benbraun.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

The speed at which Trump’s policies are gutting some IRA success stories is brutal.

submitted 16 hours ago • 1 comment

Today's crude oil price in historical perspective. Getting pretty close to pre-2002 commodity supercycle territory.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Habe lange an diesem Essay gearbeitet, neu angesetzt, verworfen. Jetzt ist er endlich erschienen, @jacobinmagazin.bsky.social, in der neuen Print-Ausgabe und online hier: jacobin.de/artikel/gaza...

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

New publication (co-authored with @simeonbischl.de)! Excited to see Chapter 2 of my PhD published in EJPE: How Central Bank Independence Shapes Monetary Policy Communication: A Large Language Model Application. A thread below: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

"Private equity investors with German banking assets “have tried everything” to divest their holdings." They could have read "Strong Firms, Weak Banks" and saved themselves a lot of trouble. www.ft.com/content/2c45...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Excellent analysis of BYD’s global expansion, by @paologerbaudo.bsky.social.

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Three new pieces on the future of the global auto industry and its workers: - Paolo Gerbaudo on BYD's globalization - CUT Bahia head Alfredo Santos interviewed on BYD's operations in Camaçari, Brazil - Jeffrey Hermanson interviewed on labor organizing in Mexico's manufacturing centers.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Ambitious RoE targets

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

If you were waiting to read our “origins of the new finance capital” substack piece until AFTER the Jacobin editors got a hold it, here it is.

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Thrilled to see my article w. @seanoriain.bsky.social on Ireland's Corporate Tax Games w. @ripejournal.bsky.social, drawing on global wealth chains @lenseabrooke.bsky.social, coding of capital by Katherina Pistor & infrastructural power @benbraun.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

submitted 10 days ago • 2 comments

Space socialism, hell yes

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Adding a bit more heterogeneity to the asymmetry, hierarchy, heterogeneity characterizing structural power in the US global empire (here in relation to credit creation). Asymmetry: if your banks lend in USD (90% of USD lending is non-US banks) you might need emergency dollar funding. 1/4

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Finally reading Mazower's 'Hitler's Empire'. His account of the Nazis' genocidal mass starvation of Soviet POWs is harrowing. One of the more neglected crimes in German WWII memory culture, relative to the number of victims.

submitted 11 days ago • 2 comments

My first ever op-ed. "Decoupling" was a casually used buzzword to describe a hard break in US-China economic relations. It made it sound as if it was like decoupling two railcars: clean and simple. It turns out it is more like tearing out organs from a living body.

submitted 11 days ago • 6 comments

🚨Pre-orders are now live!! 🚨 We've also just released a few final tickets for our launch event— I'll be in conversation with the brilliant @quinnslobodian.com & @geoffmann.bsky.social Thanks to all who've signed up so far, we're excited to see you May 7. Pre-orders: www.break-down.org/issues/1

submitted 11 days ago • 2 comments

Industrial model based on fossil-fueled steel boxes on wheels (cars) re-invents itself by making fossil-fueled steel hunks on tracks (tanks). Genuinely wondering if this is going to look like a reasonable policy choice a few years down the line.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Are central banks turning into research institutes? Happy to share the publication in @finandsoc.bsky.social of an article on the scientization of the @bankofengland.bsky.social, "Not a steamroller, a 3D process", with F. Sergi, F. Claveau & @clemfon.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

The best piece about Trump's trade policy comes from a young historian, @tiltingatm3.bsky.social, and builds on work by two other young historians, @andrewelrod.bsky.social and @timbarker.bsky.social. Our profession in its infinite wisdom meanwhile has decided none of these people should have jobs.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Taylor & Francis have made my note on Gaza and the crisis of international law freely available online. You can access it below and partake to my impeding sense of doom.

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

After two substantial rounds of revisions, Arjun Jayadev and I finally sent in to day the (knock on wood) final manuscript of our book on money. The book itself won't appear for another eight months, but at least the writing is done.

submitted 13 days ago • 7 comments

Three months ago not a single one predicting a recession? Frankly, lmao.

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

In 2008, they were one of the few that weren't forced sell PE funds because of credit lines that were already in place. "Despite the funding and tax challenges, Yale has attributed the sale to its portfolio management needs, according to a source." www.secondariesinvestor.com/yale-sells-u...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

When you’re the apex predator in the global financial food chain but forget that half your bulk is foreign money & that your service export is not rocket science and is easily re-shored. Imho, private equity support for Trump bc of tax & dereg is a stunning case of elite delusion. on.ft.com/42l7J28

submitted 13 days ago • 3 comments

When you’re the apex predator in the global financial food chain but forget that half your bulk is foreign money & that your service export is not rocket science and is easily re-shored. Imho, private equity support for Trump bc of tax & dereg is a stunning case of elite delusion. on.ft.com/42l7J28

submitted 13 days ago • 3 comments

I wrote a piece in The NY Times about global economic stagnation and the way it is shaping politics today, less visibly perhaps than other factors, but more deeply.

submitted 13 days ago • 8 comments

The FT has crowned me "cost-shock queen". I take it. Thanks @chrisgiles.ft.com! Get ready for the next round of sellers' inflation, this time not triggered by natural disasters and war but an onslaught on the global trading system launched by the White House.

submitted 17 days ago • 15 comments

In our 2023 paper Will Bateman and I showed that since forever, and including 2008 and 2020, central banks have invariably hoovered up public debt when markets shut down. This year could again see the Fed act, but it's really badly positioned for this. A quick 🧵 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

submitted 17 days ago • 3 comments

He’s going to appoint Lagarde

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

It’s funny how the ‘wrong crisis’ predicted by Bernanke and co pre 2008 (tensions with China > UST sell-off > dollar crisis > fiscal crisis) is now very much plausible.

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

The report from the factory floor of Belgium’s manufacturer of hand-crafted machine guns or the piece about the UK’s new anti-drone microwave weapon? Well I guess one has to read both. Good morning.

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

I think we're here?

submitted 18 days ago • 2 comments

Bessent in 2024: "Tell me what all the former reserve currencies have in common: Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, UK... How did they loose reserve currency status?...They got highly leveraged and could no longer support their military." Future longue durée hobbyists will have to update the theory.

submitted 18 days ago • 2 comments

European car executives never miss a chance to denounce climate regulation, even when it's well known China ALSO imposed such rules on its own industry. No guys, it was your complacent asses.

submitted 18 days ago • 2 comments

I’m thrilled to receive the 2025 Socio-Economic Review best paper prize! In the paper, I argue that interest coalitions can shield corporate governance institutions from the excessive influence of global asset managers. Free to read here: academic.oup.com/ser/article/...

submitted 18 days ago • 12 comments

From the big read about Chinese carmakers. What the person is saying is that European industry is getting decimated as a result of Fukuyamist triumphalism mixed with—and we should really call things by their names—good old European racism. www.ft.com/content/9de3...

submitted 18 days ago • 3 comments

Thinking about this quote from Westad and Chen a lot these days.

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

Only need to look at the pre-1980 part of this chart to see why Bessent is so keen on making banks' Treasury holdings great again.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Turns out the inauguration CEOs had done their research!

submitted 19 days ago • 2 comments

Wir werden die Angriffe auf unsere Demokratien nur verstehen können, wenn wir sehen, wie sehr Leute wie Steven Pinker Wegbereiter, Ideengeber und Steigbügelhalter des neu-rechten Autoritarismus sind anstatt sie als Analysten zu hofieren. www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/harva...

submitted 19 days ago • 5 comments

Thinking about this quote from Westad and Chen a lot these days.

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

Only need to look at the pre-1980 part of this chart to see why Bessent is so keen on making banks' Treasury holdings great again.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Contradictions of late-stage atlanticism

submitted 20 days ago • 4 comments

remember how Berlin citizens voted to take back the city from corporate landlords in 2021? it was an emancipatory promise many applauded. since then, corporate landlords increased their stronghold on the city to 25% of housing stok, and w it, rents went up by 9% annually.

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments