadily for decades. In countries including the UK, France, Spain, and Canada there are now more young men than women in effect outside the economy for the first time in history. Unlike young women, these men are generally not occupied by caring for other family members either. They are adrift and likely to be the ones in need of care themselves. More than 80% of this group in the UK report long-term health problems.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. More than 80% of young men in the UK who are neither in education, in work, nor looking for a job report long-term health problems.
  2. In the UK, France, Spain, and Canada, more young men than young women are now in effect outside the economy for the first time in history.
  3. The share of young men across the developed world who are neither in education, in work, nor seeking work has climbed steadily for decades, and unlike young women, these men are generally not caring for family members.

Related Articles:

  • Post-Pandemic Recovery for America’s Prime Age Labor Force: A Tale of Two Sexes — Prime-age women's labor force participation climbed about 5 points above its pre-pandemic level over a decade, while prime-age men's rose barely a point, only just regaining pre-pandemic levels. Despite economic expansion and labor shortages, work rates for prime-age American men are barely as high as at the trough of the severe Reagan-era recession.
  • Many Gen Z Men Feel Left Behind. Some See Trump As An Answer — National polling shows a gender gap of roughly 39 to 51 percentage points among voters under 30, with young men favoring the Republican candidate and young women favoring the Democrat. The Republican message resonates particularly with young men without college degrees and young men of color.
  • One Cohort at a Time: A New Perspective on the Declining Gender Pay Gap — The authors find the entire decline in the gender pay gap comes from newer cohorts entering with smaller-than-average gaps and older cohorts exiting with larger ones, with entry convergence driven by younger men's positional losses in the wage distribution, especially at higher-paying firms. They find labor-market exit became the sole contributor, implying no full convergence ahead.

AI Summary. A US bird flu infection in a person with no known contact with animal carriers, alongside illness in two close contacts, has left researchers awaiting data to determine whether human-to-human transmission has emerged. Gaps in surveillance persist because some states do not require farmers to test dairy cattle for the virus.

Heidi Ledford Nature
Date Posted:

A recent H5N1 case in Missouri may be the 1st US human infection that was not traced back to contact with infected animals, raising “the possibility that the virus might have evolved to not only infect humans but also to spread between people.”

Do surveillance gaps obscure whether bird flu spreads between people?

Core argument: The CDC announced on 13 September that two people in close contact with a hospitalized Missouri bird flu patient also became ill around the same time, raising concerns about human-to-human transmission.

All eyes are on Missouri. Researchers are anxiously awaiting data from the midwestern state about a mysterious bird flu infection in a person who had no known contact with potential animal carriers of the disease. The data could reveal whether the ongoing US bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle has reached a dreaded turning point: the emergence of a virus capable of spreading from human to human. Concerns were raised about the Missouri case on 13 September, when the CDC announced that two people who had close contact with the hospitalized person had also become ill around the same time. Ratcheting up concerns is the fact that no Missouri dairy farms have reported a bird flu outbreak; this might be because there really are no infections, or because the state does not require farmers to test their cows for the virus. “The fear is that the virus is spreading within the community at low levels, and this is the first time that we’re detecting it,” says Scott Hensley, a viral immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. “There’s no data to suggest that to be the case, but that’s the fear.”

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. The CDC announced on 13 September that two people in close contact with a hospitalized Missouri bird flu patient also became ill around the same time, raising concerns about human-to-human transmission.
  2. The Missouri patient had no known contact with potential animal carriers, and no Missouri dairy farms have reported a bird flu outbreak, though the state does not require farmers to test cows for the virus.
  3. Scott Hensley, a viral immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, says the fear is that the virus is spreading within the community at low levels and is only now being detected, though no data suggest that.

Related Articles:

  • US Has Worst Bird Flu Outbreak in Two Years at Iowa Egg Farm — Bird flu was detected in an Iowa egg-laying flock of 4.2m birds, the largest US outbreak since 2022, in a state that produces nearly 12% of the country's layer hens according to the US Department of Agriculture. The virus has also been infecting dairy cows across the US.
  • Bird Flu Is Infecting More Mammals. What Does That Mean for Us? — The H5N1 bird flu strain now circulating globally has spread not only among farmed and wild birds but into many other animals, unlike earlier versions of the virus. Outbreaks in mink and in South American sea mammals suggest the virus most likely adapted to spread between mammals.
  • How the Current Bird Flu Strain Evolved to be so Deadly — A Nature study tracking bird flu genome changes and reported outbreaks found the virus spread three times faster among wild birds than farmed poultry, attributed to mutations letting it adapt to diverse species. Outbreaks, once seasonal with Northern Hemisphere bird migration, have become persistent, killing millions of birds across five continents.

AI Summary. The Silver Bulletin presidential election forecast shows the race as a toss-up near 50/50, with strong state polls for Kamala Harris making her a technical favorite in the model. The forecast's leader shifts frequently when the model sits this close to even odds.

Nate Silver and Eli McKown-Dawson Silver Bulletin
Date Posted:

The latest @NateSilver538 update shows Harris leading in the national popular vote by 2.8pp. His model shows a 51.1% probability of her winning the electoral college, up from ~ 40% prior to last week’s debate.

Is the presidential race a toss-up despite a technical favorite?

Core argument: Kamala Harris is technically the favorite in the Silver Bulletin forecast for the first time since Aug. 28, the 3rd time the forecast's streams have crossed during the election.

The theme of the week remains mostly strong state polls for Kamala Harris, like this batch from Morning Consult, which helped her even though Morning Consult has consistently shown some of her better numbers. Indeed, today marks the 3rd time so far in the election that the streams have crossed in the forecast — Harris is technically the favorite in the model for the first time since Aug. 28 — but the race is a toss-up and that will happen a lot when the forecast is so close to 50/50.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Kamala Harris is technically the favorite in the Silver Bulletin forecast for the first time since Aug. 28, the 3rd time the forecast's streams have crossed during the election.
  2. Strong state polls for Harris, including a batch from Morning Consult, helped her in the Silver Bulletin model, though Morning Consult has consistently shown some of her better numbers.
  3. Silver Bulletin characterizes the presidential race as a toss-up, noting that lead changes will occur often when the forecast sits so close to 50/50.

Related Articles:

Monday, September 23, 2024

AI Summary. In the U.S., the number of workers per firm is stable or rises with output per worker over time and across states, and the number of firms tracks total employment more closely than productivity. The authors argue this implies the cost of creating a new firm rises with productivity, so productivity-enhancing policies would not induce new firm entry.

Peter Klenow and Huiyu Li National Bureau of Economic Research
Date Posted:

.@PeteKlenow and Huiyu Li argue that rising labor productivity raises the entry costs for new firms through higher wages and start-up costs, limiting the impact of productivity-enhancing policies on welfare.

Do rising productivity levels raise the cost of starting new firms?

Core argument: U.S. data from 1978 to 2020 show the number of workers per firm is stable or rises with output per worker over time and across states, while the number of firms tracks total employment more closely than output per worker.

In the U.S., the number of workers per firm is stable or rises with output per worker over time and across states. This fact can be explained by a model in which entry costs rise with labor productivity. Over time and across states in the U.S., the number of firms is more closely tied to overall employment than to output per worker. In many models of firm dynamics, trade, and growth with a free entry condition, these facts imply that the costs of creating a new firm increase sharply with productivity growth. How entry costs vary with growth matters for welfare. For example, our findings suggest that productivity-enhancing policies will not induce entry of firms, thereby limiting the total impact of such policies on welfare. Figure 1 displays the result of regressing log number of firms on log employment and log employment per firm on log GDP per worker, respectively, over time. The data is yearly from 1978 to 2020. Both bilateral relationships are strongly positive both economically and statistically. These results are consistent with entry costs being more labor intensive than goods intensive.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. U.S. data from 1978 to 2020 show the number of workers per firm is stable or rises with output per worker over time and across states, while the number of firms tracks total employment more closely than output per worker.
  2. In models of firm dynamics, trade, and growth featuring a free entry condition, these patterns imply that the cost of creating a new firm increases sharply with productivity growth, consistent with entry costs being more labor intensive than goods intensive.
  3. Because entry costs rise with labor productivity, productivity-enhancing policies would not induce firm entry, limiting the total welfare impact of such policies.

Related Articles:

  • Trends in U.S. Business Dynamism and the Innovation Landscape — U.S. patent ownership has grown more concentrated over recent decades, a pattern that can affect how innovation spreads, alongside a rise in patent litigation. Annual litigation cases per 100 granted patents rose from about 1.2 in the early 1990s to roughly 1.5 in 1995–2010 and above 1.8 in 2010–2015.
  • Big Firms Have Different Incentives — Inventors who move to incumbent large firms and those who move to young small firms show indistinguishable patenting and earnings paths beforehand, then diverge afterward. The authors suggest large firms pay inventors more but assign them projects less likely to yield patents, including innovations less likely to threaten existing product lines.

AI Summary. The US accounts for 63% of global stock market value but only 26% of global economic output, compared with about 40% of global GDP when its market share last exceeded 60%. The authors argue investors following global indexes are overpaying for US-generated income relative to that earlier period.

Brian Chingono Verdad
Date Posted:

.@verdadcap_quant notes that today’s 63% equity allocation to the US is the highest since the “Nifty Fifty” era in the 1960s and early 1970s when the US economy made up 40% of global GDP vs. 26% today. They argue for a more balanced geographic allocation.

Are investors overpaying for the US share of global output?

Core argument: The US accounts for 63% of global equity market capitalization, near a six-decade high, while its share of global GDP sits near a six-decade low at 26%.

When the United States last exceeded 60% of global market capitalization in the 1960s, the US economy accounted for 40% of global GDP. Today, the US is similarly overrepresented in global market capitalization, but it only accounts for 26% of global GDP. Since equity ownership represents a share in economic activity, there appears to be a disconnect between the United States’ share of global market cap sitting near a six-decade high at 63%, while its share of global economic output is near a six-decade low at 26%. In our opinion, index followers who assign 63% of market value to 26% of economic output must be willing to overpay for income that’s generated in the United States. And today’s overpayment is arguably more extreme than the 1960s, when America’s share of global economic output was 18 percentage points higher at 38% on average.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. The US accounts for 63% of global equity market capitalization, near a six-decade high, while its share of global GDP sits near a six-decade low at 26%.
  2. When the US last exceeded 60% of global market capitalization in the 1960s, it accounted for 40% of global GDP, and its share of global output averaged 38%, 18 percentage points above today's 26%.
  3. Index followers who assign 63% of market value to 26% of global economic output must be willing to overpay for income generated in the United States, an overpayment arguably more extreme than in the 1960s.

Related Articles:

  • Long-Term Shareholder Returns: Evidence From 64,000 Global Stocks — A study of about 64,000 global stocks estimates net global stock market wealth creation of $75.7tn, with returns highly concentrated: the top 159 firms (0.25%) account for half of net wealth creation and the top 1,526 (2.39%) account for all of it. Fewer than half of stocks beat one-month US Treasury bills, 42.6% of non-US and 44.8% of US stocks.
  • Which U.S. Stocks Generated the Highest Long-Term Returns? — Of the 29,078 U.S. common stocks in a database spanning nearly a century, 51.6% had negative cumulative returns, while 17 stocks returned more than 5m% — led by Altria at 265m%. Those top performers averaged annualized returns of just 13.47%, underscoring the value of time invested.
  • The Seven Samurai: Big Tech to the Rescue! — The seven largest US technology companies — Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla — added $5.1tn in combined market value in a single year, accounting for more than 50% of the increase in the entire US equity market's capitalization. US equities returned 23.25% including them and 12.6% without them.

AI Summary. Constellation Energy will spend about $1.6bn to restart the undamaged reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant, which closed in 2019, and has signed a 20-year agreement to sell the power to Microsoft. The deal reflects the scale of round-the-clock carbon-free electricity sought for artificial intelligence data centers.

Jennifer Hiller Wall Street Journal
Date Posted:

Microsoft has signed a deal with Constellation Energy to purchase 100% of the electricity from a revived Three Mile Island; Constellation will spend $1.6B to restart the plant.

Is AI demand bringing shuttered nuclear reactors back online?

Core argument: Constellation Energy expects to spend about $1.6 billion to restart Three Mile Island's undamaged reactor by early 2028, selling the power to Microsoft under a 20-year power-purchase agreement.

A deal between Constellation Energy and Microsoft will restart Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island to help power the tech giant’s growing artificial intelligence ambitions. Under the agreement, Constellation would revive the plant’s undamaged reactor, which was too costly to run and closed in 2019, and sell the power to Microsoft. The plan signals the gargantuan amount of power needed for data centers for AI, along with the tech industry’s thirst for a carbon-free, round-the-clock electricity source needed to meet climate goals. Constellation expects to spend around $1.6 billion to restart the reactor by early 2028. Microsoft has signed a 20-year power-purchase agreement with Constellation, the companies said Friday. The deal would help Microsoft pair its 24-7 electricity use with a matching source of nearby clean power generation. This is the second U.S. attempt to revive a closed nuclear reactor. The federal government and the state of Michigan are spending nearly $2 billion to restart the Palisades nuclear reactor on the shores of Lake Michigan. That plant was mothballed in 2022, with reopening targeted for October 2025.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Constellation Energy expects to spend about $1.6 billion to restart Three Mile Island's undamaged reactor by early 2028, selling the power to Microsoft under a 20-year power-purchase agreement.
  2. Three Mile Island's reactor closed in 2019 because it was too costly to run, and its revival would help Microsoft pair its 24-7 electricity use with a matching source of nearby clean power generation.
  3. The Three Mile Island restart is the second U.S. attempt to revive a closed nuclear reactor, after the federal government and Michigan committed nearly $2 billion to reopen the Palisades reactor, mothballed in 2022, by October 2025.

Related Articles:

  • Nuclear Power Is Hard. A Climate-Minded Billionaire Wants to Make It Easier — Start-up TerraPower has begun building a sodium-cooled nuclear reactor designed to be smaller and cheaper than conventional water-cooled plants, with completion expected no earlier than 2030 and the design not yet approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company says the reactors should ultimately generate electricity at half the cost of traditional nuclear plants.
  • Plant Vogtle Unit 4 Begins Commercial Operation — The 1,114-megawatt Unit 4 reactor at Georgia's Plant Vogtle entered commercial operation, completing an 11-year expansion that brings the plant's capacity to nearly 5 gigawatts and makes it the largest US nuclear plant. No nuclear reactors are currently under construction in the United States, where nuclear supplies about 19% of electricity.
  • Electravision — The fossil fuel share of global primary energy is falling about 0.40% per year, matching the pace of decarbonization during the 1973–1988 nuclear buildout, though total carbon dioxide emissions have not declined because energy consumption keeps rising. Renewable energy is used almost exclusively for the electricity grid, with little penetration in industry and transport.

AI Summary. The U.S. rate of violent victimization — including rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault — was 22.5 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, statistically unchanged from the prior year and from five years earlier. The rate declined over the prior three decades from 79.8 per 1,000.

Susannah Tapp and Emilie Coen U.S. Department of Justice
Date Posted:

The 2023 National Crime Victimization Survey shows that the rate of violent victimization, including sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault, is 7% above 2019 levels; excluding simple assault, the violent crime rate is up 19%.

Has violent victimization in the United States declined over recent decades?

Core argument: The U.S. rate of violent victimization was 22.5 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 2023, similar to the 2022 rate and not statistically different from the 2019 rate.

In 2023, the rate of violent victimization in the United States was 22.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, which was similar to the 2022 rate. Violent victimization includes rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. The last three decades saw an overall decline in the rate of violent victimization, from 1993 (79.8 per 1,000) to 2023. While the 2023 rate was higher than those in 2020 and 2021, it was not statistically different from 5 years ago, in 2019.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. The U.S. rate of violent victimization was 22.5 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 2023, similar to the 2022 rate and not statistically different from the 2019 rate.
  2. Violent victimization in the U.S. declined overall across three decades, from 79.8 per 1,000 in 1993 to 22.5 per 1,000 in 2023.
  3. The 2023 U.S. violent victimization rate was higher than the rates in 2020 and 2021, with violent victimization covering rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.

Related Articles:

AI Summary. Polling in three Sun Belt battleground states shows Trump leading Harris: 50% to 45% in Arizona, 49% to 47% in North Carolina, and 49% to 45% in Georgia, with margins of error of four to five percentage points. All three states were decided by margins under 75,000 votes in the 2020 presidential election.

Adam Nagourney, Ruth Igielnik, and Camille Baker New York Times
Date Posted:

New York Times/Siena finds Trump leading Harris by 2pp in NC, 4pp in GA, and 5pp in Arizona.

Is the Republican candidate leading in Sun Belt battleground states?

Core argument: Trump leads Harris 50% to 45% in Arizona, a state Biden carried by just over 10,400 votes in 2020, according to the poll.

Arizona, which Mr. Biden won by just over 10,400 votes in 2020, now presents a challenge for the Harris campaign. Mr. Trump is ahead, 50% to 45%, the poll found. In North Carolina, which Mr. Trump won by under 75,000 votes in 2020, the former president has a slim lead over Ms. Harris, drawing 49% of the vote compared with 47% for Ms. Harris. In Georgia, a state that Mr. Biden won by just under 11,800 votes in 2020, Mr. Trump continues to have a slight lead over Ms. Harris, 49% to 45%. The margin of error in each state is between four and five percentage points.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Trump leads Harris 50% to 45% in Arizona, a state Biden carried by just over 10,400 votes in 2020, according to the poll.
  2. In Georgia, which Biden won by just under 11,800 votes in 2020, Trump holds a 49% to 45% lead over Harris in the poll.
  3. Trump leads Harris 49% to 47% in North Carolina, which he won by under 75,000 votes in 2020, with the margin of error in each state between four and five percentage points.

Related Articles: