Devang Baheti

Tweets are personal ||
I tweet economy, music, sports, politics & AOE2

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

@ken_prog Take it easy my friend. Keep your chin up, you are a terrific musician..

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

Poll question of the decade

[Henrietta Treyz @HenriettaVeda]

@biancoresearch This post reminds me that only 46% of Republican men think they could take Trump in a fight.

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

Buttigieg says data centers should have to prove that they'll benefit a local community before coming in.

This is the kind of thing that sounds good but would basically destroy the economy and American living standards.

Markets should allocate capital, not activists.

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

Trump just got exposed for running the biggest insider trading operation in American history.

Nancy Pelosi traded $5 million in stocks and Congress lost its mind.

Trump literally executed $750 MILLION worth of stock trades in ONE quarter while being President.

His ethics filing just dropped and the numbers are genuinely unprecedented in history:

Between January and March 2026, Donald Trump personally executed 3,700 individual stock transactions worth between $220 million and $750 million.

That's roughly 60 trades PER DAY.

While signing executive orders, meeting foreign leaders, and making policy decisions that directly impact the companies he's buying and selling.

Now here's where it gets really insane:

On February 10, Trump bought between $1 million and $5 million worth of Dell stock.

Three months later, on May 8, he stood at a Mother's Day event at the White House, thanked Michael Dell by name, and told Americans to "go out and buy a Dell."

Dell stock surged 14.6% that day to an all-time high of $263.99.

Since Trump's February purchase, Dell is up 96%.

And 5 months BEFORE Trump bought Dell stock, Michael and Susan Dell donated $6.25 billion to Trump Accounts, one of the largest philanthropic commitments to a sitting president's signature program in modern history.

So the timeline goes: Dell donates $6.25 billion to Trump's program -> Trump buys Dell stock ->Trump tells America to buy Dell from the White House podium -> Stock hits all-time high

And that's just ONE stock...

The same filing shows Trump bought Nvidia stock on February 10. One week later, Nvidia announced a massive chip deal with Meta.

He bought more Nvidia stock one week BEFORE his own Commerce Department approved the sale of Nvidia chips to Saudi Arabia.

He bought Intel stock starting in March 2026. The US government already owned a 9.9% stake in Intel worth over $41 billion. On April 30, Trump posted on Truth Social praising Intel, writing that "Intel Stock continues to rise."

Intel jumped 3% in after-hours and is now up 140% year-to-date.

He bought Palantir stock while his administration was actively handing them billion-dollar government contracts for immigration enforcement and defense.

He bought Robinhood stock while his own Trump Accounts program uses Robinhood as the broker.

He's currently sitting on over 100% profit on AMD, Intel, Bloom Energy, Marvell Technology, and at least 10 other positions.

Every single president since Lyndon B. Johnson has used a blind trust to avoid exactly this situation. But Trump didn't.

His assets sit in a trust controlled by his own children, and the filings show a broker acted as agent on several trades.

The White House says the portfolio is "independently managed."

But here's what independently managed looks like:

Buy Dell stock. Three months later, publicly endorse Dell from the White House. Stock hits all-time high.

Buy Nvidia stock. One week later, your own government approves their chip sales. Stock rips.

Buy Intel stock. Post about Intel on Truth Social. Stock jumps. The government you run already owns a 10% stake.

Buy Palantir. Hand them contracts. Buy Robinhood. Route a federal program through their platform.

Nancy Pelosi got absolutely destroyed for her husband's stock trades.

Her husband's total disclosed trades in his most controversial year were worth roughly $5 million.

Trump just disclosed up to $750 MILLION in a single quarter.

While making the actual policy decisions that move these stocks.

This isn't a left or right issue.

We're talking about the President of the United States averaging 60 stock trades per day in companies his own administration regulates, contracts with, and publicly endorses.

What do you think?

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

As other economists have shown, Gabriel Zucman's tax and inequality data is wildly misleading. He turns seemingly every methodological dial to claim that inequality has soared and high-earner taxes have collapsed.

In his own data, virtually the ENTIRE drop in high-income taxes come from Zucman's highly unorthodox assumptions about the incidence of the corporate tax - which he claims cost the top 1% of earners 29% (!) of their income in 1951, and yet now costs them 6%.

And this questionable data accounts for his ENTIRE claimed "drop" in higher-earner taxes.

You see - on the income tax side - Zucman's own data shows that the average individual income tax paid by the rich has RISEN - not fallen - since the 1950s.

See https://t.co/7MV77qBWUe then click on "Table 2: Distributional series," and navigate to tab TG2b, column T for income taxes (and column U for corporate taxes)

As much as Zucman builds up 1950s income tax rates, almost no one actually paid 91% tax rates - or even touched a tax bracket over 50%. And that's why actual income tax revenues - including income tax rates paid by the rich - were *lower* in the 1950s than today.

Zucman's rhetoric is peddling a "tax the rich" utopia of the 1940s-1960s that his own data shows did not exist.

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

@mcuban Last I checked you already pay sales tax when you pay for AI

[Michael Dell 🇺🇸 @MichaelDell]

Robert Reich forgot the 6th and most common way:

6) Build something millions of people actually want

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

The story about Sweden that the oxymoron-ic "democratic socialists" don't tell you

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

Sweden is choosing capitalism.

Social spending as percentage of GDP is now 24%, lower than most of Northern Europe.

Sweden has surpassed the US in billionaires per capita.

School choice is universal, one in ten teens goes to a school operated by a company listed on the Stockholm stock exchange.

Taxes have been cut three years in a row.

Sweden has seen "more than 500 initial public offerings over the 10 years through 2024, more than Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain combined"

Nearly half of primary healthcare clinics are now privately owned.

The result? Same as always. Sweden is projected to grow 2% a year through 2030, which is the same as the US and double France and Germany.

How many times does this have to keep happening across the world? How many times does free market capitalism have to prove itself superior to socialism before the world accepts the truth?

[Akshay Baheti @Dr_AkshayBaheti]

How time flies! We cautiously started the @REF_INDIA @CafeRoentgen webinars in 2019 in the era of physical talks, wondering whether we'll get enough traction online. And 7 years later, yesterday, we celebrated our 1000th Webinar! A tentative idea has transformed into a legacy!

[Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) @TheMilkBarTV]

The ultimate compilation of Tucker Carlson contradicting himself.

[Coleman Hughes @coldxman]

Someone should ask AOC if Beyoncé earned her billion

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

He suddenly understands the question @BeckyQuick @andrewrsorkin

[TBPN @tbpn]

$GME CEO @ryancohen unpacks "half cash, half stock":

"We have the cash accounted for today, in terms of a highly confident letter from our bank for the $20 billion. Plus we've got $9 billion of cash."

"What we're proposing is for existing shareholders to take half of their investment off the table. That would be us providing them with $28 billion, which is a 40% premium from when we started buying the stock."

"And then they would be getting roughly — it ultimately depends on when the transaction closes — but they would be rolling the rest into the combined company of GameStop and eBay."

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

"Science is great. I love research. But don't overlook the natural trend of trial and error in the arena. It generally surfaces what has value"
Wise words valid in many spheres outside sport as well.. something that took me 7-8 years to sink in after undergrad

[Steve Magness @stevemagness]

TIme for a rant. Why is it so hard to study performance in the lab?

One major reason is that what feels like a massive improvement in the real world is hard to pick up in the lab.

Take super shoes, you get a 3-4% boost in performance. Massive. You feel it on race day. But in the lab, even the largest single factor boost we get...it's hard to pick apart.

Now, take it a step further to a still significant but smaller boost, say 1% from high carb fueling or bicarb or any other legitimate intervention...

It's near impossible to get this to show up consistently in studies on a small number of amateur or moderately trained folks. Why? The variation in performance is too large.

If you're a 6 minute miler, you don't run 6min ont he dot every time you race. On a great day, you run 6:00. On a good day, maybe 6:05. Average day 6:08. Bad day 6:15. Disaster? 6:25.

Hopkins & Hewson (2001) studied the day variability of performance and basically found:
Elite/world-class trained: ~1.5%
Sub-elite well-trained: ~2.5%
Recreational/amateur: ~4%

The point is the variation in day to day performance is much larger than the intervention. For amateurs, its bigger than the single biggest performance breakthrough we've had in running (super shoes!).

To counteract this, we try to use larger number of folks, but in exercise science that almost never happens because of recruiting, funding, and other constraints.

So what you tend to get with small N studies is that most are statistically blind to any change under 3-4%.

And yet...most of our interventions from fuel to bicarb to caffeine are all relatively small effects (0.5-2%) which are practically very significant, but hard to detect in the lab.

That's why... performance in the real world tends to show what works. It's not perfect. But if you've got hundreds or thousands of elites and sub-elites taking bicarb and saying: "Hmm, I ran a bit faster in each race I used it this season..." It sticks around.

One of the main reasons is athletes don't just test things in a one off study. They test it in training, key workouts, numerous races, etc. Compare notes with their training partners, etc. It's easier to surface a signal over that longer period.

Again, it's not perfect. But what often happens is a new supplement, tool, tech shows up. Everyone tries it. For a brief period you don't quite know as there's a copycat nature...But if the performance boost is significant it stays. If it doesn't, it fades away.

So when you see someone say, "Hey in this study of 14 amateur runners, taking carbs didn't improve performance..." the answer is almost always, ya because of day to day performance variation, you can't pick up the signal from the noise.

Science is great. I love research. But don't overlook the natural trend of trial and error in the arena. It generally surfaces what has value.

[Billy Binion @billybinion]

This myth just won't die. In 2024 alone, it's estimated Jeff Bezos paid almost $3 billion in taxes. Painting rich people as tax avoiders plays great on social media, but it's not reality. The U.S. has the most progressive tax system in the developed world.

[Charlie Bilello @charliebilello]

Insane stat: 0.1% of the accounts on Polymarket have earned 67% of the profits.

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

The most bizarre non- interview by bY $GME CEO @ryancohen at @SquawkCNBC. To call him a grifter would be unfair to grifters. Thanks for pressing him "where's the money coming from, you math doesnt add up" @BeckyQuick @andrewrsorkin

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

@SenWarren @JetBlue @SpiritAirlines @JusticeATR @USDOT https://t.co/OMhu3GCl7d

[Elizabeth Warren @SenWarren]

I've warned for months that a @JetBlue-@SpiritAirlines merger would have led to fewer flights and higher fares.

@JusticeATR and @USDOT were right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway airline consolidation.

This is a Biden win for flyers! https://t.co/lJFGS3ucv3

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Spirit Airlines died tonight at the hands of the socialist crusader, Elizabeth Warren

She must be so proud to add another casket to her achievements.

Tonight at 3am, Spirit turns off the lights. 14,000 jobs gone. 30+ smaller airports lose service.

JetBlue offered $3.8 BILLION in cash to buy Spirit in 2022. Shareholders, flight attendants union, literally everyone voted yes.

The combined company would have held 9% of the US market against a Big 4 that already owned 80%.

For anyone who understands numbers: 9% isn’t a monopoly against 80%.

Warren said no.

She wrote letters. She pressured Buttigieg. Biden’s DOJ sued. A federal judge killed the deal in January 2024.

Her argument: the merger would cost consumers $1 billion a year.

Now look at her collateral damage she dusts under the rug.

510 pilots gone in the months after. 1,800 flight attendants furloughed in December.

14,000 jobs in 2023. 7,500 last week. Zero tonight.

And that’s just the people in Spirit uniforms.

Catering goes. Fuel guys go. Baggage crews, gate agents, airport coffee shops, hotels and rental cars in 70 cities Spirit flew to. Every airline job carries 3 more on its back.

40,000 people out of work because of one woman’s moronic crusade against the market.

And the math ain’t mathing.

Spirit abandoned 90 routes during the death spiral. Fares on those routes are up 14% on average. Oakland to Newark: $135 to $288. Fort Myers to San Juan: $92 to $219. Kansas City to Newark up 66%.

That’s reality. Not some BS number from a “study.”

So @SenWarren tell me how this saves the consumer money?

Cheap carriers in a market drop fares 21% across the board. Southwest did this in the 90s and saved Americans $68 BILLION over 20 years.

Warren killed it. That’s what moronic politicians led by socialism do.

Then with her own blind arrogance, she tweeted Spirit’s collapse is “a Biden win for flyers.”

A win.

14,000 people are reading termination letters tonight.

And she’s taking credit.

This is socialism in 2026.

A senator who’s never made payroll thinks she knows how to run a market better than the people who own and work in the company.

She saved you a billion on imaginary paper.

She cost you ten times that in real life.

She didn’t protect consumers from anything.

14,000+ will go from working to welfare.

She will make sure to blame billionaires, hardworking tax payers, AI, capitalism and whatever monster they will make up tomorrow hiding under your bed.

Higher taxes. Fewer jobs. More expensive everything.

She called it a win. I hope you enjoy winning.

[Devang Baheti @devangbaheti]

Quantitative tightening

[Nick Timiraos @NickTimiraos]

What’s the heavier lift: 365 lbs on your 67th birthday or telling your colleagues you changed your mind on rate cuts? Chris Waller seems comfortable with both.

(He posted this video on his LinkedIn account)