Freedom for Iranians. #Iran

Since Trump’s return to power, some of the companies that have seen the biggest drops in market capitalisation have come from Silicon Valley. Check out the FT’s interactive ranking for more details: https://on.ft.com/457cJJu

Professor @ben-rog.bsky.social will be hosting a discussion on how city governments can inspire just and democratic green transitions with speakers including @janmazur.bsky.social at the #ACTNOW Mayors' Conference 2025. 5–6 May | Vienna City Hall Still time to register! actnow.capitalofdemocracy.eu

How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia? Before you open this thread, take a guess. Settle on a number and then compare it to what you'll learn in this thread. 🧵

And coming soon to your finance & law handbooks and textbooks next to Ponzis and Madoffs of the world:

Risk management’s tricky: one tends to underestimate the risks that never materialize in their own lives.

Funny, the countries that didn't get tariffs: Russia North Korea Cuba Venezuela Berlarus Somalia Burkina Faso are, except for Cuba, which abstained, the same countries the US voted together with against the UN resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 🤔

I wonder how much of insider trading there has been prior to Trump’s tarriffs or other (non-)econ policies. Even US Congress members are infamous for their insider knowledge driven trades. Massive transfers of wealth.

The EU is our risk manager. As any risk management tool, it needs to be taken care of perpetually and sustainably, not opportunistically as our gvt typically does.

Some countries were more affected than others by the US aid cuts. The Democratic Republic of Congo was significantly impacted, where two-thirds of the funding came from Washington.

🥲

Are employees and other shareholders of companies co-owned by Musk completely at his will? Don’t they have any say in how he ruins value of their companies and their products?

That’ll teach ‘em liberals!

Good point from Heinrich Wefing (DIE ZEIT): Every European politician is now sitting in Zelensky's seat.

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk supported Ukrainians.

DOGE explained

Tesla earned $2.3 billion in the United States in 2024. You'd think it paid a lot in taxes, right? Well it paid precisely $0 in federal income taxes last year. You want waste and fraud? Look at what some big corporations and the rich are getting away with.

🚨The recent overnight freeze on US foreign aid and the shutdown of anti-disinformation initiatives—while Russia invests $1.5 billion in its influence operations—will have serious consequences for Central Europe, including for journalism. 🤝Please help @vsquare.bsky.social’s work: vsquare.org/donate/

🇵🇱⚖️🇪🇺 Excellent article "Strategic Litigation in a Time of Populism: Poland’s Experience" by @aploszka.bsky.social in German Law Journal outlining the shifts in human rights/rule of law litigation in Poland over the last 10 years - including the catastrophic decline of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Trump just undid the only good thing GWB did in his entire 8 years.

Around 60k pro-EU gathered to protest the outrageus shifts in gvt policies in Bratislava, and additional dozens of thousands around Slovakia. This comes after the gvt issued statements in the past few days that there were foreign groups trying to overthrow it. Clearly misguided and untrustworthy.

Never have political, social and financial capitals been more interchangeable. We’re rewriting history every day.

Or rather kleptocratization of democracy?

Our daily dose of absurdity: seems like an upcoming US president participates on a cryptoshite scam hours before taking office. Some one please tell me how crypto solves important societal and business problems 💸

It’s crazy how unprepared formal US institutions are for this oligarchic takeover. It’s not like they haven’t spent billions on democratization and rule of law projects around the world preaching all sorts of instruments and institutions to at least mitigate these problems, is it.

In the UK, auto insurance prices dropped 16% in a year. A big reason: Lower urban speed limits Industry analyst: "Areas where 20mph zones have been introduced result in lower levels of claim frequency – a key factor in the cost of car insurance."

Farewell!

AI and jobs. Complex. Previous development in information technology has often replaced ok jobs with drudge jobs maintaining and serving the technology. AI has made many promises but creating more good jobs is not one I’ve seen. The opposite really.

There’s definitely a lot of bromance around techbros these days.

On Friday, around 15 thousand people gathered on the Bratislava’s Freedom Square to protest the gvt’s recent rather hostile actions and rhetorics towards UA. Additional thousands gathered in other towns and cities across the country.

We should have regulated social media platforms when they were relatively less powerful (and even pretended to be self-regulating). It’s getting too late, there are lots of vested interests and powerful actors too dependent on them. And the least we now need is a fight between the EU and the US.

Meanwhile the Slovak gvt fights the UA gvt to maintain its gas supplies from Russia. Shameful.

It’s terrible, but also kind of misses the point where the main problem with social media platforms lies: algos of distribution of content. Even hateful content may be (barely) acceptable if it’s not deliberately spread all over the place in search of profit.

Good morning!

Coups d’etat becoming trendy in established democracies again?

One could easily sum up Twitter these days as an unsolicited cat & nazi feed. Not sure the former offsets the latter.

Quick recap: 1. Russian economy not collapsing. Stagflation scenario entered. Economy encumbered by war - 41% budget defense/security spending, 8% GDP, factory capacity above 80%, labor shortages in 73% of companies, inflation 8,5%, real rate of inflation much higher. Russia still war operational.

Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, has been busy revolutionizing its public spaces. Below are two pilot projects of improving safety around schools. The process included public participation, incl. children, tactical urbanism to trial solutions and permanent fixes. More to come.

Such an excellent episode! Several highly cited commentators in Slovakia love to explain everything political not to their liking through our lack of “modernisation” or “rejection of modernity” based on our “rural background and nature” and “Byzantian heritage.” Utter nonsense. Loved this.

Crypto undermines democracy. Why? Control of currency is one of the two powers citizens give to gov’t in a democracy (other is legit use of force). Currency in private control takes away one of the two pillars of democratic government. Leaves population vulnerable, as we are to internet cos today.

Some background

Amateurs, in 🇸🇰, we’ve had a gvt plenipotentiary investigating pandemics and those evil vaccines for over a year. He “did experiments on himself, did his research”, spread hoaxes about vaccination and even transfusions. We have some of the lowest vaccination rates & blood reserves are critically low.

Quite a relief that BlueSky is not overwhelmed by reposted idiotic videos of Tik-tok teenagers doing their stuff. Also, I really don’t miss crypto fraud ads and bros explaining their manhood concepts.

A very similar story unfolds in Bratislava, Slovakia, as the central gvt tries (so far unsuccessfully) to remove a new converted bikelane on one of the busiest roads in the centre. Maybe @theguardian.com can feature that as well to cover wider range of similar stories accross the world. Link below:

Do Swedes know something we don’t? Nah, just a proper risk management function one expects of the state.

18.000 people gathered in Bratislava today to commemorate the Velvet Revolution of the 17th of November 1989 on an opposition protest. No official state celebration took place, in line with the gvt’s relativization of the past.

🇺🇦💪

This is a very good conversation on the 2024 US elections: