Latest news with #Abundance
Politico
7 hours ago
- Business
- Politico
5 questions for Rep. Ro Khanna
With help from Aaron Mak Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has been one of the more nuanced Democratic critics of the tech sector during President Donald Trump's second administration. Khanna, whose district covers Silicon Valley, continues to talk up the promise of the sector even as he criticizes tech luminaries like Elon Musk and David Sacks, who he's known for years, for cozying up (before, in Musk's case, a very public breakup) to the president. Musk actually wrote a testimonial for a 2012 book by Khanna, who worked in the Commerce Department during the Obama administration at the time. Khanna speaks with us about how the government needs to think about bolstering career paths in a world dominated by artificial intelligence, and how the tech ecosystem is laden with companies using AI as a buzzword. The following has been edited for length and clarity. What's one underrated big idea? Biotechnology integration with AI has not gotten the attention it should. An AI's use in being able to discover new patterns with proteins and identify new possibilities for gene therapy and drugs is extraordinary, and there's a possibility for exponential advances in medicine over this next decade. What's a technology that you think is overhyped? There's a lot of business plans for startups now that have the word AI in them. It's almost like to get funding, you need to do something AI, and like the time of startups during the .com boom, many of those companies aren't making substantive contributions and will be weeded out. But there are a lot of companies doing substantive things with AI that will thrive. But, you know, it's become trendy to describe almost every company in Silicon Valley as an AI company. What could the government be doing regarding technology that it isn't? We need to make sure every kid in America has an understanding of AI and can use the tools of AI for their jobs. Whether someone is going to be a nurse, an electrician, a writer, a health care worker, they're going to need to use the basic AI tools and technology. Proficiency needs to be as common as reading and writing in our schools. We also need to think about what a job strategy looks like in AI, especially for young Americans. College graduates between the ages of 21 and 29 have a 15 percent unemployment rate. [We need to think] about what path there will be for young lawyers and young health care professionals, young college graduates with AI. The government needs to really think about the opportunities that are going to exist for those jobs and how to create them. What book most shaped your conception of the future? Right now, I'm reading 'Abundance,' about building more and building faster in America, and that outcome is a common aspiration that I think many Americans share. What has surprised you the most this year with regards to tech? The rapidness with which AI models are progressing. The rapidness with which they're being adopted in certain industries and the concern of jobs for, particularly young college graduates, and the concern about how we're going to address the economic prospects in a digital world. Moolenaar goes on offense After introducing a bill virtually banning federal use of AI linked to foreign adversaries earlier this week, House China Chair John Moolenaar is now urging the Trump administration to implement specific measures to constrain China's influence in the AI sector. In a Friday letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Moolenaar (R-Mich.) pushed eight recommendations for guardrails to strengthen the U.S.'s strategic position in its AI race with China. The recommendations include recruiting allies to keep China away from AI supply chains and implementing stricter security requirements for overseas data centers. Moolenaar has been mounting a campaign to promote an 'America First AI Policy,' which he describes in his letter as 'protect[ing] our lead in artificial intelligence and prevent[ing] the People's Republic of China (PRC) from co-opting the global AI ecosystem.' Moolenaar, in an interview with DFD earlier this month, stressed the importance of preventing chip smuggling and warned of China using AI for surveillance and propaganda. Scientific 'refugees' flee the U.S. The first cadre of American researchers are taking advantage of France's €15 million bid to recruit disaffected scientists. POLITICO Europe's Victor Goury-Laffont reported on Thursday that eight applicants are in the final stages of joining Aix-Marseille University's Safe Place for Science program in France, which will hire 20 U.S. academics who feel 'threatened in their research.' Nearly 300 people have applied. Many of the final applicants have not publicly disclosed their identities, but they include two researchers studying climate change and one studying judicial systems, as well as a biological anthropologist. Northern Illinois University history professor Brian Sandberg, one of the applicants whose research includes climate change during the Little Ice Age period from roughly the 16th to 19th centuries, told POLITICO, 'The entire system of research and the entire education in the United States is really under attack.' France and the European Union have started initiatives to attract U.S. academic talent as President Donald Trump has moved to cut billions of dollars in federal research funding across the country. In response to the administration's actions, Aix-Marseille University President Eric Berton and former French President François Hollande have called for the creation of a new 'scientific refugee' status that would extend immigration support to academics. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak (amak@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
The Diplomat
13 hours ago
- Business
- The Diplomat
Achieving Australian Abundance
The central operating principle of Australia's current Labor Party government has been a 'whole-of-nation' approach to both national and foreign policy. The idea is that each sector of Australian society contributes to the country's overall capabilities, and each sector should see itself as part of a converging web of interrelated components that influence and affect one another. The key to effective statecraft is getting the fundamentals of a prosperous society right, and making sure these fundamentals are capable of adapting to changing circumstances. Urban planners may not recognize themselves as foreign policy actors, but if the most important capability Australia has is its human capital, then the environments that allow people to excel are imperative. This is the crossroads Australia currently finds itself at. Australia's present and future capabilities face two extraordinary hurdles. The first is the exorbitant cost of housing in the country – particularly in its major cities – and persistent impediments to boosting supply. The second is that Australian cities have urban rail networks that – due to irresponsible government neglect during the second half of the 20th century – are decades behind where they need to be for today's city populations, let alone projected future city growth. Combined, these two problems inhibit the flourishing of individual Australians, and the flourishing of the country's most economically productive urban centers. The result is a stifled country that is unable to fully unlock its potential, and therefore unable to navigate an increasingly complex and unstable world with confidence and sophistication. In recent interviews, Australia's treasurer, Jim Chalmers, recognized that this is a problem, and has begun discussing the Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson book, 'Abundance.' Or, as the kids say, Chalmers has been 'Abundance-pilled.' The central thesis of Klein and Thompson's book is that a dense web of regulations, processes, consultations, and reviews are getting in the way of producing outcomes that should be deemed 'progress.' They argue that in the United States – but this is also true of Australia – it is becoming to difficult and inefficient to build the things that are necessary for thriving societies. Or, as Chalmers has said, 'We want good things to happen, we've got to stop strangling good things from happening.' Yet in order to seriously address this problem, there is a major structural issue that needs to be both acknowledged and dealt with. Australia has one of the highest rates of tertiary education in the world. This is an absolute positive, and education should never be discouraged. But the unintended consequence of the rise of widespread tertiary education has been the lack of productive outlets, well-paid, or status-providing jobs for university graduates in the private sector. As a result, the state has felt the need to absorb this cohort into the bureaucracy. This has created a larger class of rule-makers and consultants, making rules and seeking rents for a greater array of aspects of life. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) there are now almost 1 million people working within Australia's various bureaucracies (state and federal), with an addition of 50,000 people in the last year alone. This is not a positive trajectory, but given the difficulty in actually reducing the size of the bureaucracy – especially in a city like Canberra, where government is the industry – the solution Chalmers and the rest of the Cabinet (as well as their state counterparts) may have to tackle is one of culture. For this, the government would need to find a way to shift the culture of the bureaucracy to see its personal rewards not in the administration of a web of complex rules, but in the production of efficient and effective outcomes. That is, a way of making pride flow from green lights, not red. Being able to unlock both a new vast supply of housing stock, and a great expansion of public works, is fundamental to addressing Australia's dire cost of living, but also addressing the country's major capability deficit in its lack of economic complexity. Affordable housing is essential for people to be able to take economic risks, and creativity thrives in urban centers with dense public transport networks. Therefore shifting the culture of the bureaucracy to have a laser-like focus on efficient outcomes also should create the conditions for tertiary educated Australians to find well-paid and high status jobs in the private sector – or create these jobs themselves. This would weaken the need for the state to absorb these highly educated people itself, and subsequently weaken some of the mechanisms that inhibit Australia's abundance.
Politico
a day ago
- Business
- Politico
‘Abundance' movement hits a labor wall in California
SAN FRANCISCO — California's Year of Abundance just crashed into political reality. For months, Democrats here raved about an ascendant movement to supercharge housing and energy infrastructure, mainlining the buzzy Ezra Klein book, 'Abundance.' Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential presidential contender, and allies in the Legislature argued that an aggressively pro-building agenda could lift their moribund fortunes by addressing skyrocketing housing prices while proving they are the party of bold action. But now top Democrats are confronting opposition from unions wary that the rush to ease regulations could undercut hard-fought wage and training standards. The animosity spilled over this week, with proposed new wage minimums for fast-tracked housing projects spurring a backlash from unions and some Democratic legislators. 'Abundance' may be a wonky rallying cry for many California Democrats. But for some of their closest allies, it has become a slur. 'On one hand, we have Gavin trying to sit down with these right-wing podcasters to talk about losing young men, and on the other hand he's putting his name on some bill that reduces the wages of working-class men in California,' California Labor Federation leader Lorena Gonzalez. 'Anyone who thinks this abundance movement is how we're going to get our groove back just hasn't talked to real people.' Or as state Sen. Dave Cortese, a San Jose Democrat and a staunch labor ally, put it: 'I've been around long enough to know that some of this latest trendy stuff is bullshit.' Democrats focused on spurring housing development insist they are on labor's side. They've enlisted an influential ally in California's carpenters union, and argue that crushing housing costs — the result of decades of under-building — are burdening the very working men and women unions represent. Democrats still reeling from defeats in 2024 are desperate to win back working-class voters who have fled the party. 'No one wants to actually go against labor — and not because they're powerful, but because we stand with labor,' said Matt Lewis, communications director for California YIMBY, an influential pro-development advocacy group. 'We don't want to undermine labor. We want people to have good wages and be able to live in the homes we've built.' But many union officials are unpersuaded. They recoiled when journalist Josh Barro tolda gathering of centrist Democrats last month that when he examined policies that 'stand in the way of abundance,' he'd often 'find a labor union,' following up with a post entitled, 'In Blue Cities, Abundance Will Require Fighting Labor Unions.' Barro does not speak for the nebulous abundance movement. But the kind of sentiment he expressed does little to disabuse progressives and union members of their belief that it is a Trojan Horse for the kinds of big-donor-friendly policies that have unmoored Democrats from their onetime base. The wage proposal in Sacramento this week offered them more evidence. 'Folks who want to make dramatic changes to the system to benefit their agenda like to repackage them as the new shiny thing,' said Scott Wetch, a longtime labor lobbyist who on Wednesday likened the bill to Jim Crow-era efforts to suppress wages. Gretchen Newsom, a representative of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Democrats should focus on struggling working-class voters. 'Instead,' said Newsom, who is not related to the governor, 'we're doing this abundance theory that is abundantly going to abandon workers.' It's widely accepted among politicians of both parties in California that building housing and infrastructure takes too long. San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council leader Carol Kim pointed to unions' efforts to translate Biden-era infrastructure funding into projects and jobs, noting that excessive red tape and delays posed 'the biggest challenge in convincing blue collar workers that Democrats were taking the right steps to help working people.' 'We've been doing that work, so this whole abundance stuff is not new,' Kim said. 'What some of us in labor right now are worried about is that it's absolutely being glommed onto by the bad actors, the people who use these types of exceptions to undermine job quality standards or fatten their own pockets.' In some ways, 'abundance' applies a new name to an old idea. Long before Klein's book with Derek Thompson was published, California Democrats — particularly in sapphire-blue San Francisco — had rallied around an agenda that faulted excessive regulation and protracted environmental reviews for stalling needed housing, driving up costs. Bills to speed up that process have repeatedly run into opposition from construction unions who warn of eroded labor standards. But this year the philosophy became inescapable. Legislative leaders met in San Francisco with Klein, who had already forged ties with housing-focused Bay Area elected Democrats. Newsom hosted Klein on his podcast, where the governor said 'abundance is fundamentally, foundationally who we are' and boasted about his administration forcing San Francisco to proceed with a contested housing project. 'You've got an ideological war that's going on in progressive cities,' Newsom told Klein. 'They don't believe in the supply-demand framework. They don't believe in this notion of abundance. Fundamentally, they don't have a growth mindset.' Weeks later, Newsom transformed California's housing debate by sweeping ambitious housing bills into his state budget proposal, putting more pressure on Democratic lawmakers to approve them. The maneuver thrilled abundance-aligned allies whose agenda was now being advanced at the highest echelons of political power. 'The Legislature has a chance to deliver the most significant housing and infrastructure reforms in decades,' Newsom's press office posted on X this week. 'This is our moment to build the California Dream for a new generation.' But Newsom also set up a showdown by making a budget deal contingent on passage of housing legislation. Labor and environmental groups condemned the wage proposal in extraordinarily acrimonious hearings where legislative Democrats echoed concerns about alienating allies. 'To ask the legislature to, in a very sweeping manner in the name of abundance or something ... take down years and years of thoughtful labor standards,' Cortese said, 'should be shocking to people.' Facing enormous pressure, lawmakers on Thursday pulled the minimum-wage bill in a compromise that reverted to existing labor standards, although the proposal could still resurface. Accompanying streamlining legislation was expected to be pared back during negotiations. Those shifts vindicated labor foes and underscored the volatile politics at play. 'The governor has historically pushed the boundaries and tested some creative policies,' said Joseph Cruz, executive director of the California State Council of Laborers. 'We have to make it easier to build in California, and I don't think anyone disputes that. But at what expense to workers?' Eric He contributed to this report.
West Australian
a day ago
- Business
- West Australian
Raymond Da Silva Rosa: Housing affordability forcing Blacks out of Liberal States
A recent New York Times report that 'housing affordability and quality of life concerns are pushing longtime Black New Yorkers out of the city' exemplifies a startling reality in the US. Liberal US cities and States such as New York and California, which are most likely to support causes such as Black Lives Matter, are also those with declining Black populations. The decline is because Blacks are leaving for 'red States'; Republican party dominated Trump strongholds, where housing is more affordable, and they can have a higher standard of living. Equally surprising is economist Noah Smith's report that fervently Trump-supporting red State Texas, an oil-producing State with a conservative culture, has built more solar energy capacity than liberal California, a deep blue State. Two recent books, Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson and We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of New Elite by sociologist Musa Al-Gharbi, provide much the same explanation as to how the surprising development came about: in essence, many well educated and well off US citizens are liberal in principle but self-interested in practice. Here's Al-Gharbi's take on the housing crisis: 'Although relatively affluent, highly educated white liberals are among the strongest proponents of affordable housing in principle, they often adopt a 'not in my backyard' position with regard to their own communities. Studies have consistently found that as cities trend increasingly left, denizens tend to choke off new housing development'. Here's Klein and Thompson's analysis of the same issue: 'Liberals might detest the language that Trump and Vance use to demonise immigrants. But blue America practices its own version of scarcity politics. Zoning regulations in liberal States and cities that restrict housing supply have increased costs far more than the recent influx of immigrants'. As for solar energy, long and expensive delays in getting through regulatory roadblocks designed to protect local interests are a principal reason California has fallen behind Texas in installing mega solar energy projects. The US's intense culture war between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans has no Australian equivalent but it is striking that just about all the many and varied problems described by Klein, Thompson and Al-Gharbi are familiar to us in Australia, including most prominently, the housing affordability crisis. It's not a stretch to appreciate the issues have arisen for the same reason: our unwillingness to acknowledge and accept necessary trade offs in making policies, that is, wanting to have our cake and eat it too. Reading Abundance can feel like receiving friendly fire if you lean left because it's obvious both Klein and Thompson are blue State liberals who wish to salvage the brand. In contrast, We Have Never Been Woke comes across as distinctly unfriendly and precisely targeted artillery. This narrative overlooks the role of liberal policies in creating his popularity. Klein and Thompson report that 'in the 2024 election, Donald Trump won by shifting almost every part of America to the right. But the signal Democrats should fear most is that the shift was largest in blue States and blue cities — the places where voters were most exposed to the day-to-day realities of liberal governance'. My guess is that it would be good in the present circumstance for those of us on the left to bear in mind the excellent advice when one is in a bad relationship: you can't change other people, you can only change yourself. The 'good news' in both books mentioned is that there seems to be a lot of scope for us to change for the better. Winthrop Professor Raymond Da Silva Rosa is an expert in finance from The University of Western Australia's Business School.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Is an extra 40cm the secret to happiness in the bedroom? This economics expert doesn't think so
It's not often that the book you're reading illuminates perfectly the strange reality of housing being played out in the nation's suburbs. But there I was, working my way through Abundance, the latest must - read in economics by American journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, which has become a clarion call aimed at the world's progressives, when just that happened. Abundance effectively argues that all the rules they helped create to protect the environment, prevent pollution, ensure people had quality housing and generally improve our standard of living have turned into a quagmire of red tape that is leaving people worse off. Everything from the efforts to decarbonise the world to ensuring people have affordable homes is being stymied by the left's bureaucratic success, or so say Klein and Thompson. And so pervasive is this book that about half of the federal cabinet has a dog-eared copy on their bed stands. With the key themes of the book still swirling in my head as I began to catch up on the news of the day, I was struck by a story by my colleague, Daniella White, about the bunfight over a multi-storey housing development in the northern Melbourne suburb of Greensborough. The story opened with the words: 'Apartments falling short of minimum space requirements' have been approved by the Victorian state government to help meet its housing targets. Loading Naturally, I found myself wondering what these minimum space requirements are. About 30 minutes later, after going down the rabbit hole that is state planning regulation, I discovered something quite discomforting. Under current regulations, the main bedroom in any new build has to measure at least 3 metres by 3.4 metres, while other bedrooms must be at least 3 metres by 3 metres.
