Top all-time · #9851
Maia Mindel
Personal blog · someunpleasant.substack.comeconomicswriting
Maia Mindel writes Some Unpleasant Arithmetic, a personal blog at someunpleasant.substack.com about economics and writing. Since 2021, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 13 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Linked on HN to add nuance to a claim about empty houses versus homeless people. The linked post, titled 'three factoids', examines popular statistics and is cited for details on empty homes.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A not-so-dismal substack about the dismal science.
What Hacker News says?
This year's Nobel economics prize was for this topic. Although, they did sort of just give it to Acemoglu because he's so productive you can't not give it to him. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/sum... https://someunpleasant.substack.com/p/a-nobel-prize-for-an-i...
Comment linking /p/a-nobel-prize-for-an-institution
on “Kenya and "the decline of the greatest coffee" (2021)”Submitted Real Chaos, Today – Randomised controlled trials in economics as a story · 31 points
HN discussionThere's some natural laws in the area. You can't win infinite money forever by one piece of good information, it's going to get priced in or the other traders are going to get wiped out. Rational expectation/efficient market hypothesis works better than people think: https://someunpleasant.substack.com/p/economists-do-they-kno...
Comment linking /p/economists-do-they-know-things-what
on “The map is not the territory (2015)”Submitted The “The Two Income Trap” Trap as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWhile it's true that there are more houses empty than homeless people, many of the empty houses are in disrepair, vacation homes, or just temporarily vacant between owners / renters. See https://someunpleasant.substack.com/p/three-factoids-that-ar... for some more details.
Comment linking /p/three-factoids-that-arent-quite-right
on “The global streaming boom is creating a translator shortage (2021)”Submitted No Sex and the City as a story · 2 points
HN discussionRational expectations/efficient market hypothesis is the explanation for why we can't predict the future. Predicting it would mean something isn't "priced in". https://someunpleasant.substack.com/p/economists-do-they-kno...
Comment linking /p/economists-do-they-know-things-what
on “Goldman Raising $2B to Buy Distressed Celsius Assets”Submitted The End of Economic Aid? as a story · 2 points
HN discussion"Central bankers are extremely measured in their comments" is usually true, but it's a funny thing to say about New Zealand, because the reason the US and other countries have a 2% inflation target is almost literally because a New Zealand central banker made it up off the top of his head on TV once. This works okayish but, you know, could be better. (Some more explanation at https://someunpleasant.substack.com/p/th…
Comment linking /p/the-prime-directive
on “New Zealand plunges into recessionary spiral”Submitted Lost in Translation: What's Japan's Deal? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThat's not what rational expectations means, it's just a way of saying things are priced in, so that if the price of eggs went up there is probably a good reason for it and it doesn't mean you can go and start an egg business to compete on lower prices. https://someunpleasant.substack.com/p/economists-do-they-kno...
Comment linking /p/economists-do-they-know-things-what
on “Why Americans' 'YOLO' spending spree baffles economists”Submitted Fifteen Minutes of Fame: What is the 15-minute city? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why Nations Win (World Cups) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
