It’s exactly a month until my book publishes on 9 April! THE ASSET CLASS is a narrative investigation of private equity, a relentlessly destructive wing of finance that infiltrates almost every corner of modern life. Here are some of the very generous things that people have said about it so far…
How much does it pay to publish an open access academic book? Read this thread for my story and 💲💰 amounts. 🧵
www.routledge.com/9781032908724
Apropos Landtagswahl: In OBEN RECHTS @suhrkamp.de gibt es eine Reportsge über konservative Unternehmer in Baden-Württemberg und eine Analyse von @lhaffert.bsky.social über Selbstständige im Grenzgebiet zwischen AfD und FDP: www.suhrkamp.de/buch/oben-re...
So you do what you have to do. If we had a cry is like that, you would 13:02 have to sort out the banking system. Now you can want to bring them up and trial and kill them. You do whatever you want to do it. But at the end of the day, governments don't lend money to people, and central banks don't lend money to people. The transmission for economic policy and for monetary policy and getting money out into the public is the banking system. And if the banks are distressed, if you gave them money, they husband that money to increase their reserves so they could 13:35 be solvent. And in fact they have to do that, the regulation requires that they do that. And so it's very very hard to get money and resources and get people going and provide that stimulus to the general public with a distressed banking system
You bought something from him, he bought it from me, and that goes around in a credit where you don't know the sovereignty of your counterpart. You're not going to pay me until I pay you, so you're waiting. But I can't pay him unless I get my money from you. So I'm stuck and he's stuck, and he's stuck and he's stuck. So the system is frozen. You need somebody with a big back sheet, and it's usually a government to say we will for this short term cover it, so all of you will get paid. Now go in.
I've never as clear an insider description of the infrastructural power of finance as this Odd Lots episode with Lloyd Blankfein.
He channels @benbraun.bsky.social and @danielagabor.bsky.social in saying the state needs finance to transmit policy so are over the barrelhead to support it in crises.
This is the largest oil supply shock in history in mb/d
The enemy gets a vote. Iran is now delivering pain to Trump via multiple paths
(1) Gulf Kings
(2) Financial meltdown
(3) AI tech oligarchs
(4) Fuel, fertilizer, food disruptions
Read our Polycrisis Dispatch:
buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...
Gegen diesen Trend hilft nicht einfach soziale Politik und Umverteilung, sondern Antifaschismus und Feminismus - und Solidarität sowie die Benennung realer Macht- und Ungleichheitsverhältnisse.
3/3
Why does the old regime persist?
For this @equatormag.bsky.social symposium, I offer some stylised explanations of what the ECFR calls ‘strategic lunacy’: the tenacity of European servility despite the waning of both US power and the benefits of submitting to it.
www.equator.org/articles/dea...
![What.a.week [correct]
Sanchez is our best friend now](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ri3ciinceco5himlcykqomh7/bafkreieyktfao4ymu2xfzcoseopokbvg6ijdzyqztcsai3grehbub4peha)
What.a.week [correct] Sanchez is our best friend now
Was true before, has become extra true this week.
Via @katemac.bsky.social & @70sbachchan.bsky.social
buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...
FT headline from this morning: "Most dangerous job on earth': the life of an Iranian ballistic missile crew" Modified headline now: "The hunt for Iran’s ballistic missile crews"
Imagine deciding that the initial headline for this piece on how ordinary soldiers fighting a defensive war on the ground with zero air defenses are getting vaporized at a rate that gives them a "life expectancy of days, and soon ... hours" conveyed too much empathy and had to be changed to this.
"Two people confirmed that Moscow had provided Tehran with intelligence on the location of US military assets in the region, including planes and warships. A third confirmed Russia’s broader intelligence sharing with the regime."
Russia is helping Iran to target US military assets in Middle East Tehran using intelligence shared by Moscow to launch retaliatory drone and missile attacks
Who knows if it'll be capitalized and get a number but a world war it is.
Dec 2024: BlackRock agrees to buy investment firm HPS in $12bn deal Deal is latest move by chief Larry Fink to accelerate group’s expansion into alternative assets
Feb 2026: BlackRock limits redemptions at private credit fund as outflows swell Decision taken after withdrawal requests at flagship HPS Corporate Lending Fund surged to 9.3% of net asset value
Idk, $12 billion just for the ability to experience the bursting of the private credit bubble from the eye of the storm seems like maybe a bit much?
www.ft.com/content/2336...
"For the most part, however, he appears blasé about the social costs of hierarchical currency arrangements — the unequal distribution of economic power and opportunity they entrench — even in those countries that enjoy currency dominance, to say nothing of those on the wrong end of it." 🔥💵
I reviewed Barry Eichengreen's new book about global currencies and the future of the dollar, check it out:
Plädoyer für eine Versachlichung der Debatte um eine Steuer auf Millionenerbschaften.
www.derstandard.at/story/300000...
“No front-page stories in NYT, WSJ, WaPo. No mention on NBC and CBS Sunday Shows. No stand alone segments on Evening News shows. A death count on par with the OKC bombing is relegated to the back page.” www.columnblog.com/p/corporate-...
New piece on Chinese tech investment in Europe — fittingly out the day the Commission publishes the Industrial Accelerator Act, kicking off months of legislative wrangling.
A look at the data and recent cases shows Europe has learned to block Chinese takeovers of tech & semiconductor assets.
1/
A good thread by @nilsredeker.bsky.social but I disagree with his optimistic assessment of the @ec.europa.eu IAA. A quick thread :
Gas prices are surging again after the US-Israeli attack on Iran, and talk of ECB rate hikes returned this week.
Before repeating 2022-2023, it’s worth revisiting what actually happened during the last energy shock and how the ECBs crisis policies played out.
After months of wrangling and an epic list of delays, the Commission has finally released its Industrial Accelerator Act.
This could turn into one of the EU’s most consequential industrial policy files in years - and the proposal is honestly not a bad place to start.
Some quick thoughts:
📣 Publication day! The first paper from my project on Europe’s EV battery roll-out is finally out
I unpack how the EU’s EV battery boom is entangled with sacrifice zones—investment in Serbia & Hungary de-risked through autocracy.
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandg...
Great to see extensive NYT & FT coverage of our paper on the fossil-fuel profit bonanza during the previous war-induced oil & gas price spike. Links in Gregor’s thread. 👇
Chart from linked article showing Crude oil transported through the Strait of Hormuz, 2023 (mn barrels per day).
The Strait looks a bit wide but still: Strong Sankey diagram use case.
www.ft.com/content/ff71...
Great to see extensive NYT & FT coverage of our paper on the fossil-fuel profit bonanza during the previous war-induced oil & gas price spike. Links in Gregor’s thread. 👇
Why shouldn't petrostate theocracies just get along.
Re: stupidity
Explains why South Korea halted stock trading today with the Kospi index down 12%. And why the RBI intervened to support the rupee, which has fallen to a record low.
Chart from linked article showing Crude oil transported through the Strait of Hormuz, 2023 (mn barrels per day).
The Strait looks a bit wide but still: Strong Sankey diagram use case.
www.ft.com/content/ff71...
Appalling typo
