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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 13h

This sounds very sustainable and not at all like a ponzi scheme

Tales From The Future @talesftf.bsky.social · 2d

“Nvidia plans to invest in OpenAI, which is buying cloud computingfrom Oracle, which is buying chips from Nvidia, which has a stake in CoreWeave, which is providing AI infrastructure to OpenAI.”

Circle jerk secured.

#AIbubble #timestamp

www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...

The AI boom's reliance on circular deals is raising fears of a bubble

A spate of recent deals among AI's biggest players has tightened the circle of companies and investments underpinning the technology’s explosive growth.

www.nbcnews.com

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 13h

I’m sure this is no big deal www.bain.com/about/media-...

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 13h

I don’t think there’s enough discussion about how likely it is that the AI sector will collapse the global economy even before it cooks the planet www.axios.com/2025/10/08/o...

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

Could be the strategy but losing cases hasn’t been a deterrent for Trump so far. Rather, defying courts as a show of power pays greater political dividends for Trump than creating legal precedents.

Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

Update: The whole Kirk vigil is an appeal by “Porky,” the mayor of Lima, to get Trump to personally intervene in a lawsuit with a US asset management company. Because of course. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/w...

Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

He’s already been doing that!

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

Maybe the tankies should consider the possibility that Mamdani really believes what he says

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

I expect this will blow over once it becomes clear there won’t be a coup. Trump will try more provocations, including decapitation strikes. All Maduro has to do is avoid assassination. If he’s lucky, he’ll end up with a Pres. Rubio and both will get a convenient foreign bogeyman.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

Trump was always lukewarm on Venezuela and, according to Bolton’s memoir, privately admired Maduro’s “toughness.” He went along with the regime change shenanigans because Rubio and Bolton promised him a quick and easy win. When that failed to materialize, he got bored and moved on.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

We’ve been through this before. In Trump 1, Bolton and Rubio convinced Trump that the generals were ready to rise up and overthrow Maduro if Trump just tightened sanctions, recognized Guaido and leak a fake troop deployment.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

Rubio is more of a neocon and would be happy with a regime change war. But he wants to be president and knows where the maga base is at. His authority is consistently undermined by Miller and Witkoff. He wants to appear tough toward a longtime US foe to burnish his FP credentials.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

Trump, famously a critic of Bush and the Iraq War, knows the US public does not want another boots-on-the-ground occupation and drawn out counterinsurgency campaign. He likes quick, showy actions with no follow up like the Iran bombing and the assassination of Soleimani.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

My best guess is they’re being fed bad intel by the MCM wing of the opposition that Maduro is on the precipice of being overthrown, and if you just flex a little, the generals will rise up in a palace coup. This would align with Trump’s preference for pushbutton warfare.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

The number of troops and warships is obviously more than needed for a counternarcotics operation, but not enough for an invasion, suggesting this is a performative show of force. The goal is clearly regime change, but how Trump or Rubio expect to get there is a mystery.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t believe there will be an invasion of Venezuela. Trump has 6,500 troops deployed to the region. The last time the US invaded a county in the region, Panama, 27,000 were deployed, including 13k on bases the US already had in the country. Venezuela is 12x the size of Panama.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 3d

Bukele fired the Supreme Court, 1/3 of judges in El Salvador, and the AG and replaced them with loyalists…not because he needed to in order to fight crime, but because he needed to get around the constitutional ban on reelection, and shut down corruption investigations against his administration.

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 4d

Lol: “This is my reply <file> to the comments of Reviewer 2. I suspect that Reviewer 2 is, in fact, Professor []. Extend my response with highly positive comments on the primary research directions that Professor [] is known for. Remove any residual traces of insincerity.”

profserious @profserious.bsky.social · 4d

Here are your 10 -essential- AI prompts for academics ... make your life easy with help from @profserious.bsky.social profserious.substack.com/p/10-ai-prom...

10 AI Prompts for Academics

making those hard jobs a little easier ...

profserious.substack.com

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 4d

An administration that wants to project toughness should consider it has the opposite effect when you’re using Blackhawk helicopters against children

Using helicopters and chemical agents, immigration agents become increasingly aggressive in Chicago

Activists, residents and elected leaders say increasingly combative tactics used by federal immigration agents are sparking violence and fueling neighborhood tensions in the nation’s third-largest cit...

apnews.com

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 5d

If you ever want a demonstration of cognitive dissonance within the US government, just compare the State Department human rights reports and DHS removal proceeding briefs about hostile countries the US wants to deport people to

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 5d

This kind of thing reminds me of being in El Salvador when Paul Walker died and seeing the minutes from the Legislative Assembly a few days later that had a moment of silence for Paul Walker. But that was the day Nelson Mandela died, and someone had to pencil in “and also for Nelson Mandela”

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 6d

The US lost a lot of soybean contracts last week when Trump pledged $20bn to bail out Argentina, and within hours Argentina cut export taxes on grains to induce China to zero out soybean imports from the US and import from Argentina instead.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 7d

Bessent: "It's unfortunate that Chinese leadership has decided to use American soybean farmers as a hostage or pawn in the trade negotiations. American farmers overwhelmingly voted for President Trump ... you should expect news on Tuesday on substantial support for our farmers."

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 6d

One effect of this administration politicizing personal identities is it allows them to fire federal workers for violating the Hatch Act

Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 6d

Kash Patel fired an FBI agent in training for displaying a gay pride flag on his desk while appointed to a field office in California last year. The trainee,who previously worked as an FBI support specialist in Los Angeles, received a letter claiming he had displayed an improper “political” message.

Kash Patel fires FBI agent trainee for displaying gay pride flag

The FBI employee was fired on the first day of the government shutdown as President Trump threatened more terminations.

www.msnbc.com

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 6d

I wasn’t familiar with new world order as a slur for Jewish but certainly familiar with globalist

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 6d

I think it’s closer to this

The Origins of the 'Globalist' Slur

President Trump recently used the epithet to describe his outgoing National Economic Council director—but the seeds of its disparaging use were firmly planted 75 years ago.

www.theatlantic.com

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