Matt Yglesias: belief

Transcript context

…And where would you short? Where would I short? I think definitely San Francisco, which is not just taking this Covid hit. But I think had a real . . . New York — there’s a lot of different things happening in New York. There’s a lot of different foundations that economic cluster there, and there’s a real proven ability to lose certain things and gain other kinds of things. The attitude between people in San Francisco and the technology industry is really toxic and poisonous in a way that would give me serious pause about the city’s future. You could actually imagine civic leaders there thinking that they welcome the departure of that entire ecosystem, which is really dangerous for them. It’s true that there have been problems associated with the growth of tech in San Francisco, but the number of people there — serious, well-informed people — who don’t see that that’s more of an asset than a penalty. It puts them at big risk. Now I’m very much an outsider to Portland and Seattle. But just from my great distance, it strikes me as a public-choice puzzle that the mayors seem to put up with so much nonsense in their cities.…

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