Also appreciate the points that Thea makes about the exceptions Pinochet made to neoliberalism. There were many! www.citizen.org/wp-content/u...
Director, Industrial Policy & Trade, @RooseveltInstitute.org, @RooseveltForward.org. Political scientist of economic transitions, administrative states, Bidenomics, Trumpnomics. Fellow @ Harvard Kennedy School. PhD.
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Also appreciate the points that Thea makes about the exceptions Pinochet made to neoliberalism. There were many! www.citizen.org/wp-content/u...
More on that lesson here: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801...
Secure demand is a must for successful industrial policy It's something US planners have had to learn repeatedly: the military economy can't thrive without civilian customers For rare earths, that's clean energy, and Trump has killed that, writes @triofrancos.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/6ff9...
The time to impose tariffs would have been *after* the transition, to give the company some runway in a high "green premium" moment.
Some clear evidence that timing a major increase in tariffs *before* the transition to green steel made a carbon-intensive relining almost irresistible to Cleveland Cliffs.
Chamber of Commerce in Vance's hometown reacts to Trump's sabotaging of Cleveland Cliffs green steel grant: "It would have been nice to be the first. We are disappointed that the newest technology won’t be here and we won’t get the influx of the income tax dollars.” www.ft.com/content/d11f...
Hard pass. Putin: "With continuous advances in biotechnology, human organs will be increasingly transplanted — letting us live younger and younger, and perhaps even achieve immortality." Xi: "In this century, it's anticipated that it may be possible for people to live to 150 years old."
🚨EXCLUSIVE: Federal judges tell NBC News the Supreme Court has got to do a better job of explaining emergency rulings, with frequent decisions in favor of Trump at least appearing to validate harsh criticism of the judiciary at a time of rising threats: www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...
Manufacturing was gaining ground under Biden, with 610k new jobs. As @toddntucker.com puts it, under Trump, tariffs and policy whiplash have “basically collapsed” that growth. michiganadvance.com/2025/09/01/l...
Telling that the history skips over the 1930s to 1950s period, when monetary policy was set by the executive. @rauchway.bsky.social has some essential writing on this.
The galaxy brain take has arrived: address the Lisa Cook standoff by further privatizing the Fed. Taking a conflict over a New Deal tenure statute as the basis to roll back a key New Deal governance feature: bringing central banking under public control. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
How the recent appellate ruling on Trump's tariffs looks from across the Atlantic, via @mijrahman.bsky.social. bsky.app/profile/vict...
The market-first consensus has collapsed—leaving stagnant wages, rising costs, and hollowed-out communities. CEO @elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social in Democracy Journal argues: the choice ahead is authoritarian decline or a democratic economy that delivers. democracyjournal.org/magazine/78/...
Industrial meat & poultry plants dump tons of pollution into our waters—our research shows how much Tyson alone released in just 5 years. Yet the Trump #EPA won’t update weak, outdated effluent rules, again putting Industrial Ag profits over your right to #cleanwater 🧪 bit.ly/4p19Lh0
There’s a point on the political spectrum where you think it’s ok for 13 year olds to work in poultry plants but 36 is too young to work in public policy.
Trump administration previewing what they'll do with an (unlikely IMO) maximalist adverse ruling on IEEPA tariffs - switch to other authorities. So little real relief in sight for plaintiffs. subscriber.politicopro.com/newsletter/2...
DC Cir reinstates FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. 2-1 decision 1/2 www.politico.com/news/2025/09...
EV ado in China. "Fierce competition among automakers has gotten ruthless, with about 50 automakers fighting for customers by slashing prices again and again. Manufacturers facing ruinous losses are struggling to pay the companies that supply their parts." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/b...
Our Director of Industrial Policy and Trade, @toddntucker.com, has long argued that golden shares can reshape how democracies govern critical industries. And when done correctly, they can be in the public's interest. Catch up on his interview with @wbur.org 👇 www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025...
The Trump tariff lawsuit "presents a close case that is likely to divide the justices and could go either way... The whole point of enacting statutes like IEEPA is to give the president broad authority to address emergencies when they arise." - @jadler1969.bsky.social. www.wsj.com/opinion/why-...
Norwegian state owned Equinor to become second kargest investor in Ørsted, behind Danish government. Norway's sovereign wealth fund also a top 10 investor. www.ft.com/content/c27b...
I spoke to @yahoofinance.com about the US government's stake in Intel, and which industries might be ripe for similar interventions. finance.yahoo.com/news/why-ai-...
AI is trash. Don’t use it. I saw this right after doing my own post about how bad it is. NOT a coincidence. Examples are everywhere
Jared "Polis appeared to expect the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to make a deal that sold out tipped workers to advance its agenda of facilitating unionization. But it refused to do so... Polis did veto the unionization bill."
After a week plus of hot takes, here's some light shed on why the Intel deal came together. The government was trying to avert Intel getting out of the manufacturing business. Company also predicts customers will see company as more reliable. Via @joemillerjr.ft.com www.ft.com/content/29fb...
"Now that most mental effort tied to writing is optional, we need new [old] ways to require the work necessary for learning," moving away from take-home tests and toward real-time assessment via blue books & oral exams. -Clay Shirky on the "medieval turn" in higher ed www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/o...
What comes next after Friday's ruling against Trump's tariffs? @jacobbogage.bsky.social and @emilydavies.bsky.social have the story, with comments from @scottlincicome.bsky.social @avikroy.bsky.social and me. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Here's an excellent summary of the fault lines in the Federal Circuit's decision on Trump's IEEPA authority.
As a national poll of what’s a two-round system per district, it’s hard to project. But here’s what the poll shows: The leading far-right party at 31%. The Left Bloc’s two halves at 16.5% & at 10%. Macron’s party at just 13.5%. And the traditional conservatives at 10%.
Good thread in the splits in the court decision.
One additional bit of color: the dissent was joined by not only the current chief judge (Moore), but the former chief as well (Prost) - both appointed by the free-trade-oriented George W. Bush. The dissent was written by Judge Taranto and joined by Judge Chen - both Obama picks.
Good summary of some of the faultlines from today’s appeals court ruling on Ieepa tariffs.
Link here: www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-ord...
As they conclude, this really comes down to a policy difference on whether it was wise for Congress to delegate such sweeping authority.
The dissent also continues a line of argument on a foreign policy exception to the major questions doctrine.
Nixon also did not explicitly impose a temporal limitation on his 1971 tariffs. But the majority opinion suggests Trump's might have been fine if he had included the word "temporary" in his EO.
Ironically, Trump might have survived the test that the majority opinion sets had he used language that capped his "reciprocal" tariffs at the so-called Column 2 rate charged to North Korea - which many if not most of his tariffs would have met anyway.
As for IEEPA not using the word tariffs, the dissent finds this unnecessary, since it relates to a broader set of concerns than a tariff statute - namely, peacetime emergency.
Looking at the first requirement, the dissent notes that the plaintiffs and majority opinion don't bother to consider the unusual and extraordinary threat that Trump's executive order actually mentions - but instead substitute a different kind of emergency.
Having read all the procedural history/hearings, I can confirm that business groups and law professors were ringing alarm bells about using tariffs under the statute, and Congress mostly shrugged. The only relevant limits on the predecessor authority were procedural.
Where all three groups agreed: the 1977 IEEPA is exceptionally broad. But broad enough to include measures like what Nixon had used the predecessor authority for in 1971 (with courts' blessing)? If Congress had meant to limit in 1977 what a president did in 1971, wouldn't they have said so?
Here's a key passage from the dissent by the chief judge and 3 colleagues.
As I predicted earlier this month, the decision offers a lot of fodder for the idea that the court is coming up with a rule that is specific to Trump. www.ft.com/content/0ede...
BREAKING 🧵: Divided appeals court rules against Trump's tariffs. 4 judges appointed by Bush I, Obama, & Biden (2) say IEEPA doesn't allow tariffs. 4 judges app. by Bush II (2) & Obama (2) - including chief - say it does. 3 judges app. by Clinton & Obama (2) say it doesn't allow *these* tariffs.
Great investigation of the growing rhetorical combat over energy affordability. Note who's barely in this story, though: the clean energy industry itself is largely silent on one of its greatest strengths. Why? Lots of possibilities, and certainly multiple reasons. Two I've investigated lately:
"The justices know that whichever way they go, the decision will become a touchstone in debates about executive power." thehill.com/opinion/judi...
I think we can start to consider whether this is a trend of actual grand jury nullification. We will never really know given secrecy. The sandwich case was dreadfully overcharged. That said, given the rarity of no bills… these jurors are not rolling over for prosecutors in this moment.
An important intellectual vacuum right now: we need to think through an agenda to weaken executive power, if one exists or is feasible. But the last people to do that, the Watergate Babies, are hated by every flank of the intellectual left and center, so recent materials paint them negatively. 🤷🤷
Trump's ending the $800 duty-free exemption on Friday but customs hasn't told postal services how to actually collect the tariffs. Germany and Singapore just said forget it and stopped shipping packages to the US entirely. www.ft.com/content/43ae...
Vance's aims to bait liberal pundits & politicians into defending the elites who've presided over the secretive bank that has fueled bubbles, bailouts, and lots of other things Americans hate. Liberals must get a better argument about the Fed other than just saying "independence" is good.
...and hopefully the political scientists will stop using jargon like "competitive authoritarianism" in media and public discourse, because that, to lay folks, *sounds* way less bad than things are in fact. Leave that for your academic journal articles.
NEW from me @financialtimes.com: Opponents of Trump’s tariffs should be wary of relying on the courts Judicial limits on the executive today will bind the hands of future presidents tomorrow Thread 🧵 on the stakes in the coming VOS Selections Inc. v. Trump decision. www.ft.com/content/0ede...
Finally, the old saw about how a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich is disproven www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...
Almost every African country is now importing Chinese solar panels - and a LOT of them. 100MW may not sound a lot, but in context of the low levels of electricity supply in some countries, 100MW is pretty mahoosive..
The DNC actually did set up a "shadow cabinet" back in April. It was just a list of people available to be interviewed, who weren't assigned to any specific departments or areas of expertise, and it immediately disappeared and was never heard from again.
Reading an article titled "Why didn't Brazilian democracy die?" and a key part of the story is a Supreme Court that actually did its job
"Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican and Trump ally, said during the confirmation hearing that her published work seemed “more like social science than it does economics and monetary policy.”" Econ belongs to magic, then? www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
"The fed has continued expanding its control of the city. On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced it would exert renewed control over Union Station, which it owns." www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
Very excited to share the cover of my forthcoming book, “Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class.” It’s due out in April, and you can check out the summary and pre-order here if it’s of interest. us.macmillan.com/books/978037...
"Brussels’ focus on market influence has become a dangerous blind spot. For instance, officials may treat digital protections as bargaining chips rather than a crucial bulwark of European democracy." @abenewman.bsky.social @himself.bsky.social on the Brussels Defect. www.ft.com/content/5820...
*Nix (of license)
Is offshore wind nic of Ørsted — which is 50% owned by the Danish state — part of the shadow war on Greenland, asks @richardmilne.ft.com? Was Danish PM posing with Gavin Newsom a good idea? What can Denmark learn from Norway govt, who successfully unblocked Equinor? www.ft.com/content/7863...
Making them wear high-visibility vests over camo is such a good joke you couldn’t write it
Miran: "Take Operation Warp Speed from [Trump’s] first term. That was an extraordinarily successful industrial policy. But it didn’t operate by picking winners and losers. It operated by offering a huge reward to whoever provided the innovation that would solve the problem."
This signals heavily what they think of it but doesn't actually clarify what the status quo is pending a court ruling. If FOMC met this afternoon, would Cook participate and have a vote or not?
Curious about why everyone is talking about "central bank independence" in the context of Trump's attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook? This paper is a bit old now, but remains one of the more useful things I have written: a critical review of the Political Science scholarship on central banking.
What to make of the latest news that the US government is converting its billions in grants to Intel into equity shares? @novasafo.bsky.social has the story @marketplace.org with comments from me @michaelrstrain.bsky.social and others. www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0...
The Supreme Court’s conservatives bear SO much blame for this disaster. They really thought they could let Trump fire every agency leader EXCEPT members of the Fed, and Trump would abide by their stern admonition to leave the Fed alone. Embarrassing stupidity. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...
Dear journalists: The President has not fired Lisa Cook. The President is *trying* to illegally fire her. Your words shape people’s reality. Please be accurate in your reporting.
Cato: "There’s no way that the US government becomes the largest shareholder in an ailing national champion chip company . . . and doesn’t pick up the phone when it starts disliking what that chip company is doing." www.ft.com/content/0e7b...
So, our post AI educational future is Oxbridge style tutorials for those who can afford 1:1 student:teacher ratios, with a consent to walk through MRI scans to detect Neuralink interfaces? What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing? www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
By the way, there’s a fourth page I cut for length, but on it you can see that the best-testing and one of the worst-testing messages are nearly identical. In other words YOUR METHODOLOGY IS TRASH.
Words/phrases Democrats should never use: * irregardless * supposably * I hope this email finds you well * adulting * cringe * utilize
"A US official said the probe was being carried out by the Commerce Dept as part of its timber and lumber probe under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which allows for the imposition of tariffs on goods deemed critical to national security."
The way to bring down electricity prices is to stop electricity generation
"Birthing Person" has been used in 9 official e-newsletters. 8 are Republicans making fun of the term and saying Democrats say that and 1 is from Bernie Sanders when his staff was interviewing a midwife.
Is it odd to see POTUS arguing wind turbines are 'scams' one month but then imposing higher tariffs on imported wind turbines? www.reuters.com/business/ene...
Instead: "I’m very good at grass because I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. And we’re going to be re-grassing all of your parks, all brand new sprinkler systems, the best that you can buy…It’ll look like... Trump National Golf Club.” www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
The original title of this article: "Trump says he will patrol streets with police, military on Thursday." While Biden was the first president to walk a picket line, Trump walked the patrol line. Except, not even that happened. "Trump never patrolled. Instead, he returned to the White House."
'Never done before' - well apart from all the SOE-backed fabs in China. But the point being missed is that properly reshoring supply chains means capacity at older process nodes - that's what tripped up the automotive sector during COVID.
"The rise of negative prices, meanwhile, weighs on the potential returns for renewable projects. Developers and investors have been voicing increasingly serious concerns about the financial impact of negative pricing over the past year," writes @simonmundy.ft.com. www.ft.com/content/01d9...
The $7.9 billion CHIPS grant from Department of Commerce and $3 billion Department of Defense grant amounts to about 10 percent of Intel's market cap.
Leavitt said the potential Intel stake was a “creative idea that has never been done before” and it would “ensure that we are both reshoring these critical supply chains while also gaining something out of it for the American taxpayer”. www.ft.com/content/036b...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology office "warned in a new paper on Monday that 95 per cent of the companies polled had not seen returns on generative AI investments... the paper had crystallised concerns about how drastically AI might boost economic productivity." www.ft.com/content/b6c9...
Very excited to share this new tool for teaching the politics of climate change. What are the different *theories of change* that underlie decarbonization efforts and policies? Help your students learn about them. Please share widely. 🌎🔌💡🛢️
Second time Doggett has put the future of democracy above his own prospects in about 13 months. Good man.
Another read is not that SCOTUS is shy about confronting Trump but that they're basically on board with his project but would be embarrassed about the legal arguments they'd have to make if they upheld his actions on the merits, so they find procedural means to let him get his way.
TL;DR: 5 justices say Trump doesn't have to immediately restore the funding, but 5 *also* signal that the underlying directives are unlawful. That sends a fairly strong (if mixed) message that Trump will lose these cases *eventually,* but only once they're brought in the Court of Federal Claims.
Feel the Bern Rand Paul disses Trump’s plan for a government stake in Intel, while Bernie Sanders - the only Dem to oppose Biden's CHIPS and Science Act - backs it. (As does the other Bernie - Moreno - the Republican who took Sherrod Brown's seat.) subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...
Post-Rawls? "Neutrality turned out (to be) a delicate species of hothouse plant, able to grow only under very specific political, economic, and cultural conditions. In the gentle, consistent, collegial days of the long ’90s, it bloomed. When we try to plant it in our harsher climate, it just dies."
"By ensuring that European markets would be dependent on US oil, the Marshall Plan prevented the Soviet Union from wielding its own energy influence over the continent." @markblyth.bsky.social @danieldrisc.com put Trump's anti-decarb politics in context. www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/t...
Africa must deal with a world of less aid "Overseas assistance also created unintended consequences, they said, by hollowing out local expertise and giving governments an excuse to ignore their responsibilities for providing services such as healthcare and education." www.ft.com/content/9396...
nice to see @toddntucker.com in my FT feed amidst so much terribleness www.ft.com/content/0ede...
Companies are starting to make claims that their products comply. I believe @azevin.bsky.social is doing some client advising in the area, and may have something more systematic to say. www.energy-storage.news/viridi-claim...
One way to draw the line: that the emergency needs to have a substantial impact on the homefront. That would probably rule out some of the more "traditional" uses of IEEPA that were more an adjunct of foreign policy/anti-terrorism, but as @harlangcohen.bsky.social argues, there's some need for that.
Is this an IEEPA limit? Can the US be said to be "dealing with" a declared emergency if it is using tariffs to ask a trading partner to do something that is "constitutionally impossible" for them to do? www.ft.com/content/a294...
Peter Navarro ridicules trade lobbyists that say they have access to him. Nonembedded autonomy? peternavarro.substack.com/p/an-hilario...
And for the center-left, be aware of our history, and some of the theories and alliances at work in these cases + consider what impact they'll have on your long-term project. Ok, bye for now.
