Benjamin Braun
@benbraun.social
Political economist @ LSE, currently visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study | benjaminbraun.org
"Perhaps the most useful role that the discipline of International Relations may play is ... as a generator of largely untestable and incompatible claims that can then help inform policy systems that are better adapted to work with many possible futures."
International relations has a problem with the future
Then, so does everything else
programmablemutter.com
We were a bit early in our predictions but unfortunately quite accurate - we're heading for a world of shortages and we can't manage them with neoliberal state institutions.
Eric Maugendre@data.yt · 13h agoA life-improving "green social bargain" "Crushed by fossil fuel shortages far worse than anything Europe has had to deal with so far, the government of Pakistan has announced free public transit by bus, as has Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam." by @danielagabor.bsky.social @benbraun.social:
"The benefit, if there is one, will be that “analysts” who have devoted themselves to reading Fed statements like tarot cards, may have to find some other uses for their time." www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives...
The Impotence of Being Kevin Warsh
Kevin Warsh’s call for fresh thinking at the Fed runs up against a deeper problem. The tools and concepts guiding monetary policy may no longer fit an economy reshaped by AI, shifting prices, and the ...
ineteconomics.org
They may burn more after that but there's a 10% chance that human shareholders will no longer be around to complain.
“By anchoring a platform in the social institution that provides the very basis of capitalist modernity (the labour market) LinkedIn enables a means of digital co-existence that lacks friction or cynical mendacity.” This is an excellent piece.
Will Davies@will-davies.bsky.social · 2d agoIt's time. Time to write about this style of writing. Which I've done here. substack.com/home/post/p-...
They may burn more after that but there's a 10% chance that human shareholders will no longer be around to complain.
Now is not the time for across-the-board road fuel subsidies in Germany. Yet top CDU officials are mulling exactly that via VAT cuts, to ease escalating diesel & gasoline costs. This makes every liter cheaper for everyone & so encourages consumption. A 🧵 on why that’s a problem:
I'm convinced that open social protocols like #atproto have a crucial role to play in the future of science. Excited to share MOSAIC - our best effort at articulating the thesis, why it matters, and how to build and fund it (in collab w/ @exgenesis.ingroup.social ) 🧵
MOSAIC — Modular Open Science, AI & Collective Intelligence
MOSAIC is an R&D program to build a new medium for large-scale, AI-augmented networked research.
mosaic-program.org
my theory that “Europe is mostly an old place with an old mindset and most of the policies, good and bad, emanate from that” stands undefeated.
For your listening pleasure - The Rhodes Center Podcast is back with Aditi Sahasrabuddhe on Central Bankers, Trust and what actually holds things together in moments of crisis: player.captivate.fm/episode/ad93...
The ties that bind, and the ties that blind: Central bankers in moments of crisis
Quickly and easily listen to The Rhodes Center Podcast with Mark Blyth for free!
player.captivate.fm
Couldnt be more timely! In @jeppjournal.bsky.social (open access), a detailed post mortem of the 2022 inflation shock, and suggestions how to do better this time.
Isabella M. Weber@isabellamweber.bsky.social · 4d agoJust in time for the latest oil price spike, we published our article urging the ECB not to hike rates to fight a supply shock. Europe needs a new inflation governance for shockflation. We need disaster preparedness for essentials instead of increasing investment costs.
Just in time for the latest oil price spike, we published our article urging the ECB not to hike rates to fight a supply shock. Europe needs a new inflation governance for shockflation. We need disaster preparedness for essentials instead of increasing investment costs.
Looking forward to being in conversation with @ceciliarikap.bsky.social , @nsrnicek.bsky.social , Francisca Moya Marchi and @chakrabortty.bsky.social . Wilkins Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, UCL | Tue 29 Sep | 17:30 BST
Book launch: The Rulers
Join UCL IIPP for book launch of The Rulers by Cecilia Rikap.
eventbrite.co.uk
This Sunday, Die Linke could become Berlin’s strongest party for the first time. Importantly, its success in urban centers reflects a broader sociostructural transformation: from a party rooted in the support of production workers to one drawing disproportionate support from the new middle class.
Julius Kölzer@juliusk.bsky.social · 3mo agoDie Linke pulled off a surprise win in Germany’s most recent federal election and has suddenly become one of the most closely watched parties in Europe’s progressive politics. Behind the success lies a continuing structural transformation of its geographic support base. A short thread🧵
Frontier AI firms are openly calling for competition-reducing coordination. We shouldn't be surprised: The inter-firm infrastructure for this has long been in the making. People think varieties of capitalism is no longer cool but Silicon Valley has built a ... privately coordinated market economy.
Benjamin Braun@benbraun.social · 12mo agoRemember when dense networks of strategic cross-shareholdings among firms, native to coordinated market economies, went the way of the dodo? The Rhenish model, Germany, Inc. undone by Anglo institutional investors? Well, the dodo is back. Say hello to USA, Inc. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Frontier AI firms are openly calling for competition-reducing coordination. We shouldn't be surprised: The inter-firm infrastructure for this has long been in the making. People think varieties of capitalism is no longer cool but Silicon Valley has built a ... privately coordinated market economy.
Benjamin Braun@benbraun.social · 12mo agoRemember when dense networks of strategic cross-shareholdings among firms, native to coordinated market economies, went the way of the dodo? The Rhenish model, Germany, Inc. undone by Anglo institutional investors? Well, the dodo is back. Say hello to USA, Inc. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
The growth of private credit has often been attributed to tighter banking regulation and low policy rates. Such things certainly played a role early on, but they are difficult to reconcile with the rapid growth in private credit since 2020, when rates went up and regulation, if anything, loosened
Iñaki Aldasoro@aldasoro.bsky.social · 6d agoHey hey! BIS Quarterly Review is out. Check out our article with Puriya Abbassi and Sebastian Doerr on the role of private credit in financing the digital economy www.bis.org/publications...
This was supposed to be a much longer piece, with more entries on various pieces of German news coverage in the last year; will hopefully have that ready soon. On the CDU and Germany and Israel 10000signs.wordpress.com/2026/09/13/p...
People would have seen. On Gaza in Germany
On 8 August 2025, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in power for three months, declares: “The decision made by the Israeli Security Cabinet last night in favor of even tougher military action by the…
10000signs.wordpress.com
Three very pale men insisting that they've created a monster of superhuman capabilities that can only be controlled if the public sinks a big stake into it. This stake, it must be wooden?
Subscribe to stuff, buy stuff, then keep it when you change apps. When's the last time you heard this? Indeed, never.
Eurosky Sebastian@sebastian.eurosky.social · last wk.Totally forgot to tell you about the best feature of AtmoPay: subscriptions work across app boundaries. Here a screenshot from @skeetsapp.com that unlocks the same creator content for the subscriber.
we are hiring a us historian at stony brook! its a great job, please send around and apply apply.interfolio.com/192098
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Researchers across the country are turning to side hustles to fund their work. Behind the cuts sits a bigger shift: whether American science can still sustain durable research capacity. @lindseydcameron.bsky.social and I examine the stakes in a new piece @science.org: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The wrong platform for science
Daniel Blumstein recently sat in a Colorado meadow waiting for yellow-bellied marmots to appear, as the ecologist and evolutionary biologist had done many times before, the New York Times reported. Bu...
science.org
If someone says to you "but isn't DSA all professionals and gentrifiers" feel free to just send them this piece by me dissentmagazine.org/article/muti...
The Party of Baristas - Dissent Magazine
Noam Scheiber’s Mutiny shows that the labor organizing of the radicalized PMC is far more than a fit of whimsical proletarian roleplay.
dissentmagazine.org
