Swapnil Singh

Principal Research Economist, Bank of Lithuania/CEFER. Tweets do not represent the official views of my employer.

[Bryan Caplan @bryan_caplan]

ChatGPT has done something that no human has ever done: Gone from self-righteous wokester to can-do rationalist in four short years.

[Swapnil Singh @econswapnil]

codex musing on the word boring

[Alex Imas @alexolegimas]

Every single post of mine that gets above a certain threshold of visibility has a ton of replies that are just a picture of my face with the word "jew" under it. I mean, guilty as charged!

[Jedi @dhe3g]

Wasn’t her husband assassinated in broad daylight here in the U.S. while Trump was president?

[Hanno Lustig @HannoLustig]

Once a country runs out of fiscal capacity, it becomes a bit harder to govern .

[Andrew Lynch @andrewglynch]

if a toddler puts a sticker on you, that’s a sign of great respect in their culture

[Swapnil Singh @econswapnil]

@40yoap

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

Trump ran against the Biden record. Then he:
– Raised gas prices
– Launched foreign wars
– Dangled $300B for Iran
– Backdoor-forgave student loans
– Raised taxes (tariffs)
– Blew up the deficit
– Worsened inflation
– Weaponized DOJ against enemies
– Pardoned swampy lawmakers
– Let his family cash in
– Nationalized businesses
– Blamed corporate greed for prices
– Executive overreached
– Said an armed protester had it coming.

I hope all the MAGAs who despised Bidenism are enjoying the sequel. The remaining economic, foreign policy, and small-government conservatives who did not abandon their policy beliefs (what they call “RINOs”) are just sitting back saying “I told you so.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Alex Imas @alexolegimas]

This is what the future looks like to high agency folks + AI.

[Liza Libes @pensandpoison]

Political extremism on both sides is bad, but the reason I tend to zero in on the far left is because it’s hijacked everything I’ve ever loved—literature, art, music—and has convinced almost the entire world that the value of art lies in its relation to social justice.

[Masih Alinejad 🏳️ @AlinejadMasih]

I asked American students why they don’t protest when women are whipped and shot in Iran and Afghanistan.

The answers expose a contradiction nobody wants to talk about.

We must change the narrative so the younger generation stops lending cover to Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban and the Islamic Republic. That's why I choose to travel and speak to students face-to-face. I listen first, without judgment. Then I share what it means to live under Sharia law not as an abstraction, but as a lived reality.

Truth is not a phobia. Calling out the whipping of women is not hate. Staying silent about it is.

[Rahul Pandita @rahulpandita]

एक देव पुरुष को सिंहासन से हटाने के लिए दूसरे देव पुरुष का आगमन। यहीं भारत की नियति है (और इंडिया की भी)

[Pieter Garicano @pietergaricano]

To reduce European dependence on American technology firms, the European Parliament has replaced Google with a French search engine, Qwant.

Qwant generates its search results by querying the Microsoft Bing API.

[Swapnil Singh @econswapnil]

@KelseyTuoc Our 2 week old does the same! Bawling for milk with a fist in mouth.

[ZUBY: @ZubyMusic]

One of the craziest things about the UK rape gang scandal is that it's largely considered a 'right wing' concern.

In a sane, serious country, it would be completely bipartisan. In fact, it wouldn't even be seen as a political issue, but one of basic justice and morality.

[Uri Kurlianchik @VerminusM]

So, do we start making surrender jokes about America instead of France now?

[sid 🌹🔆🇨🇦 @lilbabygandhi]

Why is every DSA candidate so cagey about Ukraine. There has never been a more clear cut country to support than Ukraine. If you valued democracy at all you should be unequivocal in your support of them.

[Rushi @rushicrypto]

Greenland is now asking Trump to invade, hoping to secure a deal similar to the one Iran got.

[Chinmay A. Singh @chinmay]

How babus harm Indian Engineers:
I ran a US based startup. My engineering team was in India. Not in Bangalore or Delhi, but scattered across small towns and villages around UP/Bihar/Assam.
They were some of the best engineers I have worked with anywhere. The only thing they lacked was the ability to speak English like someone who went to a Delhi private school. That one accident of birth kept them off the rosters of every shiny startup.
I turned that into an advantage. I go find them. And I pay them exactly what an English-speaking engineer in Bangalore would get, without making them move. Same code, same salary. English fluency was never the skill I was hiring for.
Now I wanted to give them what my US team members had: ownership. A real piece of what they were building. For a young dude from a village in Gonda or Chapra, that can be generational, life-changing money when we exit.
But I could’t.
The moment an Indian employee exercise their options (convert them to shares), without selling anything they get taxed on the paper gain as salary (I have heard it could be as high as 42%). For a private company, no buyer, no liquidity, no cash. But they get slapped with a tax bill, sometimes larger than their salary, on money they haven't earned.
So, if I gave them equity, the choice I wd have forced on those engineers was: pay lakhs out of pocket for shares they can't sell, or give up the equity.
In the US employees pay nothing until they sell, and if they hold long enough, they may pay almost nothing at all (federal).
I have heard that in India , there is a "deferral" now. But if my info is correct, it covers ~2% of startups. Like most other startups, mine wont qualify.
The fix is one line: tax the shares when they are sold, not when they are bought. Every developed country does it. India could do it tomorrow but it does not.
Why?
Due to babus (not Nirmala S).