The WSJ has the story. (The headline and subhead are sufficient):
What Went Wrong at Saudi Arabia’s Futuristic Metropolis in the Desert
Neom executives shielded the crown prince from the challenges of his fantastical plans, including by engaging in ‘deliberate manipulation’ of financials, an internal report found . By Eliot Brown and Rory Jones
Here's a modern view from Times Square. (Note the warning and font size in yellow at the bottom of the sign...)
Queue parasites...
"The county tax collector’s office announced on Monday that it had “uncovered a network of appointment scalpers” benefiting from access to motor vehicles offices by “hoarding free appointments and reselling them for a profit.”
“We know who they are and how they operate,” Dariel Fernandez, the Miami-Dade tax collector, said in a statement. “We will not accept any appointment obtained through system abuse.”
"The scalpers found so far have not been punished, because the practice was not illegal, but there is already an effort to change that and make it a civil offense.
...
"The suspicious activity in Miami-Dade was discovered this year after the tax collector’s office began to take the processing of driver’s licenses from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, as had been approved under a constitutional amendment. During the transition, new software and security protocols were adopted in at least two locations in Miami."
Here's an interview with Atul Gawande, about the destruction of USAID. The latter part of the url says it succinctly: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/atul-gawande-on-elon-musks-surgery-with-a-chainsaw
"A lot of people are going to die as a result of this. Am I wrong?
"The internal estimates are that more than a hundred and sixty thousand people will die from malaria per year, from the abandonment of these programs, if they’re not restored. We’re talking about twenty million people dependent on H.I.V. medicines—and you have to calculate how many you think will get back on, and how many will die in a year. But you’re talking hundreds of thousands in Year One at a minimum. But then on immunization side, you’re talking about more than a million estimated deaths."
In the Journal of Cultural Economy, sociologists reflect on their involvement with engineers in a project to integrate wind-generated electricity in Denmark.
Ossandón, J., & Pallesen, T. (2025). The new new economic sociology – the market intervention test. Journal of Cultural Economy, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2025.2451252
ABSTRACT: "This paper explores what happens when the ‘new new economic sociology’ – the figure created with Callon’s importation of ANT to the study of markets – intervenes in market interventions. Empirically, the paper examines a situation in which a researcher moves out of her habitual position of studying economists and engineers doing markets, to instead take part in an effort of engineering a market. The paper has two contributions. One is analytical. We propose a framework to inspect that special constrained situation in which the new new economic sociology coexists with market design. The second contribution is more practical. We hope what we propose in this paper, will help others in a similar situation to understand the particular direction of their intervention. "
Here's the announcemnt; the ceremony is tomorrow.
"On Friday 21 March, two of the world’s most influential economists and research pioneers will be appointed honorary doctors at CBS. Join us for open lectures where they share their insights into gender equality, economic value creation and the invisible structures shaping the job market."
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Bonus picture, from (I think) an early workshop for The Handbook Experimental Economics vol. 2:
The NYT has the story:
What Works for Low Back Pain? Not Much, a New Study Says
Researchers looked at 56 treatments for acute and chronic pain. Few of them were effective. By Nina Agrawal
"Acetaminophen. Acupuncture. Massage. Muscle relaxants. Cannabinoids. Opioids. The list of available treatments for low back pain goes on and on. But there’s not good evidence that these treatments actually reduce the pain, according to a new study that summarized the results of hundreds of randomized trials.
Low back pain affects an estimated one in four American adults and is the leading contributor to disability globally. In most diagnosed cases, the pain is considered “nonspecific,” meaning it doesn’t have a clear cause. That’s also partly what makes it so hard to treat.
In the study, published on Tuesday in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, researchers reviewed 301 randomized trials that compared 56 noninvasive treatments for low back pain, like medications and exercise, with placebos.
...
The researchers found that only one treatment — the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, like ibuprofen and aspirin — was effective at reducing short-term, or acute, low back pain. Five other treatments had good enough evidence to be considered effective at reducing chronic low back pain. These were exercise; spinal manipulation, like you might receive from a chiropractor; taping the lower back; antidepressants; and the application of a cream that creates a warming sensation. Even so, the benefit was small.
“The big takeaways from this paper are that low back pain is exceptionally difficult to treat,” said Steve Davidson, the associate director of the N.Y.U. Pain Research Center, who was not involved in the study. “There are a few treatments that they found that were effective, but those that were effective are marginally clinically effective.”
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