Derek Thompson

Like if you care about the cost of child care or elder care, you want to make it cheaper to house institutions, buildings that can care for children, which means you want to bring those rents down. And so I thought as I'm zooming out on this concept of scarcity in the 21st century, we have chosen to make housing scarce.

In some of the most productive cities and states often run by Democrats, we have rules, zoning rules, historic preservation rules, permitting processes, environmental reviews, laws that we created that have gotten in the way of making abundant the most important material good there is, which is housing.

In some of the most productive cities and states often run by Democrats, we have rules, zoning rules, historic preservation rules, permitting processes, environmental reviews, laws that we created that have gotten in the way of making abundant the most important material good there is, which is housing.

In some of the most productive cities and states often run by Democrats, we have rules, zoning rules, historic preservation rules, permitting processes, environmental reviews, laws that we created that have gotten in the way of making abundant the most important material good there is, which is housing.

And as I kept sort of working myself into a lather and getting mad about the world, I thought, you know, it's actually not just housing. It's clean energy, too.

And as I kept sort of working myself into a lather and getting mad about the world, I thought, you know, it's actually not just housing. It's clean energy, too.

And as I kept sort of working myself into a lather and getting mad about the world, I thought, you know, it's actually not just housing. It's clean energy, too.

There's lots of environmentalists who are on my side and believing very fervently in climate change who've made it very difficult to site solar panels or site solar farms or to raise wind turbines or to advance geothermal or to accept nuclear power. We have chosen to make clean energy scarce as well.

There's lots of environmentalists who are on my side and believing very fervently in climate change who've made it very difficult to site solar panels or site solar farms or to raise wind turbines or to advance geothermal or to accept nuclear power. We have chosen to make clean energy scarce as well.

There's lots of environmentalists who are on my side and believing very fervently in climate change who've made it very difficult to site solar panels or site solar farms or to raise wind turbines or to advance geothermal or to accept nuclear power. We have chosen to make clean energy scarce as well.

And then finally, the ultimate boss of scarcity was the pandemic itself, which constricted the supply of all sorts of goods around the world, setting the price of everything to the moon. And that's why inflation wasn't just an American phenomenon, not just a North American phenomenon. It was a global phenomenon.

And then finally, the ultimate boss of scarcity was the pandemic itself, which constricted the supply of all sorts of goods around the world, setting the price of everything to the moon. And that's why inflation wasn't just an American phenomenon, not just a North American phenomenon. It was a global phenomenon.

And then finally, the ultimate boss of scarcity was the pandemic itself, which constricted the supply of all sorts of goods around the world, setting the price of everything to the moon. And that's why inflation wasn't just an American phenomenon, not just a North American phenomenon. It was a global phenomenon.

And I thought what we need to solve for this crisis of penumbral scarcity is an abundance agenda. an approach towards solving America's problems that puts abundance first. And Ezra and I have a very focused definition of abundance. We believe, we say in the first page of the book, America needs to build and invent more of the things it needs. We believe that housing is critical.

And I thought what we need to solve for this crisis of penumbral scarcity is an abundance agenda. an approach towards solving America's problems that puts abundance first. And Ezra and I have a very focused definition of abundance. We believe, we say in the first page of the book, America needs to build and invent more of the things it needs. We believe that housing is critical.

And I thought what we need to solve for this crisis of penumbral scarcity is an abundance agenda. an approach towards solving America's problems that puts abundance first. And Ezra and I have a very focused definition of abundance. We believe, we say in the first page of the book, America needs to build and invent more of the things it needs. We believe that housing is critical.

We believe energy is critical. We talk a lot about science and technology. But we really put government effectiveness at the heart of this. Because one really deep vein of our book is a criticism of where liberalism has gone wrong in the last 50 years, where liberalism has gone from, in the New Deal era, a politics of building things.

We believe energy is critical. We talk a lot about science and technology. But we really put government effectiveness at the heart of this. Because one really deep vein of our book is a criticism of where liberalism has gone wrong in the last 50 years, where liberalism has gone from, in the New Deal era, a politics of building things.

We believe energy is critical. We talk a lot about science and technology. But we really put government effectiveness at the heart of this. Because one really deep vein of our book is a criticism of where liberalism has gone wrong in the last 50 years, where liberalism has gone from, in the New Deal era, a politics of building things.

I mean, FDR and the progressives transformed the physical world, not just with infrastructure projects, but with building roads, the highway system under Dwight Eisenhower. We changed the physical world during the decades, the 1930s to the 1950s. But in the last half century, liberalism has become very good at the politics of blocking rather than the politics of building.