| Three days after the Primary That Shook the Universe, we know what next year's Congress won't include: House majority leader Eric Cantor. In his place there will be lots (more) partisan rancor, a decent chance of another debt-ceiling battle, and an economics professor named David Brat. Brat ran at Cantor from the right, and his academic pedigree means that he's left a long paper trail over the years. When Brat gave credit to God in his victory speech, it wasn't just posturing. "In his writings, Brat seems eager to fuse Christianity and the generally secular field of academic economics", says Kevin Roose. Brat's work often focuses on what makes countries rich or poor, and he closely links Protestant beliefs with free markets. In a 2004 paper he wrote, "give me a country in 1600 that had a Protestant-led contest for religious and political power and I will show you a country that is rich today". Protestantism, he says, "provides an efficient set of property rights and encourages a modern set of economic incentives". That's not an entirely new idea. "Sociologist Max Weber said essentially the same thing (only much, much better)" back in 1905, says Candida Moss. Matt O'Brien writes that "in an unpublished 2005 paper, [Brat] insists that '[Adam] Smith was from a red state,' because 'the culture and context which produced him was overwhelmingly Protestant'". Patrick Iber points out that Brat, in his dissertation, ascribed very high importance to capital used for research and development — capital that he said is best generated through decentralized government structures and free markets. Brat's free market beliefs won't necessarily make him as friendly to Wall Street as Cantor. Brat "attacks 'crony capitalism' from the right", says David Weigel, who notes Brat doesn't call for more regulation, but does believe in the prosecution of illegal behavior on Wall Street. One of Brat's biggest criticisms of Cantor was that the majority leader was too eager to give out special favors to big business. The corporate world has "lost a major defender of their favored policies—from the beneficial tax treatment of private equity income to immigration reforms favored by the country's biggest tech companies", Jia Lynn Yang writes in the Washington Post. (One of the biggest issues that Brat campaigned on was immigration, painting Cantor as too lenient toward undocumented migrants because he supported a modified version of the DREAM Act.) Perhaps the most critical of Brat so far has been Georgetown economist Harry Holzer, who said in an email to Timothy Noah, "If Christianity is so crucial, what explains the explosion of growth in China, India and other Asian countries (did they experience an explosion of Christianity that I missed)?". – Jordan Fraade On to today's links: Planned Obsolescence
The 747, one of the most iconic planes in history, is losing serious market share - David Yanofsky Mea Culpas
Krugman on being wrong - Paul Krugman Bitcoin
Aaaaand the first major U.S. university to start accepting bitcoin is...Dinesh D'Souza's old stomping grounds - CoinDesk Your Daily Outrage
"Because this disaster is playing out a bit at a time, such that our expectations slowly adjust, we tolerate it" - Ryan Avent Technically Speaking
The end of the internet is upon us (or at least the end of IPv4) - Ars Technica New Normal
United Airlines is changing its Frequent Flier program to benefit high rollers - Bloomberg View Charts
Economic growth, state by state - Vox Cephalopods
"We have influence, but it's the softest of the soft power, the softest of the soft influence," Mr. Blankfein said - WSJ | 
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