iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 29/09/2026

Stuff like this needs to come with a warning label for normies.

Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 29/09/2026

Dual-class stock structures are most closely associated with tech companies today (specifically, those that have come public since 2004). Used to be mainly media companies. They are over 100 years old. I have a potted history in these screenshots from this article. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 24/09/2026

Added an ultrashort bond fund (BUBIX) to the comparison to underscore the role of duration risk. Even though average yields in BND are almost certainly higher throughout the comparison window, the medium-term fund can’t beat its ultrashort duration peer because the fund prices drop when rates rise.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 24/09/2026

Here’s a total return chart for the biggest bond fund vs. a leading S&P 500 ETF since 2020, with all dividends reinvested. Equities outperforming is the dramatic difference, but don’t sleep on the bond fund having terrible absolute returns (negative, on a real basis).

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 15/09/2026

US vs. European wealth composition, top 10%. TLDR, Americans own a lot of stocks whereas Euros own property. Caveat: this understates pensions, but still captures big picture equity mix. Data is from 2023 based on ECB report QT’d👇 (pp. 101 & 104), which I prompted ChatGPT to chart more legibly.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 15/09/2026

Pretty grim that investment advice seamlessly transitioned years ago from recommending substantial allocations to *individual bonds* to recommending *bond funds*, as if they’re just a bunch of bonds bundled together. Here’s the performance of the leading bond ETF during its 20-year life.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 03/09/2026

Real ones remember the hacking of the Seattle school system.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 02/09/2026

Last sentence of the screenshot undersells it, but hopefully the idea comes across that bond funds lose value when yields go up. To the typical investor holding a treasury or corporate bond (not fund) to maturity for income, these price swings don’t matter. www.wsj.com/finance/inve... on n

There is a difference between holding individual bonds and holding bond funds. An individual bond has a fixed maturity date, so as long as the issuer doesn’t default or call the bond early, you are contractually guaranteed to receive 100% of its face value at maturity, regardless of price fluctuations along the way.

In contrast, a bond fund is an open-ended portfolio that continuously buys and sells bonds to maintain a target duration, which is a measure of a bond’s sensitivity to interest rates. Because it never matures as a single unit, rate spikes can lead to prolonged paper losses, or realized losses if you sell during a down cycle.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 28/08/2026

Nick Bloom (Stanford economist studying remote work) with data showing the large and stable increase in WFH, with associated impacts. The SWAA he runs is the best survey evidence. Kastle tracks office card swipes and Pacer ai is foot traffic, inferred from mobile phone locations. lnkd.in/p/geqyNDHV

“Work from home dark matter” - we see WFH in big data, yet the news is all about the Return to Office. Why the disconnect between fact and narrative?

Below are three completely different data series, all telling the same story: the Return to Office has largely stalled out.

Surveys: Full days worked from home in the US have stabilized at about 25%, based on 6,000 responses a month from SWAA data.

Office use: Kastle Systems data show office occupancy has stabilized at about 40% down vs February 2020 levels, based on 2,600+ buildings.

Mobility data: Placer.ai data show foot traffic into office locations has stabilized at 25% below July 2019 levels, based on 700+ locations.

Different measures. Different datasets. Same conclusion.

So next time your Manager/Investor/Friend/Toddler/Parrot says, “I heard everyone is returning to the office,” ask: is that representative?

Slide pack with data sources below.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 27/08/2026

This gets at what I was trying to say here. Quote is the CEO of Camden (publicly-traded multifamily housing provider) explaining the difference in how they react to a shortage in the Sunbelt vs. the Midwest. (From @conorsen.bsky.social's excellent newsletter: conorsen.substack.com/p/these-midw...)

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 26/08/2026

Tempe, AZ city hall (1970), exemplar of midcentury modern architecture and the YOLO school of municipal operating costs.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 26/08/2026

Syracuse has the same pattern (big jump) as the other Rust Belt cities post Covid

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 25/08/2026

Today, we can all make our fortunes the David Ricardo way

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 25/08/2026

Sending a copy of this to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 21/08/2026

*stock market voice* it's not better

1Y return chart showing Microsoft significantly underperforming QQQ, GOOG, AMZN, AAPL

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 19/08/2026

A student come up after class today to introduce himself and say he was a Harrier pilot. Contracts professor day made.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 17/08/2026

Back on my bulls***, teaching edition. Did a major overhaul since the last time I taught it.

Beginning of Transportation Law and Policy course description

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 16/08/2026

Ready to start the new year with my Contracts 1Ls and transportation law students. Let’s gooooo! @asulaw.bsky.social

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 10/08/2026

AALS Section on State and Local Government Law -- CFP for January 2027 Annual Meeting in NYC: "Shaping the Future of State and Local Government: Innovation in the Landscape of Limited Resources" Abstracts (300 words) due Sept. 10

A CALL FOR SPEAKERS FOR AALS SECTION ON STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Shaping the Future of State and Local Government: Innovation in the Landscape of Limited Resources

The AALS State and Local Government Law Section is pleased to announce a Call for Speakers from which several presenters will be selected for its program to be held during the AALS 2027 Annual Meeting in New York City from January 5-8, 2027. The program, described below and Co-Sponsored by the Section on Community and Economic Development, is entitled Shaping the Future of State and Local Government: Innovation in the Landscape of Limited Resources.

Program Description

Two years ago, our section explored the initial wave of AI exploration with the program titled Local Government: Innovation, Legislation and AI Transformation. Last year, our section turned its focus to state and local governments facing a growing gap in capacity with the program titled Crisis and Capacity: State and Local Government Law in a Time of Restraint. Our program this year seeks to bridge these two themes by exploring a broader, bolder vision of state and local government innovation, keeping in mind that these organizations often have limited capacity and resources.

State and local governments are at a historical crossroads in confronting the realities of finite resources, such as personnel shortages, aging infrastructure, and climate change. At the same time, they are navigating a rapid new set of AI and other high-tech tools while keeping low-tech tools such as code revisions on the forefront of change. We want to move beyond looking at innovative technology as a luxury and instead focus on how it can solve every day, practical problems under constrained budgets. This means examining both high-tech tools like automated administration and low-tech fixes like updating zoning rules. Ultimately, we want to highlight real-world legal and policy ideas that help communities do more with the resources they already and invest i…

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 31/07/2026

She's talented at making other people's things her thing. Let's go all the way back to early July. The day before Platner dropped out—when her fellow travelers were still trying to shout down his victims by blaming AIPAC—she makes AIPAC the bad guy in her own story *without* accusing them directly.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 30/07/2026

Indeed, electrifying transportation is important...

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 29/07/2026

Jennifer Roback, Wages, Rents, and the Quality of Life, 90 J. Pol. Econ. 1257 (1982)

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 28/07/2026

There are historical reasons for siting big parks like Wilson Park in Detroit or Grant Park in Chicago along rivers & lakefronts. But doing so without permitting adjacent intensification of housing consigns them to occasional destination use rather than letting them blossom into everyday amenities.

Ralph Wilson Park in Detroit, with Happy 325th Detroit branding.

Ralph WIlson park with adjacent, low-intensity land uses

Grant Park, bisected by Lake Shore Drive and abutting the overwhelmingly commercial Loop

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 28/07/2026

US Commuting Zones and Labor Market Areas: Evidence from the NBA

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 23/07/2026

The new DSA platform suggests that the problem with transportation policy in the United States is private enterprise rather than inept public institutions.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 22/07/2026

On a per capita basis, we have probably never imported less oil (or other energy), and much of it is from the Americas. Now, maybe that's part of your model (Canada stops exporting or something), but in a dire case like that you'd want to incorporate export restrictions and we are net-exporters.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 19/07/2026

Observing school politics, every time

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 17/07/2026

Me explaining the law review submission process

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 13/07/2026

Bold idea to advance rail electrification: What if we rebranded them “dogenaries” given the popularity advantages of dogs?

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 13/07/2026

Ope! Let me just sneak past ya there.

From a random FB-algo-fed post: “In 1953, the 634-foot-long, 70-foot-wide Marine Angel transited the Chicago River. The freighter had only seven inches of clearance on each side at Van Buren Street, and was the largest ship to ply the river, and also set a record as the largest vessel to navigate the Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway.”

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 10/07/2026

🚨 New ~Densely Speaking~ season starts next week!!! 🚨 Subscribe here or wherever you get your podcasts for interviews about new work on cities, economics & law, hosted by @jeffrlin.bsky.social and me. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d... (Bonus pic of my dog because he’s a good boy.)

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 09/07/2026

All set up at U of C. Have managed to bug @gottliebecon.bsky.social a few times already and tour the library’s map collection. Let me know if you’re around and want to get lunch at the food trucks!

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 09/07/2026

Mamdani is doing the sound mayoral transportation reforms that his more mainstream predecessors largely failed to. He correctly recognizes that they’re popular—and will only become more so once implemented—and he is appropriately exercising his authority. repository.law.umich.edu/jlm/vol2025/...

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 08/07/2026

Democratic primaries in 2026 are just the Tobias and Lindsay meme over and over again

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 01/07/2026

There’s little question housing affordability is deteriorating but I don’t think it’s currently that bleak. SFHs currently for sale in Berwyn, for example.

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 01/07/2026

Interesting opinion piece (paywalled, unfortunately). "The humanities are not compromised and beleaguered because they’re driven by social-justice objectives; they’re driven by social-justice objectives because they’re compromised and beleaguered." www.chronicle.com/article/soci...

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Greg Shill @gregshill.com · 17/06/2026

This is a chart I wish the remote work discourse would more fully internalize. It shows the employment level among prime-age Americans with disabilities rising by nearly one quarter post-pandemic (from ~31% to approaching 39%). It's up even more from 2016. This is almost certainly hybrid work & WFH.

https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/work-from-home-is-here-to-stayeven-if-some-ceos-dont-love-it-5bd6690a?st=hq9Wsk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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