Leon Heckmann

A lot is happening again and for crazy reasons this is tightly connected to the research we're doing at OBFA-Transform. @olanmcevoy.bsky.social shows the details.
Read the thread and get rewarded by a tailor made meme from me 😅

Trump's Dollar | Steffen Murau Trump’s economic policy and the future of the world dollar

Excellent summary of the large body of work @steffenmurau.bsky.social and colleagues have done on the Offshore (US) Dollar Syatem
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/tru...
@phenomenalworld.bsky.social
Look here for the bigger body of work:
steffenmurau.com/portfolio/in...

📣 News from the OBFA-TRANSFORM project 📣

Our Emmy Noether research group is fast approaching its halfway point and we’ve recently received confirmation of funding from @dfg.de for the second project period from 2026 to 2029 🎊

That's why we are launching our new website at obfa-transform.eu

Can Germany rein in its academic bullying problem? Researchers and administrators are exploring ways to restructure a rigid hierarchy that can breed power abuses.

Worth reading but action preferred.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Who should be charged? Principles for fair allocation of electricity system costs This Policy Brief sets out four principles for pricing electricity fairly

www.bruegel.org/policy-brief...

@bruegel.bsky.social's chart of the week.
Almost all European state favor industry over households if it comes to electricity prices.
Germans paying the highest price. Energy affordability is key for Europe.

Why did voters defect to Germany's new left-authoritarian party, Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW)? New insights can be found here: doi.org/10.1177/2053...

@leon-heckmann.de, @wurthmann.bsky.social & @sarahwagner.bsky.social

Gilt repo clearing mandate on Bank of England’s radar - Risk.net Sources say regulator mulling benefits of US-inspired regime, but is non-committal

All the world's is a clearinghouse

www.risk.net/regulation/7...

How to define Oligarchy

I tried to pin their point down and put it into the context of the GCH. MMT openly ignores limitations of fx markets as it assumes that they will be always there for any amount of exchange. That's, imho, the deeper issue behind imported inflation.

Korrekt. Wahlkreisgewinner dort sollte aber passen.

Sehen wir mal was nächste Woche passiert.

Ich orientiere mich an der Methodik von @zweitstimme.bsky.social von 2021 in einer vereinfachten Form. Das mache ich auch transparent im Gegensatz zu anderen Institutsprognosen. Ein Großteil der WKs ist bei mir an sich too-close-to call mit leichtem CDU Überhang. Das erklärt die Färbung.

Wie sieht es in den einzelnen Wahlkreisen aus? Ein interaktives Tool mit allen Informationen gibt es hier: data-and-politics.de/prognosedash...

Wenn alle 3 einziehen, droht ein sehr fragmentierter Bundestag. In diesem Fall hätten Union und SPD keine Mehrheit zusammen.

Für FDP, Linke und BSW wird es sehr knapp werden. Die Linke hat dabei noch die größten Chancen in den Bundestag einzuziehen. Auch, weil sie wahrscheinlich 3 Wahlkreise für sich entscheiden kann (Leipzig II, Berlin Treptow-Köpenick & Berlin Lichtenberg).

In 7 Tagen ist #Bundestagswahl. Zeit für eine finale Modellprognose:
SPD: 16,2% (13,9%-18,5%)
Union: 29% (26,7%-31,2%)
Grüne: 13,5% (11,2%-15,7%)
FDP: 5% (2,8%-7,3%)
AfD: 19,8% (17,6%-22,1%)
Linke: 6% (3,9%-8,2%)
BSW: 5,3% (3,1%-7,6%)

Musk associates sought to use critical Treasury payment system to shut down USAID spending, emails show | CNN Politics Four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk’s top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off all USAID payments using...

CNN with an absolutely gigantic story:

"Elon Musk’s top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off all USAID payments using the department’s own ultra-sensitive payment processing system."

edition.cnn.com/2025/02/06/p...

Elon Musk Wants to Get Operational Control of the Treasury’s Payment System. This Could Not Possibly Be More Dangerous Until Further Notice: Comprehensive coverage of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025

This is bureaucratic trench warfare. But if Musk and Trump can reach into the choke point, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, they could possibly not need agency cooperation. They can just impound agency payments themselves."
@nathantankus.bsky.social
www.crisesnotes.com/elon-musk-wa...

This is the very heart of the constitutional crisis the takeover of the US payments system is about:
"Without political control of the payment's heart, the Trump administration and Elon Musk must chase down every agency and bend it to their will. (...)

Day Six of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025: “Treasury has been denying that they gave Marko write access, but I am looking at his access request right now” If you are a current or former career Bureau of the Fiscal Service Employee, especially if you’re a legacy IT programmer with years of experience and especially if you are a COBOL programmer currently...

Check out www.crisesnotes.com/day-six-of-t... by @nathantankus.bsky.social

A complete US default due to their technical inability to conduct payments is now a really not so black swan event anymore.

Wenn wir das Thema Migration nicht ausschließlich in Bezug auf und Abgrenzung gegen die AfD behandelt hätten, sondern nach dem was gut für das Land ist, dann wären wir vielleicht jetzt nicht an diesem Punkt...

Panel data shows that the flow from the Greens to the BSW is very tiny and doesn't really matter.
bsky.app/profile/leon...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

More details here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

We can have a look at the panel data by @gles.bsky.social to answer this question. The voter flow from the Greens to the BSW is certainly irrelevant as it's tiny.
bsky.app/profile/leon...

Looks like an interesting read.

Läuft gerade zäh für das BSW. Auch bei Maischberger konnte Wagenknecht keinen richtigen Treffer gegen Weidel landen. Aber das Paper von @leon-heckmann.de et al. dazu, wo das BSW seine Wähler herbekommt, ist nun offen einsehbar: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Ich freue mich sehr, dass damit mein erstes wissenschaftliches Paper veröffentlicht wurde und danke meinen beiden Co-Autoren @wurthmann.bsky.social und @sarahwagner.bsky.social sehr für die gute Zusammenarbeit und die Unterstützung bei der Achterbahnfahrt eines Peer-Review-Prozesses! 🙏

Der Stern hat auch bereits über unsere Studie geschrieben:
bsky.app/profile/vorr...