Top all-time · #191
Noah Smith
Personal blog · noahpinion.substack.comeconomicspolitics
Noah Smith writes Noahpinion, a personal blog at noahpinion.substack.com about economics and politics. Since 2020, 228 different Hacker News readers have linked it 558 times, most often “Interview: Marc Andreessen, VC and tech pioneer”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-31, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 8 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers cite Noah Smith's Substack for economics and policy arguments: climate economics, housing and YIMBY policy, minimum wage, and techno-optimism. Most commenters link single posts as support for their own points.
- Recommended for · 8 comments
- Commenters call single posts a good explanation, a good article and a good examination, and one says he likes the blog for being witty and written by economists
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Economics and other interesting stuff. Click to read Noahpinion, by Noah Smith, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- Interview: Marc Andreessen, VC and tech pioneer12 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2021-06-22
- Why is China smashing its tech industry?10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2021-07-25
- U.S. unions shall embrace Robots and Automation8 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2022-09-05
- America: The Build-Nothing Country7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2023-02-27
- Why has climate economics failed us?6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2021-04-13
- Drawing Pictures of Cities6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-07-17
- Actually, Japan has changed a lot6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-01-24
- “Generative AI: autocomplete for everything” by Noah Smith and roon6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-12-01
- Where does the wealth go when asset prices go down?6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-06-16
- What if Xi Jinping just isn't that competent?5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-11-07
What Hacker News says?
> Economists have been saying this for years Maybe with this track record, they should reconsider their ideas? https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-has-climate-economics-...
Comment linking /p/why-has-climate-economics-failed
on “Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'”Submitted Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes as a story · 382 points
HN discussion> One American is emitting 15 Indians worth of carbon emissions. > it is important to realize that increasingly developed countries have been outsourcing most of their high polluting industries. Neither of these points apply to the OP. They did not make the claim that the US emits more than India per capita. Secondly, your rebuttal of the point that "western countries have reduced carbon emissions" is not a rebuttal…
Comment linking /p/the-climate-left-is-a-useful-farce
on “Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'”Submitted Why is China smashing its tech industry? as a story · 311 points
HN discussionAstral Star Codex [0], Noahpinion [1] and Taipology [2]: [0] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ [1] http://noahpinion.substack.com/ [2] https://taipology.substack.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted No one knows how much the government can borrow as a story · 248 points
HN discussionSingapore has “social housing” except the government builds the housing and sells it to people for cheap: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/a-singapore-plan-for-publi...
Comment linking /p/a-singapore-plan-for-public-housing
on “We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments”Submitted The Left-NIMBY Canon as a story · 237 points
HN discussionWhen the Supreme Court strikes down legalized discrimination against asians, I hope you remember who put those judges there. Politics is about people voting in their self interest. If you're Asian, that calculus is simple. Trump might be boorish and say mean things, but his side wants to maintain a system that has worked extraordinarily well for Asians. Poor Asian kids have more than double the income mobility of po…
Comment linking /p/why-affirmative-action-had-to-go
on “American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class”Submitted Debunking our narratives of the late 70s and early 80s as a story · 190 points
HN discussionI'm not so sure it's not possible. There are large numbers of people getting priced out, and YIMBY groups are springing up all over. Here in Oregon, we passed HB2001, which re-legalizes up to 4-plexes in our cities. One of the city councilors where I live is a huge YIMBY. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2022/03/31/where-p... https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-yimbys-are-starting-to...
Comment linking /p/the-yimbys-are-starting-to-win-a?s=r
on “Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes”Submitted Interview with Patrick Collison as a story · 186 points
HN discussionGermany had the conditions precedent to democracy, as did Japan: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-afghanistan-occupation... . Things like rule of law, market economies, etc. An authoritarian regime that liberalizes the underlying foundation of the country often creates the stage for a functional democracy. That happened in Germany, South Korea, Singapore, etc. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Fr…
Comment linking /p/the-afghanistan-occupation-and-the
on “Economic costs of war”Submitted Against Hickelism as a story · 184 points
HN discussion> we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government" They did not "comply". They came to realize it was better to emulate the US: > This is not to say that Japan remained fascist (as some left-wing commentators assert). It most obviously and m…
Comment linking /p/the-afghanistan-occupation-and-the
on “Economic costs of war”Submitted Interview: Vitalik Buterin as a story · 137 points
HN discussionThat post isn't subscription only: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-has-climate-economics-...
Comment linking /p/why-has-climate-economics-failed
on “White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help meet climate targets”Submitted Yes, experts will lie to you sometimes as a story · 113 points
HN discussionSome literature review here: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-15-minimum-wage-is-pre... https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-minimum-wage-pushback One thing that might disappoint people is that increasing minimum wage isn't the best way to reduce poverty in the US, for the simple reason that most poor people aren't wage laborers. And not unemployed either - they're children and the elderly. Child allowances se…
Comment linking /p/the-minimum-wage-pushback
on “Writing tools I learned from The Economist”Submitted Interview with CEO of Flexport: Supply chain crunch, modern logistics as a story · 109 points
HN discussionRecent noahpinion episode about this very topic: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/where-does-the-wealth-go-w...
Comment linking /p/where-does-the-wealth-go-when-asset
on “Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns”Submitted People are realizing that degrowth is bad as a story · 107 points
HN discussionInequality is low in Japan but the people in general are not that rich these days and are getting poorer; it's a big problem. On the other hand, unemployment is significantly better than in 2010 - most of the cultural things you used to hear about Japan like crazy fashion were because all the young people were unemployed and had nothing better to do than stand around in Harajuku. And the famously low birth rate is u…
Comment linking /p/japans-living-standards-are-too-low
on “Former PM Abe Shinzo dies after being shot”Submitted How Homogeneous Is Japan? as a story · 105 points
HN discussionIf it were a show of strength in the system why did they let the bubble get so big in the first place? They've been using real estate as a place to stash everything bad for a while: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/what-if-xi-jinping-just-is...
Comment linking /p/what-if-xi-jinping-just-isnt-that
on “Evergrande teeters on edge of default as $148M payment falls due”Submitted Indonesia: The most amazing development story on Earth? as a story · 98 points
HN discussionThat sounds like an argument made by economists. Economists are notoriously bad at estimating the true, human costs of climate change. See https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-has-climate-economics-... for instance (skip the political commentary at the top and go straight to the next section).
Comment linking /p/why-has-climate-economics-failed
on “It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record”Submitted Chinese Demography as a story · 80 points
HN discussionWhat global problem? The largest tech companies are either US or Chinese companies. The Chinese government is starting to take a hard line on Chinese tech giants. It's only the US government who hasn't made a move yet. First result on Google: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-is-china-smashing-its-... For other countries, it's hard to regulate foreign companies especially if legislation can't be enforced, or in…
Comment linking /p/why-is-china-smashing-its-tech-industry
on “Steve Jobs: Let's force Amazon to use our payment system (2010)”Submitted No, America is not collapsing as a story · 70 points
HN discussion
