Michael Estrin

The U.S. identified key choke points that allowed it to weaponize the world’s payment, information, and physical infrastructure to achieve its ends. Musk’s DOGE is weaponizing the U.S. government’s payment, information, and physical infrastructure in highly similar ways, carrying out an end run around the political structures that are supposed to r... See more

A burrito is a sleeping bag for ground beef.

While everyone seems to agree there’s a housing shortage, there’s little agreement on its magnitude. The National Low Income Housing Coalition says the U.S. has a shortage of 7.3 million units, Realtor.com says 6.5 million, mortgage-finance company Fannie Mae says 4.4 million and Up for Growth, a policy group focused on the housing shortage, says 3... See more

DOGE operatives—one of them reportedly a recent high school graduate—have similarly taken control of key information systems at the Office of Personnel Management, locking out high-level career civil servants. This access provides Musk’s team with detailed and highly sensitive information on millions of government employees. It also has allowed the... See more

What they need to grasp—and quickly—is that Musk, and by extension Trump, appear to be trying to turn these technical systems into levers of control. If the two succeed, which is uncertain, they will have an unparallelled political advantage over the months and years to come. Even if they fail, their mistakes may have catastrophic consequences.

The canal is critical to the U.S. economy and trade. The U.S. is the largest user of the Panama Canal, with total U.S. commodity export and import containers representing about 73% of Panama Canal traffic, and 40% of all U.S. container traffic traveling through the Panama Canal every year. In all, roughly $270 billion in cargo is handled annually.

The U.S. should prioritise establishing centralised price negotiations for pharmaceuticals, similar to systems in Germany and the UK, to reduce drug prices. Implementing value-based care models can also help shif

As Nathan Tankus explains, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the part of the Treasury Department that handles payments for the federal government, is supposed to be technocratic and focused purely on making sure the money goes where it is supposed to. Nonetheless, because it acts as an intermediary between the government and the rest of the governm... See more