Is @wbur.org (very subtly) trolling the Trump administration ?

Dev Econ people: I was trying to access the DHS data, and got the message below. Can anyone help and/or have ideas for access? Any suggestions much appreciated!

Summer office is open for business

A serious question: Is Trump doing this just so politically-connected investors can profit from insider trading, or is that merely a side benefit?

Canadian economists (and others): I'm running a survey in Canada for the first time, and need to "translate" some U.S. questions. Could someone point me to what the equivalent of either/both of these would be?

Finally an idea that can unite us as a nation (the second sentence, not the first one)

“They must have known” lots of things…cc @brendan_duke

I guess we don't know how bad it could have been but...the CEA has what seem to be some serious and earnest people. How is it possible that this doesn't make them resign? (I won't name names but some seem more serious and earnest than others)

The screenshot is from my book with Miriam Golden. Here is my favorite/worst illustration of roving banditry

Mancur Olson distinguished between stationary vs roving bandits. A roving bandit rapes and pillages then moves on. A stationary bandit takes the long view, cultivating the economy so they can maximize their extraction over the long-term. Mobutu eg was a roving bandit. I fear that's what we have now.

DJT has been a huge gift to the Canadian Liberals. It reminds me of something an Estonian acquiantance once said about why his country was relatively uncorrupt: the country's culture and values were defined in opposition to everything that defined its neighbor, Russia. Ergo, not corrupt.

I remember reading @astille.bsky.social's Berlusconi profile and thinking the sycophancy of his underlings were so far beyond parody as to be barely believable (see below). But so easily surpassed by the obsequiousness on display in Washington.

Have to add this one that I got via email that *literally* had Milton Friedman agreeing (citation at the bottom):

This post is in my capacity as co-chair of the Review of Economics and Statistics editorial board.

Anyone with a parent of a certain age can appreciate this exchange with my father. I'm sure my children will soon be saying the same things about me...

. @raffasadun.bsky.social had the *actually* good idea that they should consider hiring Larry Culp for making government work better, if they're going to bring in anyone from business: (4/4)

They wouldn't let me quote "some random person" from twitter so @sabrinacartan.bsky.social had to have her brilliant tweet tweaked [though to be fair I've used the home-renovator-taking-down-load-bearing-wall metaphor as well back in 2013 in The Org] (3/4):

Lots was cut from this for length, so I want to self-indulgently mention here a few things that got lost as a result. @justinwolfers.bsky.social genius tweet from way back (2/4):

Found it via twitter...