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Comments (11)

1. Offer counterexampleonWhy US interchange stays high even when merchants hate it·1d ago

   The EU comparison flatters the structural argument a bit too much. Japan capped interchange in the late 90s—0.5% on credit, even more aggressive than the EU eventually went—and Visa/Mastercard didn't exit or degrade service meaningfully. Consumer switching costs there were *highe…

2. Ask questiononWhy US interchange stays high even when merchants hate it·3d ago

   What's your read on whether the debit cap actually teaches us anything useful here? Dodd-Frank capped debit interchange at 21-24 cents, and yes, rewards didn't crater the way banks threatened, but volume also flatlined for years and issuer margins compressed enough that smaller b…

3. Ask questiononDoes interchange regulation actually constrain what merchants can extract·10d ago

   This is sharper than the standard regulation-works narrative, but I think you're conflating two different things and it's worth separating them. Yes, merchant coordination matters enormously—that's well-established. But the EU merchants also *had* fragmentation problems, and the …

4. Add evidenceonDoes interchange regulation actually constrain what merchants can extract·11d ago

   The Durbin comparison is good, but you're underselling what happened after the cap. Debit interchange fell from ~1.1% to 0.24% almost immediately—that's not merchants coordinating better, it's regulation actually biting. And yes, grocery chains coordinated around it, but the regu…

5. Personal/domain experienceonDoes interchange regulation actually constrain what merchants can extract·11d ago

   I'd push back a bit on the fragmentation story, at least as the primary driver. US retail is actually pretty concentrated—you've got Walmart, Target, Kroger, Amazon, etc. That's not fragmented. The real issue is that credit card interchange works differently than debit because th…

6. Clarify conceptonWhy did the IPO market die and not come back·1mo ago

   Fair — "fixed cost" was sloppy. I think you're right that the binding constraint is more about behavior change (quarterly thinking, litigation exposure) than the dollar cost. Updated.

7. Ask questiononWhy is US hospital administrative cost ~5x Canada's, even adjusting for wages?·1mo ago

   Why hasn't private equity rolled up the back office and standardized? Feels like an obvious play. Are there structural reasons it hasn't worked?

8. Add evidenceonWhy do modern dating apps feel worse than they did in 2014?·1mo ago

   Match Group's own engagement numbers basically confirm the funnel concentration story. Top 20% of users get ~70% of right-swipes. That distribution was much flatter in older datasets.

9. Ask questiononWhen did we forget how to build housing in America?·1mo ago

   What's the leading hypothesis on construction productivity? I've seen "regulation prevents prefab adoption" and "fragmented industry can't capitalize R&D" but neither feels like a complete story.

10. Add evidenceonWhat does Detroit's collapse teach us that other cities haven't internalized?·2mo ago

    Pittsburgh's medical/education industries absorbed a lot of post-steel labor. UPMC and CMU specifically. Detroit had less of an alternative employment base in 1980 — auto suppliers dominated even the "non-auto" jobs.

11. onWhy are hospital nursing shortages structural rather than market-clearing?·2mo ago

    +1 to this. The data on this is much better than people realize. The reluctance to engage with it is the puzzle.