iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Of course it can be regulated, it's just engineering+markets which we regulate all the time. Whether it will be regulated for good is a political question (I'm currently pessimistic). A practical view from ML pioneer who warns not to fall for scare hype www.youtube.com/watch?v=AREW...

youtube.com

Intelligence is collective, not artificial — Prof. Michael I. Jordan (UC Berkeley / Inria)

YouTube video by Machine Learning Street Talk

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Trump the pirate: "ConocoPhillips’s claims against Venezuela ... $12 billion, while Exxon Mobil ... said the country owes it an estimated $20 billion." So Venezuelans to keep same dictators, but oil goes to Trump slush fund. Reckless fantasy. - giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT

giftarticle.ft.com

US seeks to control sales of Venezuelan oil ‘indefinitely’

Crude revenues to be funnelled to American banks as Washington prepares to lift some sanctions on Caracas

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Right. Trump may think this is about oil: he mentioned "oil" 27 times at his press-conference and "democracy" not once. Big oil will again bankroll him. But big profits in VE is an oil fantasy primarily in Trump's head. substack.com/inbox/post/1...

substack.com

The Emperor’s New Oil Wealth

The truth behind Trump’s black, sticky fantasy

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

You're right about what he cares about, but Big Oil put up half a bn to get him elected (he'd asked for $1bn). He's delivered deregulation & benefits worth ~$190bn. He needs them desperately again for the midterms. It may be that simple. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

theguardian.com

Big oil spent $445m in last election cycle to influence Trump and Congress, report says

Investments ‘likely to pay dividends’, analysis says, as Trump unleashes dozens of pro-fossil fuel executive actions

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 04/06/2025

DeLauro uses her opening statement to tear Russ Vought a new one

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Actually, the data Saez/Zucman use in their book is from the universe of IRS records. For instance, fig 1.2 average tax rates by centile.

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

And as a reward to loyal but impoverished Lesotho for still trading more with the USA than with China: Trump slapped them with a 50% "reciprocal tariff rate" on liberation day April 2.

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Science Magazine @science.org · 09/05/2025

Exclusive: National Science Foundation staff were told today that the agency’s 37 divisions—across all eight directorates—are being abolished and the number of programs within those divisions will be drastically reduced.

scim.ag

Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

Changes seen as a response to presidential directives on what research to fund

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

"Assuming that offsetting exchange rate and general equilibrium effects are small enough to be ignored,..." is doing an awful lot of lifting in that explanation..

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

The barbarism of Trump’s first term immigration policy brought support for immigration to all time highs, and he seems determined to repeat that

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

that must have been fun. one tech leap for me was discovering mathpix (mathpix.com) which reliably converts snapshots of handwritten notes or web/textbook screenshots to latex/markdown.

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Devon Heinen @devonheinen.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

JUST IN via @CNBC.com's @eamonjavers.bsky.social & @danmangan.bsky.social: "#Trump is set Monday to sign an executive order directing the Department of Justice to pause enforcing a law that prohibits American companies to bribe officials of foreign governments." www.cnbc.com/2025/02/10/t...

cnbc.com

Trump to pause enforcement of law banning bribery of foreign officials

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

He's contrasting future interpretations. If voters perceived Biden was beholden to 'radical agendas' it doesn't matter whether that was true or not. Pardons don't signal trust in institutions. And this is front page at Financial Times - he's aiming to reach people who might otherwise dismiss.

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Here’s a story with some numbers. The proposed cuts are unfathomable: a 60% reduction to NSF would be the end of American science as we know it.

arstechnica.com

White House budget proposal could shatter the National Science Foundation

“This kind of cut would kill American science and boost China.”…

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Kristof: "Musk has a net worth greater than the poorest billion people on Earth. ..since the election, Musk’s personal net worth has grown by far more than the entire annual budget of USAID., which in any case accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget." www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/o...

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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Any news outlet reporting Mexico conceded anything to Trump to get him to delay tariffs has not done its homework. Trump boasts he got Mexico to commit to stationing 10K troops at our border. Apparently he didn't realize Mexico already has 15K troops deployed there prami.ibero.mx/informes-y-i...

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Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Here's an e-mail that just went out to NASA agency wide. 🔭

Letter reading, "Dear agency employees,
We are taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA-related contracts
in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders titled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive
Orders and Actions.
These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in
shameful discrimination.
We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances to
DEIAtruth@opm.gov within 10 days.
There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information. However,
failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. Janet Petro"

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Hate him or love him, I think we can all agree that uncensored Paul Krugman the sasrcastic substack explainer is much more entertaining that PK the NY Times columnist.. substack.com/home/post/p-...

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

I had similar influences, and feel similar apprehensions as Marc Bellamere expresses about the field of development economics since the 2000s. marcfbellemare.com/wordpress/14... For me, the political economy embrace kept it interesting for a while, but I agree something intrinsic has been lost

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

hmmm, I'm going to go with the line from the abstract that "lobbying by powerful and productive industries may have been at play" in explaining Andreesen's post.

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

translation: Ds asked questions framed around national interests; Trump camp simply asked, if we put your guys in charge, how much can you kick back our way?

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Damages for being impeded in their certain plan to transform a Honduran island fishing village into the next Singapore is worth at least that much, but they modestly reduced it to only 11bn.

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

$11BN claim against Honduras (1/3 gdp) on $46.8M investment by investors including Altman, Andreesen + Thiel (+100M online blockchain 'token' investors). If you're curious abt intl inv dispute arbitration, the hearings are online! : icsid.worldbank.org/resources/mu...

icsid.worldbank.org

Honduras Próspera Inc., St. John’s Bay Development Company LLC, and Próspera Arbitration Center LLC v. Honduras - Hearing on Preliminary Objections - Dec. 16, 2024 - English | ICSID

Honduras Próspera Inc., St.

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

I'd forgotten I had turned that on. If you did as well, your projects should be in your dropbox folder under ...\Apps\Overleaf\*

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

the banana was sold just blocks from our lecture hall.

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Jonathan Conning @jonathanconning.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

In my Eco 100 class we just finished a module on inequality and social mobility. Today rival vs non-rival goods, economic rents and intellectual property. This banana is going to make it into the lecture www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/n...

nytimes.com

The Sidewalk Fruit Vendor Who Sold a $6.2 Million Banana for 25 Cents

A 74-year-old immigrant who works outside Sotheby’s shares a basement in the Bronx and works 12-hour shifts. He was stunned to hear what his banana went for at auction.

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Pseudoerasmus @pseudoerasmus.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

This is a FANTASTIC survey of the state capacity literature (which is large enough now it can get confusing). IMO it's more balanced than the surveys one finds in economic history. Also an excellent bridge between the historical literature and the state capacity literature on contemporary states

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joseph francis @joefrancis.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Sebastián Mazzuca's book challenges dependency theory by showing that trade –> state formation in 19th-c LA. But he does so while staying within the LA tradition of historical political economy, which the dependentistas were good at. He doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. 1/

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Pseudoerasmus @pseudoerasmus.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I've often argued that economic history seldom informs economics; rather EH is powerfully influenced by trends in econ, incl. development econ. Many examples but one I'm beginning to think true: the "natural state" as conceived by North, Wallis & Weingast is modelled on a stylised "African state"

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