While less aspirational visionaries race to perfect artificial intelligence, I’ll be in the garage tinkering with artificial emotions.
And for the record, I genuinely care how you feel about this.
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
23 January 2026
Trump Shares a Peace of His Mind
Trump announced a new Board of Peace.
Which is, admittedly, indistinguishable from saying he’s bored of peace.
Which is, admittedly, indistinguishable from saying he’s bored of peace.
Creating a Global Trading System with Multiple Alliances
Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, gave a quietly brilliant speech the other day about building new alliances. Soon after, Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Union is on the brink of a historic agreement with India, linking two of the world’s largest economies.
One of the most encouraging responses to Trump’s nationalist nonsense is that the rest of the world is not freezing—it’s reorganizing. New alliances are emerging that don’t depend on unanimity among all advanced economies. Instead, they resemble independent suspension: parallel paths for cooperation that keep moving even when one wheel hits a pothole. The result is a global economy that is less fragile and less hostage to the domestic politics of any single nation.
Trump and his toxic isolationist policies will eventually dissolve. But they may also prove catalytic—accelerating the emergence of a new world order that is, paradoxically, healthier.
It’s easy to imagine that the EU, India, China, the United States, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will each, at different moments, retreat from global trade under nationalist pressure. If the global economy depends on a single consensus, those retreats are destabilizing. But if it rests on overlapping agreements—multiple alliances that don’t all hinge on everyone’s approval—the system becomes far more resilient.
Nationalist, anti-trade sentiment will ebb and flow. A more modular, redundant system of trade relationships won’t eliminate that tendency—but it will blunt its impact, preserving growth, cooperation, and prosperity over the long run.
One of the most encouraging responses to Trump’s nationalist nonsense is that the rest of the world is not freezing—it’s reorganizing. New alliances are emerging that don’t depend on unanimity among all advanced economies. Instead, they resemble independent suspension: parallel paths for cooperation that keep moving even when one wheel hits a pothole. The result is a global economy that is less fragile and less hostage to the domestic politics of any single nation.
Trump and his toxic isolationist policies will eventually dissolve. But they may also prove catalytic—accelerating the emergence of a new world order that is, paradoxically, healthier.
It’s easy to imagine that the EU, India, China, the United States, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will each, at different moments, retreat from global trade under nationalist pressure. If the global economy depends on a single consensus, those retreats are destabilizing. But if it rests on overlapping agreements—multiple alliances that don’t all hinge on everyone’s approval—the system becomes far more resilient.
Nationalist, anti-trade sentiment will ebb and flow. A more modular, redundant system of trade relationships won’t eliminate that tendency—but it will blunt its impact, preserving growth, cooperation, and prosperity over the long run.
Greenland! Iceland! Not Sure What It Is or Where But We Must Have It!
This week Trump first said that the US had to have Greenland and that he would use force to take it. Then later he conceded that as much as he had to have Greenland, he would not use force to take it. And before we had worked his way out of the paragraph regarding Greenland, he was calling it Iceland. Meanwhile, NATO troops had moved into Greenland to defend against an American attack.
Trump clearly feels more allegiance with Putin than, say, Mark Rutte, the head of NATO and previous Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Trump would rather partner with despots and go to war with democracies.
21 January 2026
Americans Mostly Uneasy About Trump's Presidency (but also frustrated, unsafe, exhausted ...)
The pursuit of happiness seems to have taken us down a rabbit hole.
So, America, how do you feel about Trump's presidency?
Mixed. I have mixed feelings.
So, America, how do you feel about Trump's presidency?
Mixed. I have mixed feelings.
Market Manipulation and Puzzling Political Orientation
Trump says he'll invade Greenland. Markets fall nearly 2%.
Trump says he won't invade Greenland. Markets rise nearly 2%.
Market manipulation is incredibly lucrative for folks who know what is coming.
Related, after a generation or two of civics classes being taught by high school football coaches and home schooling parents, there must be millions of Americans surprised to learn that - in spite of what they've been taught - they are actually fascists and not conservatives.
Market manipulation is incredibly lucrative for folks who know what is coming.
Related, after a generation or two of civics classes being taught by high school football coaches and home schooling parents, there must be millions of Americans surprised to learn that - in spite of what they've been taught - they are actually fascists and not conservatives.
20 January 2026
Trump's Odd Hatred for the Great City of Minneapolis
I've worked with a number of product development teams in Minneapolis and got to spend quite a bit of time there. (Among other things, they have a vibrant medical device industry there.) The simplest way I can think to sum up what a delightfully unexpected place and people it is? The same city gave us Garrison Keillor and Prince.
If a community can nurture and make a home for people so talented and so different, you know that it has a great blend of practical, whimsical, and nurturing, a sense of humor about itself and a sense of respect for others and who they can become.
And the world's oldest toddler has sent troops to that city to disrupt and kill and has sent arrest warrants for Minnesota's governor and Minneapolis's mayor.
I guess a few people who hate Garrison Keillor and or Prince might consider themselves real Americans but that seems odd. What is really American? Lauding the communities that manage to nurture people capable of contributing to the rich culture that makes it so hard to say, exactly, just what America is.
Both weird and unsurprising that Trump finds Minneapolis so offensive.
If a community can nurture and make a home for people so talented and so different, you know that it has a great blend of practical, whimsical, and nurturing, a sense of humor about itself and a sense of respect for others and who they can become.
And the world's oldest toddler has sent troops to that city to disrupt and kill and has sent arrest warrants for Minnesota's governor and Minneapolis's mayor.
I guess a few people who hate Garrison Keillor and or Prince might consider themselves real Americans but that seems odd. What is really American? Lauding the communities that manage to nurture people capable of contributing to the rich culture that makes it so hard to say, exactly, just what America is.
Both weird and unsurprising that Trump finds Minneapolis so offensive.
Stock Market Day After Trump's Announcement That He's Going to War Over Greenland
Markets were down sharply today.
NASDAQ - 2.4%
S&P 500 - 2.1%
Dow - 1.8%
Weird that an American president can't even announce that he's going to war against NATO without investors getting all nervous.
NASDAQ - 2.4%
S&P 500 - 2.1%
Dow - 1.8%
Weird that an American president can't even announce that he's going to war against NATO without investors getting all nervous.
The Toronto Stock Exchange was down about half that, by the way.
Trump Daily Amps Up the Fascist Meter - Serving Subpoenas to Minnesota Governor, Attorney General and Minneapolis Mayor
Trump is casually planning going to war with NATO - putting the US in the same camp as Russia - and is arresting state governors, mayors and attorney generals. And some of you supporters of his still think you're conservatives, not fascists. You need to read some history.
From Reuter's ... BREAKING: Subpoenas were served at the offices of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a DOJ official said as protests and an immigration enforcement crackdown continue in the state.
From Reuter's ... BREAKING: Subpoenas were served at the offices of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a DOJ official said as protests and an immigration enforcement crackdown continue in the state.
19 January 2026
Time to Invoke the 25th Amendment
Donald Trump 2026 - Like King Lear But With Nuclear Weapons
Another way to phrase Donald Trump's note to Norway's Prime Minister?
"Since you would not give me the Nobel Peace Prize I will be going to war with you."
This is surreal. The stuff of a deranged mind. Republicans who continue to support Trump (yes, this includes ordinary Americans and not just elected officials) are colluding with this descent into madness. It is like King Lear - a descent into madness - but with nuclear weapons.
Here is Donald's note from 19 January 2026:
“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”
"Since you would not give me the Nobel Peace Prize I will be going to war with you."
This is surreal. The stuff of a deranged mind. Republicans who continue to support Trump (yes, this includes ordinary Americans and not just elected officials) are colluding with this descent into madness. It is like King Lear - a descent into madness - but with nuclear weapons.
Here is Donald's note from 19 January 2026:
“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”
18 January 2026
The 100 Year Gap Between the Civil War and Civil Rights - an Argument About How Culture, Entrepreneurship and Institutions Are Connected
Jeremy Bentham wrote that “natural rights” are “nonsense upon stilts.” He was not criticizing rights as aspirations but instead rights without institutions. Bentham’s core claim was brutally pragmatic: You can declare a right all you want, but unless there is organized power to define it, adjudicate it, and enforce it, it doesn’t actually exist.
In other words:
Rights are not self-executing.
Rights without enforcement are moral sentiments, not social facts.
What makes a right real is not the declaration but the machinery behind it.
The United States ended slavery in 1865, but it was not until the 1960s that it built - and enforced - the institutions required for equal citizenship. Progress stalled not for lack of moral clarity, but because power was ceded to those determined to preserve the old order. It was a century between winning the Civil War and winning the fight for civil rights.
Declaring a right is an act of imagination; enforcing it is an act of institution-building. Without the second, the first is just rhetoric. Put differently, rights are not wishes; they are policies backed by power.
Culture defines what we believe should be a right.
Institutions determine whether that belief becomes reliable reality.
Entrepreneurship is the work of building the scaffolding that makes that reality durable.
Each line answers a different question:
Culture answers: What do we owe one another, what norms should we share?
Institutions answer: Can we count on this tomorrow?
Entrepreneurship answers: Who builds the systems that make it so?
Nothing is redundant. Nothing can be skipped.
Many contemporary arguments collapse everything into culture:
“Change hearts”
“Win the narrative”
“Shift norms”
Others collapse everything into policy:
“Pass a law”
“Enforce a rule”
“Fix the system”
But both are incomplete alone.
Culture without institutions is aspiration.
Institutions without culture are brittle and might be ignored.
Entrepreneurship is the missing middle that translates between them.
Rights begin as cultural commitments—and only endure when someone builds the institutions to carry them forward.
In other words:
Rights are not self-executing.
Rights without enforcement are moral sentiments, not social facts.
What makes a right real is not the declaration but the machinery behind it.
The United States ended slavery in 1865, but it was not until the 1960s that it built - and enforced - the institutions required for equal citizenship. Progress stalled not for lack of moral clarity, but because power was ceded to those determined to preserve the old order. It was a century between winning the Civil War and winning the fight for civil rights.
Declaring a right is an act of imagination; enforcing it is an act of institution-building. Without the second, the first is just rhetoric. Put differently, rights are not wishes; they are policies backed by power.
Culture defines what we believe should be a right.
Institutions determine whether that belief becomes reliable reality.
Entrepreneurship is the work of building the scaffolding that makes that reality durable.
Each line answers a different question:
Culture answers: What do we owe one another, what norms should we share?
Institutions answer: Can we count on this tomorrow?
Entrepreneurship answers: Who builds the systems that make it so?
Nothing is redundant. Nothing can be skipped.
Many contemporary arguments collapse everything into culture:
“Change hearts”
“Win the narrative”
“Shift norms”
Others collapse everything into policy:
“Pass a law”
“Enforce a rule”
“Fix the system”
But both are incomplete alone.
Culture without institutions is aspiration.
Institutions without culture are brittle and might be ignored.
Entrepreneurship is the missing middle that translates between them.
Rights begin as cultural commitments—and only endure when someone builds the institutions to carry them forward.
17 January 2026
The Difference Between a Conservative and A Fascist
There is a difference between a liberal and a communist and a difference between a conservative and a fascist. If you voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, you're probably a conservative. If you voted for Donald Trump in 2024, you're probably a fascist.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
A Tentative Theory About 20th Century Germany and the US and the Impact of Conscious Social Change on Entrepreneurship
Germany went through multiple, unmistakably distinct phases in the 20th century—imperial, Nazi, occupied, divided East/West, and reunified liberal democracy. The United States changed profoundly too, but in a way that more often felt continuous: less externally imposed, less punctuated by regime replacement, and easier to narrate as organic evolution.
I think we could argue that Germany is more aware that it is constructed, that things could be very different, and that the US is more forgetful of its past. In Germany norms changed abruptly. In the US, they seemed to evolve more organically. In the U.S., many ruptures were narrated as fulfillment (continuity with founding ideals), which keeps “constructedness” less visible.
I'll offer the tentative theory that the US makes it easier for entrepreneurial imagination to flourish but in Germany entrepreneurial efforts might be safer. Put differently, entrepreneurial imagination flourishes more easily in societies that “forget” (where norms feel flexible), but it flourishes more safely and scalably in societies that “know they’re constructed” (where people can redesign rules deliberately). Strong institutions can increase safety and scalability while still reducing the rate of deviation or entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurial imagination needs two permissions. First, the cultural permission to deviate—to try something strange without being socially exiled. That’s why looser cultures often produce more startups and experimentation. But imagination also needs a second permission: the institutional permission to scale—rules that make trust, contracts, and cooperation reliable. Without that, entrepreneurship may be abundant but not especially productive. The sweet spot is a society loose enough to try and self-aware enough to redesign the rules so the good experiments can compound.
I think we could argue that Germany is more aware that it is constructed, that things could be very different, and that the US is more forgetful of its past. In Germany norms changed abruptly. In the US, they seemed to evolve more organically. In the U.S., many ruptures were narrated as fulfillment (continuity with founding ideals), which keeps “constructedness” less visible.
I'll offer the tentative theory that the US makes it easier for entrepreneurial imagination to flourish but in Germany entrepreneurial efforts might be safer. Put differently, entrepreneurial imagination flourishes more easily in societies that “forget” (where norms feel flexible), but it flourishes more safely and scalably in societies that “know they’re constructed” (where people can redesign rules deliberately). Strong institutions can increase safety and scalability while still reducing the rate of deviation or entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurial imagination needs two permissions. First, the cultural permission to deviate—to try something strange without being socially exiled. That’s why looser cultures often produce more startups and experimentation. But imagination also needs a second permission: the institutional permission to scale—rules that make trust, contracts, and cooperation reliable. Without that, entrepreneurship may be abundant but not especially productive. The sweet spot is a society loose enough to try and self-aware enough to redesign the rules so the good experiments can compound.
The practical implication is that entrepreneurial societies need to build institutional literacy: the ability to change rules deliberately without breaking the hidden load-bearing norms. Looseness produces ideas; constructedness produces guardrails. Progress needs both—permission to deviate, and the capacity to institutionalize what works.
Trust and Innovation - The Value of CEO Trust
Research using CEO turnovers and a trust proxy based on culturally inherited “generalized trust” finds that more trusting CEOs foster more exploratory R&D—showing up as ~6% more patents and higher patent quality—consistent with employees feeling safer taking risks.
Raising CEO trust by ~11 percentage points (for example: Greek-American → English-American average trust difference) corresponds to about a 6.3% increase in patents filed, roughly ~1 additional patent per year for the average firm, estimated at ~$3M in additional value. [ source: https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/.../trust... ]
16 January 2026
Harper's Reports - 92 Percent of Investment Driven by Data Centers & How Credit Card Debt is Increasing Divorce Rates
From Harper's Magazine
Estimated percentage of U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025 that was driven by investment in data centers : 92
[January 2026 • Source: Jason Furman, Harvard Kennedy School (Cambridge, Mass.)]
Percentage of American couples who got divorced in 2023 who said that credit-card debt was partly to blame : 29
Of those who got divorced in 2025 : 42
[January 2026 • Source: Debt.com (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)]
[January 2026 • Source: Jason Furman, Harvard Kennedy School (Cambridge, Mass.)]
Percentage of American couples who got divorced in 2023 who said that credit-card debt was partly to blame : 29
Of those who got divorced in 2025 : 42
[January 2026 • Source: Debt.com (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)]
Source:
https://harpers.org/harpers-index/?issue_month=01&issue_year=2026
https://harpers.org/harpers-index/?issue_month=01&issue_year=2026
14 January 2026
Institutions As Enablers of Excellence
The aim is not to institutionalize people, making them dependent, but to build enabling institutions: scaffolds that expand human ability by making cooperation reliable and enabling. At their best, institutions are conspiracies to make ordinary people more capable of making a difference in their world, giving people more agency and all that comes with that – from learning to belonging to confidence that one’s effort matters.
W. Edwards Deming put the point more plainly. One of his most radical management principles was that people have a right to take pride in their work. Not pride in themselves alone, but pride in what they helped create. When institutions work, they allow people to say, “Look what I played a part in making possible.” When they fail, they turn effort into frustration—work into motion without meaning.
W. Edwards Deming put the point more plainly. One of his most radical management principles was that people have a right to take pride in their work. Not pride in themselves alone, but pride in what they helped create. When institutions work, they allow people to say, “Look what I played a part in making possible.” When they fail, they turn effort into frustration—work into motion without meaning.
"Mixed" Reviews on Trump Coming Into His First Anniversary
Well sure, federal troops have invaded American cities to find brown people, Trump is threatening to go to war with NATO for Greenland and to arrest the Fed Chair in order to coerce that institution to set in motion lower rates that would "stimulate" the economy to the point of rampant inflation and the Trump family has made deals with Saudi Arabia and other despotic regimes to increase family wealth by more than $6 billion and Trump has time for all this but no time to release the Epstein files that would reveal details of his close friendship with a pedophile ... and ... and ...
But you sure don't hear about those 6 trans kids playing high school sports anymore. And nobody is eating the dogs and eating the cats now. So, you know, reviews are mixed coming into the first anniversary of Trump's inauguration.
12 January 2026
Trump's Terrible Tariffs and Job Creation Rates
Since Trump announced his tariffs, average monthly job creation has been about 12,000 jobs.
Over the rest of this century - including the Great Recession and COVID - the average monthly job creation rate has been about 94,000 jobs.
Put differently: at the tariff-era pace, it would take two full presidential terms to create as many jobs as the U.S. economy typically creates in a single average year.
We're dangerously close to stall speed.
Tariffs weren’t a bold economic strategy. They were a brake.
Over the rest of this century - including the Great Recession and COVID - the average monthly job creation rate has been about 94,000 jobs.
Put differently: at the tariff-era pace, it would take two full presidential terms to create as many jobs as the U.S. economy typically creates in a single average year.
We're dangerously close to stall speed.
Tariffs weren’t a bold economic strategy. They were a brake.
I've Replaced my Keyboard with an Ouija Board
My keyboard died and I've temporarily replaced it with an Ouija board. It makes "typing" really slow but the good news is that I'm hearing from people I haven't heard from in a long time.
10 January 2026
2025 Job Creation Less Than 4Q of 2024
In 2024, the economy created more than 2 million jobs. In all of 2025 it created fewer jobs than were created in just the fourth quarter of 2024.
Jobs created
2024 2.012 million
2025 .584 million
Jobs created
2024 2.012 million
2025 .584 million
If You Were Conscripted into Public-Sector Entrepreneurship Where Would You Focus
If you were conscripted for 12–18 months into public-sector entrepreneurship to help to create, improve, or eliminate our public sector institutions and policies, where would you choose to focus?
Imagine a world where public sector solutions are not always a product of long debates through congress and the oval office but can also emerge out of citizen initiatives, piloted in small areas and then abandoned, revised or scaled up depending on outcomes. As a draftee, you would work with other Americans to create these pop-up institutions that could be relegated to history or emerge as a new pillar of democracy.
• ☐ Primary focus
• ☆ Secondary interest
• ______ Fill-in-the-blank
Possible Public-Sector Entrepreneurship Domains
1. Education & Lifelong Learning
(schools, credentials, re-training, access, outcomes)
2. Workforce & Economic Mobility
(job transitions, entrepreneurship, precarity, local opportunity)
3. Health & Mental Health
(access, prevention, public health, addiction, aging)
4. Housing & Community Development
(affordability, zoning, homelessness, mixed-income communities)
5. Public Safety & Justice
(crime prevention, policing, courts, incarceration alternatives)
6. Climate, Energy & Resilience
(adaptation, infrastructure, water, wildfire, heat)
7. Transportation & Urban Systems
(mobility, congestion, public transit, walkability)
8. Technology, Data & Digital Government
(service delivery, trust, privacy, civic tech)
9. Democracy, Trust & Civic Participation
(elections, institutions, public engagement, misinformation)
10. Immigration & Integration
(newcomer support, labor matching, civic belonging)
11. Research, Science & Long-Term Capability
(R&D, national capacity, moonshots, readiness)
12. International Cooperation & Security
(diplomacy, alliances, global public goods)
13. Arts, Culture & Public Space
(public art, cultural districts, libraries/museums, creative economy, place-making)
14. Public Media, Broadcasting & Civic Information
(PBS/local news partnerships, civic explainers, media literacy, emergency communications, community dialogue)
15. Fill in the Blank
____________________________
You are not fixing everything. You are choosing one place to make something meaningfully better. Democracy should not be something that happens to you. It should be something you help to make happen.
Imagine a world where public sector solutions are not always a product of long debates through congress and the oval office but can also emerge out of citizen initiatives, piloted in small areas and then abandoned, revised or scaled up depending on outcomes. As a draftee, you would work with other Americans to create these pop-up institutions that could be relegated to history or emerge as a new pillar of democracy.
• ☐ Primary focus
• ☆ Secondary interest
• ______ Fill-in-the-blank
Possible Public-Sector Entrepreneurship Domains
1. Education & Lifelong Learning
(schools, credentials, re-training, access, outcomes)
2. Workforce & Economic Mobility
(job transitions, entrepreneurship, precarity, local opportunity)
3. Health & Mental Health
(access, prevention, public health, addiction, aging)
4. Housing & Community Development
(affordability, zoning, homelessness, mixed-income communities)
5. Public Safety & Justice
(crime prevention, policing, courts, incarceration alternatives)
6. Climate, Energy & Resilience
(adaptation, infrastructure, water, wildfire, heat)
7. Transportation & Urban Systems
(mobility, congestion, public transit, walkability)
8. Technology, Data & Digital Government
(service delivery, trust, privacy, civic tech)
9. Democracy, Trust & Civic Participation
(elections, institutions, public engagement, misinformation)
10. Immigration & Integration
(newcomer support, labor matching, civic belonging)
11. Research, Science & Long-Term Capability
(R&D, national capacity, moonshots, readiness)
12. International Cooperation & Security
(diplomacy, alliances, global public goods)
13. Arts, Culture & Public Space
(public art, cultural districts, libraries/museums, creative economy, place-making)
14. Public Media, Broadcasting & Civic Information
(PBS/local news partnerships, civic explainers, media literacy, emergency communications, community dialogue)
15. Fill in the Blank
____________________________
You are not fixing everything. You are choosing one place to make something meaningfully better. Democracy should not be something that happens to you. It should be something you help to make happen.
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