Caoimhín Páirc
@kparkplace.bsky.social
Housing and homesteading Yancey County NC is treasa tuath na tighearna All views are my own.
New Housing Frame: Gen Z Doesn't Need to Give Up on Homeownership -- young people have low unemployment, are investing early, and have demographic trends on their side conorsen.substack.com/p/gen-z-does...
Showing the Matrix to my kids for the first time. The movie did get the "united in celebration" part wrong.
Mortgages outstanding briefly looked like it might start leveling out after Covid, but it has continued to be a relative negative liquidity source. Mortgages/GDP still dropping. Total loan to value the lowest since the 1950s. fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XW7W
FRED Graph
FRED Graph
fred.stlouisfed.org
Y'all... the Band of the Coldstream Guards performed "9 to 5" in front of Buckingham Palace in honor of Dolly Parton.
Patron Saint of Appalachia
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2w agoBreaking News: Dolly Parton, the country singer, songwriter, entertainer and entrepreneur known for her outsize persona and prodigious vision and talent that placed her in a class by herself, has died at 80. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/a...
A friend found this clipping in some old files. Haven't seen this before. Mind blown.
gillcels seethe after getting mogged by oxygenmaxxing lungschads bsky.app/profile/desi...
The Lincolnshire Poster@desiderratum.bsky.social · 4w agoIt's even crazier than that. Lungs are so much more efficient than gills that breathing water is basically undesirable for marine mammals. This is presumably also why prehistoric marine reptiles prospered as they did
RIP to Cooter from The Dukes of Hazzard, who was once a subscriber to my newsletter but then got mad about something I wrote www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/b...
Here's what happened this week in North Carolina politics. [Friday, August 7, 2026] Protip: try half a gummy first before you pop the whole thing.
as a kid I liked math and thought I was good at it and then I got to college and learned that real math is contemptuous of numbers and it confuses and terrifies me
Elizabeth Nolan Brown@enbrown.bsky.social · last mo.My 4-year/old just learned about the concept of infinity and is now throwing a tantrum over it. “It’s weird! I don’t like it. I just want numbers to stop!”
Zoning in places like North Carolina's Triangle makes it illegal to build the most naturally affordable type of apartments, and jacks up minimum lot sizes so that it's impossible to build starter homes. No wonder prices are rising. Let's fix it! www.newsobserver.com/news/busines...
Its bizarre that its illegal to grow a plant but all these synthetic drugs are freely available.
Governor Josh Stein@ncgovernor.bsky.social · last mo.Tomorrow the House is considering a bill that aims to eliminate the Wild West that is North Carolina’s THC market. For some reason, the bill also legalizes kratom, an opioid-like substance sometimes called gas station heroin, and fails to include any meaningful age restrictions.
Rep. Edwards recommended for censure by Ethics committee for sexual harassment www.newsobserver.com/news/politic...
House Committee recommends censure for Rep. Edwards of NC for sexual harassment
The House Committee on Ethics recommended a censure against the NC representative for sexual harassment and a hostile work environment.
newsobserver.com
This is deadass every republican campaign ad here in the south. I'm not even REMOTELY JOKING.
Burnsville has less than 2,000 people and neither it nor the surrounding county has grown much in decades
Map of implicit land taxes across the United States:
Land 🔰alue Tax Would Solve This 🌇🏗️@lvtyimby.bsky.social · last mo.New paper from Daniel Murphy and Nathan Seegert studying the effects of implicit land taxes in cases where tax assessments weigh land differently from market valuations. Finding: Higher implicit land taxes increase density, earnings, and firm growth. 🔰🔰🔰 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
I've hypothesized this before. Its an issue for risk based pricing in mortgages. Charging a high risk driver a higher premium does not impact the likelihood of a car crash, but charging a high risk borrower a higher interest rate can increase the likelihood of default.
NBER@nber.org · last mo.Credit scores cause at least part of the default they predict for risky borrowers. A score assessed on separating defaulters from non-defaulters is rewarded for defaults it causes, from Victor Duarte and Julia Fonseca www.nber.org/papers/w35508
There is a directly related phenomenon that I like to call the third rail principle where not only does the public sector have high turnover, but specifically who is turning over becomes a larger negative for the agency. Humor me with this thread. 🧵
Marco Chitti@chittimarco.bsky.social · 2mo agoMy petty theory is that a lot of the dysfunctionalaty that we see in project planning nd delivery in the anglosphere is due to high turnover and outsourcing killing the capacity of agencies to retain that implicit knowledge.
On my legal research grind, I came across the question, "When does one "recieve" an email?" www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1078...
This also underscores the point that the people who are currently “running the government like a business” don’t know how to run businesses either
Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · 2mo agoA quick word on Taco Bell: That's where we found the suspected lettuce, and it's not bc Taco Bell is gross. It's bc Taco Bell is REALLY GOOD at tracing product! Keeping track of exactly where they got their ingredients, & exactly what restaurants each shipment of ingredients went to!
A few clouds and cool temperatures couldn’t stop us! Anna and I had fun spending time with State Park Rangers at Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi River. Even in the mist, it’s absolutely beautiful.
Despite wearing sunscreen, my wife got sunburnt on our first day *in Ireland*. Its been extremely hot and sunny here.
Chris Hayes@chrislhayes.bsky.social · 2mo agoSo far this year we've had: the warmest winter on record in the mountain west, a record-shattering heat wave in Europe, once in a thousand year rainfall and flooding texas and forest fire smoke blanketing the mid west and the north east. Feels like something's going on with the climate!
lying on my deathbed, thinking of all the actionable business insights that I delivered
NC is an interesting outlier with high increase in density but also high increase in VMT
Yonah Freemark@yonahfreemark.com · 2mo agoA new report from @frontiergroup.bsky.social shows how some states have reduced vehicle miles traveled per capita: frontiergroup.org/resources/wh... One key explanation: Land use! ⏬ States with higher population densities have less car travel! And states that grew through density reduced driving!
