"We only have preliminary, widely ranging estimates for the 2024–2025 flu season. But we can say that there were roughly 2-3x the number of flu to Covid hospitalizations and about five times the number of flu infections, comparing the low and high ends of each estimate to one another. On the low end, death counts were about equal, but on the high end, flu deaths were more than double."

https://theprogressnetwork.substack.com/p/covids-quiet-retreat

#covid19 has added to the stock of human misery even so.

Via #MarginalRevolution

"I think Elon Musk’s judgment started to worsen sometime around 2020. He was always mercurial, somewhat impulsive, prone to setting unrealistic timelines, and at times needlessly combative. However, I held hope that his positive qualities, which helped lead Tesla and SpaceX to tremendous success, would win out and he would reign in his worst tendencies. Sadly, the opposite happened, and now I no longer trust his leadership of Tesla."

https://strangecosmos.substack.com/p/self-driving-cars-arent-nearly-a?triedRedirect=true

Via #MarginalRevolution

#TSLA

#MarginalRevolution's most popular posts of 2025. Here's one to consider:

"I am myself (largely) a cultural liberal [... but] let us be clear what is going on. The right-wing populists are gaining ground in so many countries because the cultural liberals in various parliaments and congresses are extremely reluctant to meet the preferences of their median voters. On the immigration issue most of all. And then they wish to talk about threats to democracy!"

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/08/a-median-voter-theory-of-right-wing-populism.html

#politics

A Very Big Fight Over a Very Small Language

"Among the surviving Romansh idioms, Sursilvan reigns in the upper Rhine Valley; Sutsilvan in the posterior Rhine Valley; Surmiran in the Albula Valley and Oberhalbstein; and Puter and Vallader in the Engadine."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/12/08/a-very-big-fight-over-a-very-small-language?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_120325&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=5bd66fd02ddf9c6194389d0a&cndid=22300418&hasha=268e3cc9cd4f93e81125ff99bc15edb0&hashb=f8df4272800edcc1fe2e8ce7e5c53aa6c2b79fe9&hashc=5906abdd2530ce567de22e52d1c561df763a24583893148a04c39e9a87bfced3&esrc=AUTO_OTHER

Via #MarginalRevolution

#Switzerland #languages
#NewYorker

On discute la #polqc sur #MarginalRevolution cette fin de semaine, en particulier la nouvelle loi sur la laïcité.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/11/saturday-assorted-links-537.html

"Mexico is now the world’s top buyer of U.S. goods, according to data released by the U.S. government on Wednesday, outpacing Canada for the first time in nearly 30 years."

#Mexico is also the top exporter to the US; Canada is number 3.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/11/mexico-facts-of-the-day-6.html

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_the_United_States , but note that the table is more up-to-date than the graphic.

#trade
#MarginalRevolution

#MarginalRevolution points to a new paper claiming that increased housing costs are responsible for "51% of the total fertility rate decline between the 2000s and 2010s" in the US. Some interesting comments too.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/11/housing-costs-and-fertility.html

(Polls show that women want to have more children than they actually do have. We should learn what the impediments are.)

#economics #fertility #UofT

In "The world turned upside down" Searle related this conversation with Foucault about Derrida:

'Michel Foucault once characterized Derrida’s prose style to me as “obscurantisme terroriste.” The text is written so obscurely that you can’t figure out exactly what the thesis is (hence “obscurantisme“) and then when one criticizes it, the author says, “Vous m’avez mal compris; vous êtes un idiot” (hence “terroriste“)."

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/09/monday-assorted-links-528.html#comments

#MarginalRevolution
#JacquesDerrida #MichelFoucault

Where has beauty gone in the modern world?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/10/where-has-beauty-gone-in-the-modern-world.html

#beauty #aesthetics #decoration
#MarginalRevolution