Gabriel de Santiago

Ancien @Paris_Dauphine Ancien @Dauphine212 . Double Diplômé de @UAM_Madrid. Views my own.

[Rafael R. Guthmann @GuthmannR]

Growth didn't just "start."

There was a very significant development in Europe and its colonies from the early middle ages to the 18th century. The acceleration of growth in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was part of an underlying growth trend since the 8th century.

Clearly, the institutional changes following the British, French and American revolutions set up the foundations for this acceleration in the growth rate over the past 250 years.

But that was not the first time institutional change had driven growth. What distinguishes late 18th century institutional change from previous episodes is that it was the largest such change by orders of magnitude in human history.

For comparison, the Athenian democratic revolution only affected a few hundred thousand, or at most a couple of millions under Athenian imperial influence. By comparison, the 17th-18th century revolutions directly affected about 100 million people by the time of Napoleon (roughly 10 million in the Americas + 60 million in continental Europe + 20 million in Britain).

[🌾☀️ @_vagoymaleante]

Caballero, caballero, no puede subir aquí a contemplar lo inefable, le voy a tener que sancionar

[Gabriel de Santiago @pbds96]

@princertitude Pourquoi on parle jamais des réseaux de froid (aka District Cooling) en France alors que l’on a les villes avec la densité qu’il faut, qu’on a de l’électricité décarbonée et que Engie est un spécialiste du secteur hors de France.

[Princertitude @princertitude]

<THREAD> La Guyane française et le pétrole
Pourquoi cette différence avec le Guyana voisin?

[weird medieval guys @WeirdMedieval]

what did england and france mean by this

[auraofdawn @auraofdawn1]

@BankofVol This is the master plan. Next time people talk about the Treaty of Versailles and how retarded, humiliating it was, and how it sparked a World War. The next guy have to ask, the German one or the American one?

[Jack Prandelli @jackprandelli]

PetroChina couldn't find a tanker.

Neither could Indian Oil.

Here's what actually happened this week:

PetroChina tried to hire a Very Large Crude Carrier a ship that holds 2 million barrels to load Iraqi crude between June 25-30.

Got 6 offers.
All at freight rates nearly triple pre war levels.
Still couldn't close a deal.

Why?
In PetroChina's own words:
"There are tankers available, but the problem is it's too expensive and there is no guarantee you can exit the strait."

Indian Oil ran a tender for the same period.
Received zero offers.

Sinochem is still hunting.

PetroChina, Indian Oil, and Sinochem are 3 of the largest state oil companies on earth.

If they can't get tankers through Hormuz at any reasonable price, nobody can.

This is the gap between the headline and the reality.

Financial markets priced the peace deal.
Shipping markets priced the risk.

Freight rates 3x pre-war.
Insurance clauses requiring special Hormuz guarantees. No assurance a loaded 2-million-barrel ship can exit safely.

[Kerviel Jérôme @kerviel_j]

Vous auriez pas pu prévenir avant sérieux… 🤕🤕@SocieteGenerale

[timothy faust 🇵🇸 @taste_of_tbone]

huge news for DocuSign

[legal YIMBY alien @YIMBYPoland]

Okay I've had enough of this europoor adjacent slop.

How do Europeans (Poles in this example) live? Differently than Americans and the prices reflect that.

Restaurants are WAY cheaper than in America. First of all, you don't have all the junk fees, tax and tip on top of the price on the menu. In San Francisco, when you see $30 for a pasta dish, it's gonna end up being closer to $50 on the final bill. In Kraków, if you see 50 zł ($13.70) for a pasta meal, it is going to be 50 zł exactly. And Poland isn't even a good example because it famously has relatively expensive restaurants compared to places like Italy or Spain.

This extends to other services, too. A flight from rainy July Kraków to sunny Italy will set you back like $50. A flight from Columbus, OH to sunny Florida will be more like $250, same to Mexico. And then when you're there, everything is more expensive, too, starting with a hotel.

Groceries are also significantly cheaper than in America if you compare like for like. I'm not going to sit here and say that every Biedronka has Whole Foods-level produce and meats but on average, groceries in Poland are comparable to middle price tier groceries at Safeway, and when you compare those together, Poland is like 2x cheaper.

Cars and fuel are more expensive but you also use them less. Not only because there's more public transportation but mostly because the distances are shorter. This isn't Phoenix where everything is 30 mins away on a freeway.

Rent is expensive but also, let's not exaggerate. Kraków is the most expensive city in Poland because it's touristy, rapidly growing, and a huge college hub. A comparable US city would be Boston. But even if you compare Kraków to Columbus or Indianapolis (undoubtedly 2/3-tier cities), rent is still cheaper. A comparable one-bedroom apartment will be $1200-1400 in those cities vs. 3000-3600 zł ($800-1000). And in Katowice, where salaries are only 10% lower than in Kraków but the city is not touristy, you're looking at 2200-2600 zł ($600-700).

Oh, and the median after-tax salary in Kraków is $1700 a month ($20,400 a year), the average is even higher. Yes, this is less than in Columbus (~$60,000, according to BLS data) but surprise surprise, Poland is a poorer country than not only the US but also Germany or France.

But there are also many things that you don't pay for in Poland that you do pay for in the US. Childcare is a big one. In an average American family unit, the mother only works so that they can afford childcare. It's free in Poland. Healthcare is free, too, and before you attack me saying "yeah but the wait time for hip replacement is long!" I'll tell you that even if you go private to get it immediately, it's gonna be cheaper in relation to your income than in the US. Public schools are good, and college is again free. You don't have to pay $500/month in your college repayment plan for 10 years after graduation. And there are also no income taxes for those under 26 years old, by the way. And speaking of income taxes, filing them is free and automatic every year, even if you have a more complicated tax situation. You don't need to spend $100 on Turbotax or a comparable service.

So again, the answer is: people just live life differently. Life in Europe (in general, also in the 2000s, when Europeans were not yet "Europoor") is less about consumption.

I discovered that when I've started traveling with my American friends. They go to Barcelona and all they do all day is running from one coffeeshop to another, from one restaurant (ideally Michelin-starred) to another. They'll see the Sagrada Familia and that's about it. A completely different (and dare I say worse) way of traveling than the European way, which is to walk the streets, see some sights, get sangria in a random bar and eat dinner in a small neighborhood cafe.

I think this is also in part a function of Europe having functional public spaces. If you don't need to worry about a crazy homeless person attacking your kids on the public playground, you don't need to have a private playground in your backyard. So yeah, while Americans are richer in terms of take-home pay, the actual, useful gap, is not that big. Europeans just don't need to spend money as much.

[senpai @Senpaisaysbye]

Can't wait for DeepSeek Nemesis to outperform Claude Mythos by 3% and cost $0.17.

[Gabriel de Santiago @pbds96]

@Planet_Sardinia Her father’s name was Francesco Franco ? In 1941 ? Seems a left wing family to me…

[Pieter Garicano @pietergaricano]

Europe should learn to love Baumol

[litquidity @litcapital]

Permanent_Peace_Deal_vFFF_v26(1)(1)

[Marbelus Lehort 🌐 🏗️ @MLehort]

Week A: ahah Fuck France for sticking to the guns it needs

Week B: please France, europeanise the core part of your defense with no counterpart.

[LaGenevoisedeservice @RightsRobins]

Another busy day where French speakers save the country from total fascism

[Siraj Hashmi @SirajAHashmi]

Elon Musk walking into Jeff Bezos’s home:

[Not a Good Jewish Girl✡️ @estherzelda0514]

It's quite funny that this dude's historic wealth might be the most persuasive blackpilling possible on capitalism, and yet the socialist warriors do not take advantage of the opportunity.

Let me explain. His wealth is fundamentally disconnected from personal merit or direct labor. He is the CEO of three companies and in the C-suite at many others. There is simply no possibility whatsoever that he works the hours expected of such positions and that the little personal labor he dedicates to them represents the the incredible wealth he has extracted from them.

Moreover, there are several, well-documented claims from insiders that they have to handle or buffer his erratic behavior, and that the executives that actually do the work are relieved when he gets hyperfocused on another company and leaves them alone. What work he does when he is hyperfocused consists mostly, according to insiders, as extreme micromanagement. He self-describes himself as a "nano-manager," and his official biographer talks about his hyper-critical "demon mode." There is a pretty reasonable argument to be made that his presence harms these companies, rather than helps them.

This is only boosted by how many expensive, high-profile lawsuits his companies have been embroiled in by his public remarks, nonstop posting, and refusal to abide by financial disclosure deadlines. How he treats his employees and unilaterally fires people without cause also causes employment lawsuits.

Substantively, his companies also benefit from him lying to the market to cause speculation and government subsidies won by quid pro quo behavior that would have, in better times, been considered criminal. Musk causes Tesla and SpaceX to consistently lie about its products, and he is never punished enough to offset the personal benefit he gets from the market or subsidies by such lying.

His wealth is an illusion driven by retail investor enthusiasm based on these lies, market expectations based on his lies and the fact that he has yet to seriously pay for lying, and pay packages approved by boards stacked with flunkies that cannot articulate how he can possibly do enough work as the CEO of three companies and executive of half a dozen others to justify his intensely bloated pay packages. He receives that pay even when his companies are not profitable, which has led to constant shareholder lawsuits.

If there was a poster boy of American Capitalism, it is him. He represents everything wrong with the reality of how the system works, and how lying and anticompetitive behavior is not adequately curbed.