Jen Richmond

Global Headwinds to Kuznets’ Low-Inequality Transformation: Plutocrats, Populism, and More Kuznets’s prediction that inequality would fall after structural transformation faces major obstacles in today’s globalized economy, including tax evasion by elites, restrictions on labor migration, a...

The Kuznets Curve assumed falling inequality once structural transformation has peaked. But today, unforeseen headwinds—populism, climate damage, and more—complicate that path, especially for developing economies.

More from @nbirdsall.bsky.social:
https://bit.ly/45DsCr4

Guest post: How the role of carbon storage has been hugely overestimated - Carbon Brief Removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere is widely expected to play a key role in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

NEW – Guest post: How the role of carbon storage has been hugely overestimated | @gidden.bsky.social @joerirogelj.bsky.social

Read here: buff.ly/QY7LyJ8

Texas A&M fires instructor involved in viral video on gender teachings A video of a student accusing an instructor of illegally teaching “gender ideology” at Texas A&M has also led to the removal of a dean and department head.

It's definitely not about this thing (ie academic freedom) that it's totally 100% about.

Texas A&M fires instructor involved in viral video on gender teachings

www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

NEW: The first evidence of a solar take-off in Africa☀️✈️

x33 rise in Algeria solar panel imports in the 12 mths to June 2025, compared to previous 12 mths.
x8 in Zambia
x7 in Botswana
x6 in Sudan
x3 in each of Liberia, DRC, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia

🧵

YouTube video by Souled Out Malvina Reynolds - Little Boxes (Weeds Theme Song) Full Version with Lyrics

youtu.be/VUoXtddNPAM?...

We'll see how it endures, but this is so refreshing right now.

This article did not start the way I thought it might...

A fascinating new WaPo poll shows that despite Trump's claims that D.C. is a dystopian hellscape run by criminal gangs, the percentage of residents who say crime is a serious problem is down significantly from 2023 and 2024. Also, fears of assaults and carjackings are down.

Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads Philosophers are fond of saying that their field boosts critical thinking. Two of them decided to put that claim to the test.

I wouldn't mind encountering more philosophers.

theconversation.com/studying-phi...

In addition to the cruelty and the harm that this does to universities, we are shooting ourselves in the foot as a country when it comes to future doctors and researchers.

Hell yes!!

Researchers seek to influence peer review with hidden AI prompts | TechCrunch Academics may be leaning on a novel strategy to influence peer review of their research papers — adding hidden prompts designed to coax AI tools to deliver positive feedback.

A problem with science, one that stands in the way of public trust and even public benefit, is that scientists sometimes have become (and have been incentivized to become) cynical, careerist monsters.

Still marveling at the phrase "Ethical AI," which does not and cannot mean anything.

Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

1. Federal funding for research promotes tech, biomedical, and scientific discovery in the US, and provides training for the sci/tech workforce that has brought immeasurable wealth to the US over the past 75 years.

Today's executive order includes a provision that will obliterate both functions.

Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing, Study Finds

Some classic baby-bath water moves are being made with legitimate fraud as cover.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/s...

This chart @pbump.com crated for his @washingtonpost.com newsletter today really illustrates the responsibility—the guilt—of Rupert Murdoch and bad-faith alternative-facts Fox News for getting and keeping us in our current mess. More impact than any single U.S. news media enterprise has ever had.

The White House wants you to laugh at its deportation memes The administration is using dark memes, music videos and personal jabs to boost its immigration policy across social media. Not everyone thinks it’s funny.

"Not everyone thinks it's funny" is a ridiculous understatement.

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Milkweed for the butterflies

Protected bike lanes have a near-magical ability to produce cyclists.

This new study of 28 US cities finds that census block groups w/protected bike lanes expanded bike commuting almost 2x faster than those w/standard bike lanes & >4x faster than those w/o new lanes.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Bowser bets on business-friendly D.C. budget while cutting some programs Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) is betting on her ‘growth agenda’ to keep business in D.C., while council members are concerned about cuts to services for the needy.

"D.C.’s Department of Energy & Environment is among the hardest-hit agencies in the mayor’s proposal, seeing a 24 percent reduction to its budget compared to this year."

Bowser bets on business-friendly D.C. budget while cutting some programs

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Budget news 🧵: No furloughs or facility closures will need to happen to close the budget hole that Congress created in the city's current year budget. City officials did some fiscal maneuvering and made $347 million in spending cuts, but avoided their worst-case scenarios.

As someone who has relied on SNAP to put food in the fridge, I'm incredibly proud of the work we're doing at @dataforprogress.org to shine a light on how disastrously unpopular cutting nutrition assistance is

Kermit the Frog set to deliver U-Md. commencement speech Thursday Kermit the Frog, the world-famous amphibian, will talk to University of Maryland graduates about “finding your people ... and making connections,” a school official said.

If only I had made it in time for this year's commencement!

Kermit the Frog set to deliver U-Md. commencement speech Thursday

www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Betsy inspecting our paw paw sapling

Opinion | How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy?

A warning for our times:

“Authoritarianism is harder to recognize than it used to be,” but “When citizens must think twice about criticizing or opposing the government because they could credibly face government retribution, they no longer live in a full democracy.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o...

Opinion | Making Empathy a Weapon Empathy without ethics isn’t virtuous. It’s manipulative. And it’s starting to feel all too commonplace.

"And if we aren’t careful, we’ll soon mistake performance for presence. In doing so, we outsource not just emotional labor but our emotional responsibility to one another."

The Dark Side of Empathy www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/o...

"WE'VE ARRANGED A society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?" "Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

Universities will now have to develop methods, and hire tons of additional staff, to figure out how to bill every little bit of the costs for doing research, adding tons of administrative burden and bloat.
(I say as as someone who wrote a whole book burden w/ @donmoyn.bsky.social)

Concentrating on bats for a few minutes