Collapse in 280 Characters or Less: How a Tiny Bird App, a Nobel Prize, and a Spreadsheet Error Almost Destroyed Democracy (But Definitely Destroyed Retirement)

 Collapse in 280 Characters or Less

How a Tiny Bird App, a Nobel Prize, and a Spreadsheet Error Almost Destroyed Democracy (But Definitely Destroyed Retirement)

Let’s start in Sweden, 1976. A pair of economists named Assar Lindbeck and Gunnar Myrdal have very different ideas. Myrdal wants the welfare state to uplift the masses. Lindbeck thinks generous social programs are dangerous—because if people get too much help, they’ll stop trying.

Guess which idea catches fire in Washington?

Cue the Nobel Prize in Economics—which, fun fact, isn’t a real Nobel, it was made up by a bank in the 1960s. Still, it gave economic orthodoxy a halo. Now ideas like “austerity is good for growth” and “markets are always right” weren’t just theories. They were gospel, backed by prestige.

Fast forward to 2010. The global financial crash is still smoldering. Countries are in crisis. Governments ask economists: What now?

Up step Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, two Harvard economists with a spreadsheet and a bombshell claim: when a country’s debt hits 90% of GDP, growth plummets. Their paper becomes a rallying cry for austerity—cut spending, tighten belts, shrink public services. It spreads like wildfire.

There’s just one problem: they messed up the math.

A grad student named Thomas Herndon later finds the error. The Excel formula left out five countries. The most basic spreadsheet mistake in history—right there, shaping global policy.

Now bring in the bird.

Around the same time, a little platform called Twitter—born in 2006—has evolved from “here’s my sandwich” updates into an outrage-powered megaphone. Politicians, pundits, and trolls use it to bend reality in real time.

Economics used to happen in conference rooms. Now it happens in quote tweets.

Misinformation spreads faster than corrections. Austerity becomes moral. People suffering under budget cuts are told, “It’s your own fault.” The bird is tiny, but its shadow falls across entire parliaments.

And while everyone’s yelling about cancel culture and GDP ratios, another crisis quietly unfolds: retirement.

Pensions shrink. Wages stagnate. 401(k)s flutter in the wind. The idea of a peaceful exit from the workforce—once promised to the working class—has become a kind of tragicomic punchline. Instead, older people drive Ubers, tutor on Fiverr, or sell vintage action figures on eBay.

The austerity you were told was necessary? Based on bad math.
The policy it justified? A social wound.
The platform that amplified it? An open-air gladiator arena where nuance goes to die.

All because of a spreadsheet cell… and a bird that wouldn’t shut up.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Norse Code: Vikings, Violence, and the Unexpected Birth of Empire

Image
  "The Norse Code: Vikings, Violence, and the Unexpected Birth of Empire" You know, when most people think of European colonialism, they jump straight to the Spanish in the Americas, or the British in India, all red uniforms and tea. But long before that — before muskets, flags, and treaties — there were bearded men in boats, with axes, and an alarming tendency to show up uninvited. I’m talking, of course, about the Vikings. Now the usual story goes: the Vikings were raiders. Plunderers. Pillagers. Yes, they were that — but also something more. Because while they were looting churches in England, they were also accidentally building the foundations of European expansion . Take the year 793 — the infamous raid on Lindisfarne. It wasn’t just the shock of violence. It was the realization that the sea was a highway , not a barrier. The Vikings weren’t trying to build an empire. They were looking for farmland, trade, and a good reason to leave Scandinavia — where, incidentally,...
Read more

Before Global Colonization: Europe’s Internal Empires

Image
  Throughout our shared history, humans have tirelessly sought to organize and structure society. At its most expansive, this quest for order and clarity has taken the form of empire. When we think of colonization, our minds often leap to distant shores—to the Americas, Asia, Africa. But long before these global journeys began, Europe itself was a continent colonized repeatedly from within. Here, within Europe's borders, we find a powerful story about human governance, expansion, exploitation, and the complicated legacy that empire leaves behind. The Roman Empire set the mold. From the first century BCE to its collapse in the fifth century CE, Rome reigned over vast territories stretching from Britain to North Africa. Romans were exceptional builders, organizers, and administrators. Their roads, bridges, aqueducts, and cities linked distant lands and diverse peoples into a single entity. Yet beneath Rome’s impressive engineering and cultural legacy lay the harsh reality of slavery....
Read more

Deep Research on Longevity, Elite Agendas, and the Population Decline Discourse

  Longevity, Elite Agendas, and the Population Decline Discourse Elite Voices Linking Population and Longevity Prominent tech billionaires and investors have increasingly weighed in on global birthrates – some drawing connections (implicitly or explicitly) to life-extension ambitions. Elon Musk has repeatedly sounded the alarm about falling fertility, calling population decline “the biggest danger civilization faces by far” newyorker.com . Musk has famously acted on his pronatalist stance (fathering around a dozen children), even allegedly offering to donate his own sperm to help others have kids (a claim he denied) newyorker.com . Intriguingly, Musk’s concern for more babies comes despite his skepticism of radical longevity; he argues that societal progress requires generational turnover and has said “it is important for us to die” lest society ossify under immortal leaders futurism.com persuasion.community . In other words, Musk fears a “gerontocracy” if people don’t age out,...
Read more