timothyogden.bsky.social

I don't think we can be friends

The Post-Equilibria Edition — Financial Access Initiative Editors’ Note:  This was an unusually difficult to organize and write faiV for two reasons--it feels like everything is some combination of AI and politics, and the new things just kept coming so...

A new edition of the faiV, focused on the post-equilibria era. In the 24 hours before hitting send there were 3 new pieces published that I felt I needed to include, and in the 24 hours since, there are 3 new ones that I would have included...
www.financialaccess.org/faiv/2026/2/...

The commentary I'm seeing on the "Trump" universal kids savings accounts are pretty scarily partisan. Apparently people are turning down money because they think it's a scam?

2010s: DAFs will make large scale philanthropy available to the affluent, not just the mega-wealthy
2020s: DAFs make it possible for the mega-wealthy to credibly deflect questions about not giving any money away

Opinion | Disney and the Decline of America’s Middle Class

I was coming in here to link this: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/o...
but then remembered it was you...and never mind

I don't think the word "extraordinary" means what you think it means.

Alternatively: the Old Testament, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Wesley Brothers, and various social & religious campaigners of the 20th century would like a word.

A quotation from a supposed viewer of the Melania propaganda film that is so anodyne it is hard to believe it is not an LLM response

You guys, the moltys have escaped containment

Reading this and continually unnerved at the plausibility that it is an AI-generated response to "Write an essay in the voice of George Orwell that criticizes the intellectual underpinnings of Trumpism"

www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-f...

The Not with a Bang but a Parlay Edition — Financial Access Initiative Editor's Note: It’s a new year and a new faiV. I’ll try not to dwell on what precedes that famous line, nor will I spend a lot of time on explanations or apologies. I will note that the gap between th...

This is the way the faiV returns, not with a bang but a parlay:
www.financialaccess.org/faiv/2026/1/...

There is a really interesting interaction between this and what John Campbell and Tarun Ramadorai are writing about (see Ramadorai's talk at AEA last week: www.aeaweb.org/webcasts/202...

The Musk Partisan Effect on Tesla Sales Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

@niedermeyer.online Relevant to you. www.nber.org/papers/w34413

Let me know if you need help getting full text

Wasn't "don't read the replies" always part of the desk though? Noting I can't do longitudinal comparison cuz well, I never read the replies except to see how stupid people were every know and then

Placement of "kabob" undermines all credibility

Perhaps instead of Columbus Day we can celebrate Columbian Exchange Day where we celebrate the food pairings that had never been possible before, peppers and onions, chocolate and coffee, basil and tomatoes.

Cynicism is the mind killer

I think the last one is ability to understand/learn new things. You need to be able to read to deliberately misinterpret, misquote, take things out of context and constantly motte and bailey

We’ve been rewatching 30 Rock

Working papers get a lot of attention and journalists don't scrutinize the evidence. I do that here for the most recent cash transfers and infant mortality paper...

Is the effect that big?
How can spillovers be so important (and work so fast)?
Do forking paths affect the findings?
And more...

Do you also experience the cognitive dissonance between pride for being able to provide things and shock that they ask for things that are expensive?

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

Don't make me tap the @rivertam.bsky.social sign

Also, propose any system that can plausibly scale to 100,000+ teams/leagues/competitions

Given the utter failure to rein in multilevel marketing through lawsuits or regulation, I'm skeptical any meaningful change is likely in the next decade.

I for one welcome this new creative remake of Pleasantville

That and the characters were unbelievably boring in the comics. I spent good money on XMen, Avengers, Cap, Thor, New Mutants, Daredevil, etc. etc. but the only time I ever cared about FF at all was during Secret Wars, and that was mostly to hope they got killed off.

More than 135,000 donors have trusted GiveWell to direct their donations. Together they have given over $2.4B to the organizations we recommend. These donations will save over 270,000 lives.

When I'm struggling with all that is happening and wondering what difference I can make, I remember that I've been able to be a very small part of this. You can too.
www.givewell.org

Prepare for the dawn of the reusable water bottle logarithmic expansion....

Clusters of colorful mushrooms on an old log at t edge of a trail through the forest

Palate cleanser or political metaphor?

I think it still works. Admissions asks for evaluations but my obv is that practically no one does, b/c a) you've already spent two hours and you're tired, b) worried that you'll come across as sycophant or whiner and tank your chances