This is a thread on the single greatest urban paddle in the world that many chicago ppl don’t even know exists but which you can do even if you don’t own a kayak. I brought my kayak down to the Ogden Slip which is right behind the Target on Illinois ave but you can rent or take a tour from the folks at Urban Kayaks right on the river walk in that green building.

We live in the city, don’t have a home in the country or some place to escape to. So we decided to make our outdoors to be a family project in the backyard. Using only what we could learn on YouTube, build a patio with a fire pit and make s’mores together. /1 Our space is 10’x11’ out the back door. We ordered materials from the good folks at Lurveys and they brought it to the curb. Shockingly, it was about 8000 lbs of materials—gravel, sand, and stones

On the 10th anniversary of Dodd-Frank, the Obama Foundation has a great look back at wall st reform: obama.org/wall-street-re…

They asked if I would do a short thread on it. So here's 10 tweets for the 10th anniversary. A decade ago, we signed Dodd-Frank into law—an act with many complex fixes, but one that was fundamentally about reestablishing the rules of the road to prevent things like the financial crisis from happening again and make it less destructive when things went wrong. 1/

A thread on new work Syverson and I just released looking in depth at the impact shutdown orders (and repeals). Short version: they don't do much. Of the 60% drop in consumer activity, only 7 came from shutdown orders. Fear of the virus is the main thing. bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/… We have consumer visits to 2.3m businesses in 110 industries through the crisis. We tracked down the county level shutdown orders and can compare across borders in the same metro area where the policy differs. Lockdown orders don't matter much. Visits plunge on both sides.

My three scene run-of-show of the economic crisis:

Scene 1:VIRUS ECONOMICS
Here the most important thing you can do for the economy is slow the virus or show it has a lower bound. Pay sick not to work, buy ventilators, test/isolate. Nothing works until you get a handle on this. Scene 2: PREVENT FOREVER DAMAGE FROM NOW PROBLEMS
Even if it rebounds soon, many businesses & ppl will not be able to survive the shock. Extensions on loans, food stamps, bankruptcy/foreclosure moratoria, money to stave off permanent collapse is key here.

Excellent @jasonfurman thread about sick leave.

Rule #1 rule of virus economics: the best thing for the economy is anything that slows the spread of the virus

Rule #2: work to prevent permanent damage from a temporary fall

https://twitter.com/jasonfurman/status/1239174689316048896

So for #1, this means that things which we would normally view as reducing output—like paying infected people not to come to work—can actually be critically important stimulus by reducing the spread of the virus