Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

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Skyscrapers and Curiosity

There’s a good entry on the Economix blog about why there are so many buildings in New York that are in a state of pause (after all, the price of apartments in Manhattan are still higher than the cost of building one). While the hypothesis is interesting (developers work mostly on borrowed money and getting financing is super tough at the moment), the opening line of the piece (which has nothing to do with real estate really got me): “Thinking like an economist often means coming to regard mundane, obvious things, like the prices of corn or cars, as great mysteries.”

I love that. It’s how I try to approach everything all the time (not that I’m always successful).

March 31, 2009