The guy who put a 19 year old named Big Balls in charge of gutting key government services: “experience matters when lives are at stake”

Made a chart…in case you needed one to show you that the president posts entirely too much. Data scraped from truth social.

Very interesting to see all of them laid out. I made a version from this data when he went on his posting spree at the beginning of the month. I concur - he posts too much. #dataviz

In late 2020 a Chinese man called Guan Heng travelled to Xinjiang with our BuzzFeed map of detention facilities to provide ground truth for our work - he provided the first corroborating evidence for many sites. He escaped to the US - then ICE detained him. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Good morning and welcome to your FT Weekend highlight giftlink thread. We start with this fantastic essay by Tim Wu, one of the big brains of web 1.0, cautioning that Silicon valley may be winning the AI battle to lose the bigger economic war to China as.ft.com/r/83deb81e-3...

ICE says it is pursuing “the worst of the worst,” but its own data shows that two-thirds of those arrested have no criminal convictions Scary in-depth report here on the ICE surveillance constellation ig.ft.com/us-ice-surve...

NEW: The Trump administration has argued that Fed board member Lisa Cook may have committed mortgage fraud by declaring more than one primary residence on her loans. We found that Trump once did the very thing he claimed could be a crime.

So what's the outcome? 2️⃣5️⃣ of the 27 Commissioners have posted in the last week 2️⃣4️⃣ of the 27 generally post every week (Albuquerque has never been on X, Ribera is sporadic, McGrath has somehow stopped) 0️⃣ have stopped as a result of what Twitter has become since the Musk takeover

I think if i won the under-14 title for the British Women’s Chess Association (BWCA) Girls Championship, you would probably hear me say quite a bit i was the champion. The Telegraph's own chess correspondent points out here why Reeves's is quite right to do so www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

Twitter pays people based on engagement (views, retweets, comments, etc). It appears that many MAGA accounts are based abroad and they use AI technology to generate low-effort rage bait. My guess is that this will get worse as AI tech improves. For instance, fake videos of minorities doing crime.

We won a prize last night for best essay! Based on our work using the FT's archive to develop an economic sentiment index (what we have called the 'macro mood') Essay will be live shortly, amalgamation of a few articles. Some details here: on.ft.com/4n2TVBq

"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975 “It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975

The BBC will fuck things up from time to time. Lots of major news organisations do; just look at The Times having to memoryhole several fake news stories in a matter of weeks. No one is calling for the abolition of The Times, however. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

How ever since Labour came to power, the British media has started to notice a whole series of problems they spent the previous 14 years completely ignoring www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-great-...

When deception’s more profitable than honesty, users lose. Internal documents suggest that Meta earns $3.5B(!) every 6 mo. from scam ads, revealing a deeper systemic problem: the economic incentive to tolerate “higher legal risk” content still outweighs any penalty. www.reuters.com/investigatio...

Summing up Trump authoritarianism in one figure on.ft.com/3Xf3EZM

📢 I interviewed Thomas Piketty for the Financial Times 📢 We covered a lot of ground including populism (a term he despises), fiscal debt and the long-term trend of economic equality The full interview 👉 on.ft.com/4nFLyLk

Thomas Piketty in the FT! - fascinating Q&A exchange here with @joelsuss.ft.com www.ft.com/content/860f...

Also remarkable: the polarisation of young UK voters. Top two parties supported now Reform and Greens on.ft.com/4qKurLm Young Britons’ attitudes hardening on crime and welfare

Remarkable and surprising data on hardening attitudes towards welfare recipients in UK, especially among younger cohorts. Why now? on.ft.com/4qKurLm

1. Binance founder pardon after enriching Trump family 2. DT Jr. enmeshed in firms getting DOD contracts 3. Trump trying to extract $230 million for himself from DOJ

Why is WaPo now regularly publishing absolute nonsense from Telegraph columnists?! www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

I wrote about the economic costs of US political polarisation in the @financialtimes.com In short: they are high, due to myriad channels on.ft.com/47pDYhL

"Populism is often triggered by bad economies, but then makes what is already bad still worse." Martin Wolf on why escaping the populist trap is so difficult on.ft.com/4qn3Svn

Checking in on Trump’s mission to save Argentina’s foundering libertarian political experiment with American taxpayer cash.

Fantastic detailed reporting here on Trump inc “the heart of Trump’s newfound wealth is a rapidly growing cryptocurrency empire built by the president and his family.” on.ft.com/4olkLoi How the Trump companies made $1bn from crypto

Really interesting post by Tej Parikh on the declining effectiveness of monetary policy (e.g. due to more and longer fixed loan terms) Not clear though what central banks can do about it. Financial conditions targeting? What alternative to blunt interest rate tool? on.ft.com/4h34Hp6

Great detailed reporting here on how Netanyahu finally succumbed to pressure from a US president eg. Trump to Netanyahu (when he said Hamas delaying): “Why are you so fucking negative?” www.ft.com/content/6a62...

📢New piece from me on US inflation today in the @financialtimes.com📢 It's not just (still modest) tariff-related effects boosting core goods and headline above target, core services excluding housing remain elevated

Please join me in congratulating Woman on her appointment

Eeee the cover for the UK edition of How to Win a Trade War is out! Pre-order your copy here... www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Trad...

Social media use appears to have peaked everywhere but North America on.ft.com/4gP83eW Have we passed peak social media?

I always pay attention to what stories People Magazine and other consumer media outlets cover. That's how you can tell that something has broken through the usual political and news bubbles. This horrific Chicago story has broken through. people.com/ice-agents-o...

Why yesterday’s terrorist attack felt inevitable on.ft.com/3KRfer6

Opinion: It would be a hugely welcome development to discover that we have not merely reached social media saturation point, but that the experience has been degraded to such an extent that it has shocked people out of their stupor. on.ft.com/476Dcr8

In our latest blog, Javier Terrero Dávila (@oecdsocial.bsky.social) asks how much income mobility do different countries exhibit? And how does it vary across different groups relating to age, gender, education and where people live? #LSEInequalitiesBlog buff.ly/6Jo3KX7

US electricity prices have risen significantly due to data centre needs “electricity now costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas located near significant data center activity.” www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

Great reporting here on the political pressure affecting prosecutions of white-collar crime in the US Featuring also great use of LLMs for structuring data 👇👇 on.ft.com/3VFYuW3

The Fed's decision to cut rates last week have been criticised with inflation above target A dovish turn also risks making a frothy US market frothier, raising financial stability risk My latest in the @financialtimes.com (free-to-read) 👉 on.ft.com/4gEiMZF

Very interesting on Apollo’s clever (and possibly dangerous) arbitraging of capital regulation rules by @leeharris.ft.com on.ft.com/46CguXE The niche debt tool at the heart of Apollo’s private credit machine

Big gap in income gains for 65+ versus working age populations in UK and France, with the increased cost of pensions for governments sending fiscal debts to unsustainable levels and crowding out other spending priorities on.ft.com/46AUDjd

US CPI data is out: inflation continues rising, but the Fed will most likely cut next week due to labour market concerns The tension between price stability and maximum employment will not ease quickly More on the challenge facing the Fed, with lots of charts Free-to-read: on.ft.com/41K2yIn

Very cool sentiment analysis using FT articles by @joelsuss.ft.com. Also brings home how precisely I missed the Good Times. www.ft.com/content/9a99...

Partly because both Trump and Manelson were close friends with Epstein? on.ft.com/47D3G4e Peter Mandelson predicts fresh revelations about friendship with Jeffrey Epstein

After my article on the rise in negative news yesterday, nice to see a good news story!: "the delivery of one of the largest UK infrastructure projects roughly on time and close to budget" on.ft.com/41OFYOS

It was only a matter of time I guess? The question is whether plunging share prices of these crypto hoarders will force crypto fire sales and push down crypto prices, potentially setting off further selling www.ft.com/content/ad06...

It was only a matter of time I guess? Question is whether the plunging shares of these crypto hoarders will force crypto fire sales and push down crypto prices

Sentiment analysis on four decades worth of FT newspaper articles. 🥳 Rreally cool stuff from @joelsuss.ft.com. on.ft.com/4n2TVBq

We read the news today. Oh boy. on.ft.com/4n2TVBq