Dan Davies
@dsquareddigest.bsky.social
Malcolm Sparrow in the streets, Stafford Beer in the sheets. Once I wrote about fraud and its detection; currently writing about the industrialisation of decision making in general
Reposted by Dan Davies
RIP Martin Luther, you would have loved Papal Audience Black Friday deals.
November 27, 2025 at 10:08 PM
RIP Martin Luther, you would have loved Papal Audience Black Friday deals.
Reposted by Dan Davies
the AGI when Sam Altman asks why it isn't doing any work after reaching self-awareness
[VR] I Want To Live With My Big Tits Girlfriend In An Apartment And Fuck Every Day... That's All I Want
November 27, 2025 at 9:06 PM
the AGI when Sam Altman asks why it isn't doing any work after reaching self-awareness
I can't stand the name "USians" because it erases the fact that Mexico is also a United States
November 27, 2025 at 6:29 PM
I can't stand the name "USians" because it erases the fact that Mexico is also a United States
Reposted by Dan Davies
Signs and signifiers Jerry! Signs AND signifiers! Do we have signifiers? Sure sure! Does that mean we have signs??? No it does not!!!!
November 27, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Signs and signifiers Jerry! Signs AND signifiers! Do we have signifiers? Sure sure! Does that mean we have signs??? No it does not!!!!
Angrynomics once more for the win
If people become insecure, we find they’re three times more likely to desert Labour than if they become more concerned about immigration. Around one-third of Britons felt economically insecure as of April 2025.
Focusing on immigration is a ‘red herring’ when financial security is so foundational.
Focusing on immigration is a ‘red herring’ when financial security is so foundational.
November 27, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Angrynomics once more for the win
Reposted by Dan Davies
If people become insecure, we find they’re three times more likely to desert Labour than if they become more concerned about immigration. Around one-third of Britons felt economically insecure as of April 2025.
Focusing on immigration is a ‘red herring’ when financial security is so foundational.
Focusing on immigration is a ‘red herring’ when financial security is so foundational.
November 24, 2025 at 11:02 AM
If people become insecure, we find they’re three times more likely to desert Labour than if they become more concerned about immigration. Around one-third of Britons felt economically insecure as of April 2025.
Focusing on immigration is a ‘red herring’ when financial security is so foundational.
Focusing on immigration is a ‘red herring’ when financial security is so foundational.
Reposted by Dan Davies
Sometimes think 'immigration' in GB politics these days is the equivalent of 'popery' in the 18th and 19th centuries. We must curb this existential threat, we must sharply distinguish the status of those who truly belong here from those who are merely tolerated, but we have no truck with bigotry!
PM describes net migration of 205k as "a step in the right direction". His govt has no public position on a sustainable level of immigration is, nor any known process to decide what, why & how. Starmer is now implying he wants it significantly lower
www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...
www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...
Net migration drop ‘step in the right direction’ – Starmer
Net migration peaked at a record 944,000 in the year to March 2023 but has fallen sharply since then.
www.standard.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Sometimes think 'immigration' in GB politics these days is the equivalent of 'popery' in the 18th and 19th centuries. We must curb this existential threat, we must sharply distinguish the status of those who truly belong here from those who are merely tolerated, but we have no truck with bigotry!
he doesn't like to mention it
I remember buying Greek CDS then taking profits when they went parabolic from 19 to 180.
November 27, 2025 at 2:54 PM
he doesn't like to mention it
Reposted by Dan Davies
The Rock is always surprised
November 27, 2025 at 10:04 AM
The Rock is always surprised
Reposted by Dan Davies
Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action...
(from my presentation at the IMF last week)
(from my presentation at the IMF last week)
November 27, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action...
(from my presentation at the IMF last week)
(from my presentation at the IMF last week)
Reposted by Dan Davies
we’re about to see if “left on economics, conservative on social policy” is in any way electorally viable - we’ve had a varying cast of people claiming for close to 17 years that this was the silver bullet to assure Labour success
November 26, 2025 at 5:22 PM
we’re about to see if “left on economics, conservative on social policy” is in any way electorally viable - we’ve had a varying cast of people claiming for close to 17 years that this was the silver bullet to assure Labour success
Reposted by Dan Davies
Ideally we will all ignore small bond market moves over the next hour or so. If that's beyond us, can we at least keep in mind this classic conclusion to a post from @tobyn.bsky.social
www.ft.com/content/41de...
www.ft.com/content/41de...
November 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Ideally we will all ignore small bond market moves over the next hour or so. If that's beyond us, can we at least keep in mind this classic conclusion to a post from @tobyn.bsky.social
www.ft.com/content/41de...
www.ft.com/content/41de...
at the 'stack, I continue to worry around some of my issues with Data Guyism ... backofmind.substack.com/p/ways-of-vi...
ways of vibing
treatments and responses in the real world
backofmind.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 4:55 PM
at the 'stack, I continue to worry around some of my issues with Data Guyism ... backofmind.substack.com/p/ways-of-vi...
Worth remembering that the political stickiness of this awful policy came from exactly the phenomenon identified in that viral "poverty line" post; that childcare and housing makes a family extremely unaffordable for anyone not on means tested benefits (or a long way above the median income)
The Chancellor has scrapped the two-child limit, benefitting more than half a million families.
In April 2025, out of families impacted by the limit:
- 6 in 10 had 3 children.
- 6 in 10 had at least one person in work.
- And 6 in 10 are receiving a health or disability benefit.
In April 2025, out of families impacted by the limit:
- 6 in 10 had 3 children.
- 6 in 10 had at least one person in work.
- And 6 in 10 are receiving a health or disability benefit.
November 26, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Worth remembering that the political stickiness of this awful policy came from exactly the phenomenon identified in that viral "poverty line" post; that childcare and housing makes a family extremely unaffordable for anyone not on means tested benefits (or a long way above the median income)
Reposted by Dan Davies
the genAI bubble relies on you conflating the genuinely tremendous potential of using machine learning for e.g. image recognition in radiotherapy, protein folding, simulations in power systems etc with the child abuse image generators and schizophrenic delusions generators
People on BlueSky: AI is useless! A stochastic parrot!
Mathematicians/biologists/physicists: It is already helping us do frontier technical research and in some cases solve open problems arxiv.org/pdf/2511.16072
(There are of course, as always, many caveats, but the paper is genuinely remarkable)
Mathematicians/biologists/physicists: It is already helping us do frontier technical research and in some cases solve open problems arxiv.org/pdf/2511.16072
(There are of course, as always, many caveats, but the paper is genuinely remarkable)
arxiv.org
November 26, 2025 at 4:11 PM
the genAI bubble relies on you conflating the genuinely tremendous potential of using machine learning for e.g. image recognition in radiotherapy, protein folding, simulations in power systems etc with the child abuse image generators and schizophrenic delusions generators
If I were the custody provider for the $115bn collateral portfolio of a $182bn financial institution, I would simply officially confirm that I was.
November 26, 2025 at 3:51 PM
If I were the custody provider for the $115bn collateral portfolio of a $182bn financial institution, I would simply officially confirm that I was.
Reposted by Dan Davies
This is a significant change in procedure!
As expected, and as the IMF recommended, Reeves says the OBR will now only assess the public finances against the fiscal rules once a year, at the Budget - to avoid the kind of mad scramble ahead of the Spring statement that led to the botched welfare reforms.
November 26, 2025 at 1:01 PM
This is a significant change in procedure!
Reposted by Dan Davies
Upward revision to both historic and near term forecast GDP -- but chunky downward revision to household disposable income, particularly in the forecast.
'Cost of living crisis' isn't going away, and it's still not clear what Labour's response to it is.
'Cost of living crisis' isn't going away, and it's still not clear what Labour's response to it is.
November 26, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Upward revision to both historic and near term forecast GDP -- but chunky downward revision to household disposable income, particularly in the forecast.
'Cost of living crisis' isn't going away, and it's still not clear what Labour's response to it is.
'Cost of living crisis' isn't going away, and it's still not clear what Labour's response to it is.
It may have been thorough but it definitely wasn't a good faith exercise. LBJ's first calls to Warren and Russell said "we don't want this to end up in a war that could kill 40 million Americans in the first hour".
November 26, 2025 at 12:34 PM
It may have been thorough but it definitely wasn't a good faith exercise. LBJ's first calls to Warren and Russell said "we don't want this to end up in a war that could kill 40 million Americans in the first hour".
Reposted by Dan Davies
This conundrum comes like a week after "only babies question the value of NATO, why are you showing me a photo of trump?"
When the system collapses, what you (belligerently) call political common sense will evaporate.
When the system collapses, what you (belligerently) call political common sense will evaporate.
We're at a point where reducing prosecutions and incarceration isn't a principled leftist stance, it's the only pragmatic way to keep the system functioning at all. This is an unpalatable reality for carceral ideologues so they have to grope around for magical fixes.
this ongoing crisis of the carceral state is such an infuriatingly blatant opportunity for a public conversation that the carceral state absolutely cannot permit to happen
November 26, 2025 at 12:23 PM
This conundrum comes like a week after "only babies question the value of NATO, why are you showing me a photo of trump?"
When the system collapses, what you (belligerently) call political common sense will evaporate.
When the system collapses, what you (belligerently) call political common sense will evaporate.
Reposted by Dan Davies
Bond markets spooked as the Chancellor appears to disappear behind raised hands; gilts stage rally as she reveals she was actually there the whole time
October 30, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Bond markets spooked as the Chancellor appears to disappear behind raised hands; gilts stage rally as she reveals she was actually there the whole time
It would be a laugh if this was what got the OBR abolished
lol here’s the full OBR book someone pressed publish early here’s the budget obr.uk/docs/dlm_upl...
obr.uk
November 26, 2025 at 12:26 PM
It would be a laugh if this was what got the OBR abolished
"kidney" on the menu may look expensive but it's not the cost of a dish, it's what they're prepared to pay for one if you can't afford the small smoked salmon snack
L'Hirondelle; Thermes Marins Monte-Carlo, 2 Av. de Monte-Carlo, 98000 Monaco https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=43.7376918%2C7.4268787&query_place_id=ChIJC1fFmYjCzRIRB-ewbSWjfN4
November 26, 2025 at 12:07 PM
"kidney" on the menu may look expensive but it's not the cost of a dish, it's what they're prepared to pay for one if you can't afford the small smoked salmon snack
If this had been a set of company results, pretty much the entire investor relations department would have been fined out banned from the industry by now. I know it isn't a set of a company results, but it actually is possible to do these things without leaking
lol here’s the full OBR book someone pressed publish early here’s the budget obr.uk/docs/dlm_upl...
obr.uk
November 26, 2025 at 11:58 AM
If this had been a set of company results, pretty much the entire investor relations department would have been fined out banned from the industry by now. I know it isn't a set of a company results, but it actually is possible to do these things without leaking
To be honest I'm not loving the genre "this is a real problem in the economy, but I, an experienced Poverty Knower, am just going to mock it for not being invented here"
This is rightly getting a lot of opprobrium for good reasons, but the meta lesson here is that back of the envelope math and tech/finance guy self-regard is a great way to get engagement and also a bad way to learn true facts about the world
Mike Green is writing some amazing stuff at the moment. It's not in the delta, it's in the level and the cost structure. Read this and you will understand Angrynomics on a new level: www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
November 26, 2025 at 10:54 AM
To be honest I'm not loving the genre "this is a real problem in the economy, but I, an experienced Poverty Knower, am just going to mock it for not being invented here"