What’s the difference between compromise and capitulation? Compromise trades concessions. Capitulation pays ransom to stop deliberate suffering, and teaches your opponent that coercion works. There are effective responses to coercive bargaining. What we saw was not one of them.

America has invented something truly unique in the context of the modern state: civil service as a precarious job. The Shutdown Is Over. But for Federal Workers, the Anxiety Persists. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

I think an underrated function of conspiracy theories is that they prevent us from noticing the actual collusion of forces that harms and collectively assails us; noticing this would be more painful than believing in even the most evil and outlandish conspiracy, because it is actually true

I do think the biggest way in which Donald Trump has broken journalism is his lack of shame. It used to be that exposing a public figure's secret appalling sins would cause them shame, humiliation and a loss of job. This made journalism consequential. But Trump just shrugs and nothing happens

The most depressing/revolting thing is that this can't possibly accomplish any meaningful policy goal, it's simply making people's lives worse for no discernible purpose.

This project was fueled by RAGE RAGE whenever I read or heard about (another) abuse of power by faculty RAGE whenever I was asked to discuss a paper about gender wage differentials that attributed gaps to "preferences" with no consideration of how "preferences" are formed

A dude who's this tall, and still able to shake his defender out of his boots like that, it's the pinnacle of unfairness. Barring injury, we're talking very high GOAT possibilities here...

I won't comment on the shutdown shenanigans, except to restate that the probability that the Democratic candidate for president in 2028 will not be a current/recent office holder is high. The party's ripe for a hostile takeover by an outsider, akin to what Trump pulled off in the GOP in 2016.

The evidence keeps accumulating that Brexit was an astonishing self-inflicted economic policy disaster. The fact that it is a slow-moving one bodes ill for those who think that populist economic mismanagement will translate into voters punishing populists. www.nber.org/system/files...

Palmeiras contra o top 6 da Serie A: 6 pontos (1V, 3E, 6D) Flamengo contra o top 6: 17 pontos (5V, 2E, 2D) Contra o resto: Palmeiras 62 pontos (20V, 2E, 0D), Flamengo 51 pontos (15V, 6E, 2D) Palmeiras bate nos fracos e apanha dos fortes, Flamengo faz distribuição de renda… :(

Remarkable.

Whenever I see claims like this, I feel like the economics is completely missing. Even if you can theoretically replace all human tasks, *why* would it make economic sense to deploy the immense resources to do it, when humans are plentiful out there?

I'm not joking when I say that this week is starting to feel like it could be an inflection point...

I read this whole thing & learned what anyone who understands how absolute, arbitrary power works would expect: The prince asked for the impossible, was told by toadies it was in fact possible if expensive, then wasted billions as no one could tell him it wouldn't work (while many cashed checks)

In fairness: from Mussolini to Videla to Putin, FIFA has almost a century of experience in sucking up to authoritarian regimes…

this is actually impressive, making up a brand new nobel peace prize replacement is a genuine innovation in bribery absolutely nobody does corruption like FIFA

Amazing how upfront and unfiltered he is about his ongoing authoritarian project. The goal is to make sure the opposition can never win, and he flat-out says it.

The magnitude of the Democrats’ win yesterday shows the rhythms of US democracy are still very much alive. The race against authoritarianism is clearly not lost yet.

When I say my name is not very common, I mean that we are 86 Campantes in all of Brazil.

Quem diria, rapaz...

Let's wait for the verdict on whether this qualifies as a Constitutional Crisis.

Maybe it’s an amazing jujitsu move where they hope to get New Yorkers to vote for Cuomo by convincing them that they want Zohran to win, because otherwise why would they go out and endorse Cuomo?

In a way, I find the authoritarian takeover of our media system even more disturbing than the authoritarian takeover of our political system. Our political system has been failing basically my entire adult life. But, the media system provided accountability and sort of worked. Now it’s collapsing.

Cool new working paper on why and how cable news threw gasoline on the culture war fire. The culture war isn't optimal for electoral candidates, but it's optimal for cable news companies. ungated: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/27v4x...

Americans will literally learn everything about the “complex mathematics of gerrymandering” instead of going to proportional representation therapy. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/s...

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Crazy how much some media has normalized the idea that voters are taking a risk if they elect governors/mayors who will defy Trump. That he’ll threaten their funding, etc. Try to imagine, say. Greg Abbott being asked if he’s worried that Biden will punish Texas over his lawsuits.

This resonates with this new paper by Assaf Razin, on democratic backsliding pushing emigration, even from people not directly persecuted by the regime. People don’t want to live in a country where these things happen, and those with options often choose to leave. www.nber.org/papers/w3443...

Here, in a nutshell, is what makes the US legal infrastructure so vulnerable to authoritarianism: it was built for a high-trust environment in which everyone was supposed to exercise forbearance. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/u...

Dropping a beta version of this page while everyone is up and processing baseball! This tool lets you search the full text of papers from the American Economic Review, American Economic Journal series, and over 30,000 NBER working papers. paulgp.com/econlit-pipe...

Immigrants are awesome.

Flamengo heroico, digno da torcida que ecoou no Cilindro. Noite histórica pra todos os rubro-negros, orgulho máximo.

After the Pentagon forced a mass exit of journalists who understood military finance, tactics and technology, their replacements have arrived: cranks, conspiracy theorists and both foreign and domestic propagandists www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

True American exceptionalism: the authoritarian leader doesn’t need to shut down the legislature, because his minions within the legislature can do it for him. All completely legal and constitutional! www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/u...

Ed Luce watching democracy die in the United States of America

I don’t need to explain why it’s wildly unacceptable for the military to be illegally privately financed by the president’s wealthy allies, right?

Already seeing people saying, "haha, how's that going intimidate voters? we vote by mail, etc.", and it's incredible that people still don't see it. The goal here is not (only) to intimidate voters, it's to create confusion so that they eventually claim justification to overturn/ignore results.

The likelihood that the 2026 or 2028 elections will be free and fair is dwindling right before our eyes...

Fascinating to see how the Brazilian government has a fantastic portal where you can do any type of official business, and depressing to think that it could never happen in the US -- how could you give your information to the government, blah blah... US state capacity is so so low, and by design...

“A figment of our basketball imaginations…”

Extremely ominous, once we realize that, by “what happened in the 2020 election”, he means “we lose an election”…

Imprensa paulista pode tentar mandar essa o quanto quiser, mas aquele pênalti que não deram pro SPFC não será esquecido. Aquilo não é erro de arbitragem, tem outro nome…

Large scale nonviolent demonstrations are a powerful tool and the regime is incredibly sad that they didn’t get the riots they were hoping for

My favorite part about this is the camera work. Absolutely no idea where the ball is, like a guy with a flip phone trying to take a picture of Mars.

Literally: This. Is. How. It. Happens. Especially pernicious because the effects are largely invisible even as they accumulate. It just seems like the opposition is weak and ineffectual; you never see what people would have said and done if they weren't threatened and intimidated.

This is not a minor issue: it’s a serious threat to democracy. We’re rapidly transitioning into a world where, as long as you support the president, you can be above the law; if you’re in the opposition, you have a target on your back. Opposition can’t survive under these conditions.

I think at this point it’s fair to say that we’re no longer under the rule of law. Trump Orders Santos to Be Freed From Prison ‘Immediately’ www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...

The real tell that this vision is incompatible with democracy is that these folks would not countenance in a million years the possibility of a Democrat wielding those powers. Authoritarianism is the only possible endgame for that.

Just wow… joinspread.com/post/c7a2b96...