WSJ: “What if there were a million Zuckerbergs, or 100 million, all capable of doing amazing things? These “high-agency” people are being unleashed, Gian Segato, of the artificial-intelligence company Replit, said in an interview last week. He helped design AI tools to let you “turn your ideas into apps” using natural language instead of having to write code. Replit is taking off like a roadrunner, from $10 million in annual recurring revenue six months ago to $100 million today. Cursor AI and other competitors are experiencing similar growth. Tools now exist that can “make their vision happen,” Mr. Segato says. “AI isn’t democratizing the information part that is done by the internet. It’s democratizing actually making things.” High-agency people “have vision and drive—and now the tools.” And they’re cheap. “Intelligence just went from ‘I need to pay an engineer $200,000 a year’ to paying 20 bucks a month.””
Arnold Kling: “In naive economics, individuals and firms act on behalf of their own interests, but government does not. Instead, government corrects market failures and redistributes income from a God’s-eye perspective. But what if government actions are instead result from officials acting on behalf of their own interests? Posing that question gave rise to what become known as Public Choice Theory. I prefer to call it Political Realism.” More: “Starting from a free-market outcome, where can we expect political equilibrium to arrive? Well, if all of the special interests were happy with the free-market outcome, it would not change much. If it changes much, it is likely to be worse, along the lines of my aphorism that policy in practice is to subsidize demand and restrict supply.”
Morning Context: “India’s wealth management sector has witnessed exponential growth in managed assets, rising from less than $50 billion in the 1990s to an estimated $1.1 trillion by 2025…In the 1990s, economic reforms and rising wealth led to the birth of wealth management services for high-net-worth individuals (HNIs). Between 2000 and 2010, private banks and mutual funds expanded the market, growing managed assets to $200-250 billion. From 2010 to 2020, digital platforms, clearer regulations (through the rich internet application, or RIA, framework) and the rise of mass affluent investors doubled the market to $400-500 billion. Since 2020, rapid growth in smaller cities (beyond the top 30), fintech innovation and stronger investor interest have further accelerated this trend.”
Economist: “Future gains [against cancer] will come from three main sources. Some will come by applying lessons from the rich world all across the globe. The overlooked success story in the fight against cancer has been prevention—perhaps because cancers that never happen are less visible than those that are cured. For example, smoking rates have plummeted in rich countries…Another source of progress will be cheaper medicines and extra wealth to pay for them…And the last source of progress will be the clinical application of fresh science. This comes in two steps: identifying who is most at risk of developing a cancer, and then finding ways to stop the disease in its tracks.”
