iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chapter 1 in my PhD (also my first published paper) was about how policymakers and economists construct macroeconomic governability. Michael Woodford was the key figure in the construction of the new-neoclassical-synthesis version of governability. Success: Mixed. benjaminbraun.org/assets/pubs/...

"Michael Woodford (2003) provided the canonical formulation of the new neoclassical synthesis model. His central contribution was a formal proof that the trade-off between output stabilisation and inflation control in the reaction function of the central bank could actually be derived as the optimal solution of the representative household’s utility maximisation problem (Woodford, 2003, Ch. 6). In other words, a society maximises its welfare if, and only if, the central bank controls inflation and stabilises output. By showing mathematically that inflation targeting not only worked but in fact was – under certain (heroic) assumptions – the optimal policy, Woodford’s contribution was crucial for the disciplinary legitimacy of the emerging governability paradigm."

Screenshot of title page of "Why Models Matter: The Making and
Unmaking of Governability in Macroeconomic Discourse" by Benjamin Braun

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 07/10/2026

Serious fiscal state capacity is when it’s shock and awe among offshore wealth holders. (“They” are the Communist Party.)

FT: One Chinese tech investor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says he and friends of similar high net worth were shocked by the precision with which the tax reforms target key offshore holdings and historic income, and the tight deadline set to pay.

“They have the system, they know your investments overseas . . . they can actually break open those trusts,” he says. “I think they’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 05/10/2026

Takeaway #2: A stock market crash is coming; it will be major; sovereign bonds will be a hedge again. In other words, if you're an embattled issuer (looking at you, London, Paris) hang in there.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 05/10/2026

Excellent @ericlonners.bsky.social post on bond market dynamics, Japan, and the bond-equity correlation over time. Takeaway #1 ("Dalio fallacy"): The rise in yields is not about debt – unless you're unlucky enough to be a eurozone member state. ericlonergan915540.substack.com/p/the-dalio-...

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 03/10/2026

“Our present method of underwriting advanced technology is exceedingly dangerous. It could cost us our existence.” Guess I better keep reading.

Picture of Galbraith’s New Industrial State(1967)

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 02/10/2026

Vergesellschaftung: Normale Wirtschaftspolitik mit Kosten und Nutzen, Verteilungswirkungen, Annahmen, Zeitprofilen. Sachliche Diskussion ist nicht nur möglich, sondern dem Niveau des wirtschaftspolitischen Diskurses sogar überaus zuträglich. @dezernatzukunft.bsky.social mailchi.mp/dezernatzuku...

"Opportunitätskosten. Einige haben argumentiert, dass man mit einer möglichen Entschädigungssumme—immerhin ein zweistelliger Milliardenbetrag—neue Wohnungen bauen könnte, statt existierende Wohnungen zu vergesellschaften. Diese Rechnung ist nicht offensichtlich. Eine Vergesellschaftung ist eine Bilanzverlängerung: Der Entschädigungssumme stehen die Wohnungen gegenüber. Solange diese Bilanzverlängerung sich selbst trägt, schließt sie weder eine mögliche weitere Verlängerung aus, zum Beispiel um Neubau zu finanzieren, noch verursacht sie Kosten im laufenden Haushalt."

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 30/09/2026

Very poor take. The German centre is currently failing a very gentle test, catastrophically. Hard to convey the insanity of the mainstream freakout over the left’s victory in Berlin.

Why Europe's centre will hold
The 1930s are not a good guide to the politics of the 21st century
GIDEON RACHMAN

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 23/09/2026

Timely, given the strong Minsky moment vibes these days. Just out in Politics & Society. "The more Minsky rose to the challenge of explaining the economics of his [wage-led growth] proposal ... the more Democrats grew concerned about its politics." journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 19/09/2026

They may burn more after that but there's a 10% chance that human shareholders will no longer be around to complain.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 16/09/2026

Some very instructive data viz in this piece. www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 08/09/2026

Chat, why does OpenAI, in correspondence with a mathematician, sound like Tony Soprano? Here's today's statement by NYU mathematician Tristan Buckmaster, who had been working on the problem (that OpenAI is saying it has just solved) using Open AI models. Turns out the "way proposed" was by NYT.

Statement from Tristan Buckmaster: "I said that if OpenAI released its result in the way proposed I would go public with what happened. The reply was, “Why would you ruin your career?” I replied that I am an academic, and asked why he thought going public would ruin my career. The reply was, “If you don’t want me to be nice, then I don’t have to be nice.”"

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 01/09/2026

Here's the list of members this year at the School of Social Science. Truly a stellar group: www.ias.edu/sss/announce...

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 01/09/2026

It's impossible to express how grateful I am to @alondra.bsky.social, Wendy Brown, and Didier Fassin, for inviting me to the IAS in this role. A brief overview of the theme is available here. The page will have our readings up soon: www.ias.edu/sss/theme-se...

Protectionism, resurgent national industrial policy, and growing corporate concentration in key sectors are shrinking the share of economic activity coordinated primarily by markets. At the same time, the ambitious, transformative projects required to address shared global predicaments such as climate change pose formidable challenges for resource mobilization and coordination. The theme seminar will explore how societies navigate this changing political economy.

Neoliberal governance confined state power to facilitating market-based coordination among citizens, firms, and states themselves. One focus of the theme is on how, more recently, firms, financial institutions, and states have expanded the realm of non-market coordination and how, in this newly corporatized world, societies mobilize capital, people, and knowledge. How and why do globe-spanning firms such as Apple or BYD withdraw swaths of economic activity from the market through horizontal and vertical integration? What are the implications of ‘private’ capital controlled by a small number of venture capital and private equity firms replacing ‘public’ stock and bond markets as the headquarters of financial coordination? Does China’s epoch-making industrial development reveal contemporary production processes as growing too large to be coordinated by consumer-driven markets, instead requiring long-term state planning?

A second focus of the theme is the political implications of this resurgence of non-market resource mobilization and coordination. On one hand, the enlarged footprint of non-market logics in the economy may provide new openings for democratic politics and for the democratization of economic life. On the other hand, corporatization and other forms of power concentration may undermine existing forms of democratic representation and justice-minded global governance.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 01/09/2026

Me arriving at work in muggy Princeton weather (76°F at 9am). Today's my first day as visiting professor at the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. I'll be leading the annual theme, 'Emerging Forces in Global Political Economy', working with a fantastic group of scholars.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 23/08/2026

I feel sorry for the dentists and doctors. I also recall my presentation in 2024 at a meeting of their pension funds' asset allocators in Cologne. I delivered my usual message: Channelling pension capital into private assets is a really bad idea. They were not happy. Oh well.

How Germany’s doctors, lawyers and dentists got burnt by private markets bets
Questions mount over management of mandatory pension schemes for professionals worth €300bn

Rentensysteme, Kapitaldeckung und Private Market-Anlagen im internationalen Vergleich
Benjamin Braun

MPIfG, Köln

2024-04-26

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 21/08/2026

You're right as usual, recent moves small in comparison. Tbf, the bounce back episodes from the flight-to-safety episodes (Lehman, Covid) are probably not so meaningful; beyond those, there have been a handful of brief rates-up/dollar-down episodes.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 20/08/2026

Benchmark US interest rate and USD exchange rate: When the gap first widened last year, people freaked out: The EMification of the US. When I showed this to my students in March, it looked as if the lines were about to re-converge. Alas, now the monster is really flashing it's teeth.

Chart showing the decoupling of benchmark US interest rate and USD exchange rate.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 20/08/2026

Bessent, too, likes to muse about hegemonic cycles: Speaking at an event in mid-2024, pre-Treasury, he shared his thoughts about the very big picture of global financial hegemony. He said this (Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=drPH...). He was not wrong, of course, to worry about overstretch. 4/

“Tell me what all the former reserve currencies have in common. They were also security zones. How did they lose reserve currency status? […] They got highly leveraged and could no longer support their military.” — Scott Bessent

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 20/08/2026

Emulating the big man, macro traders fancy themselves intellectuals. Some are obsessed with longue durée analysis. Dalio wrote a whole book that's essentially the "I'm a bit of an Arrighi myself" meme. 3/

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 20/08/2026

Scott Bessent at the top of his game, February 2013. Then again, betting is easy.

"Soros Aide Wins Kudos For Japan Bets"
Zuckerman, Gregory
Wall Street Journal
15 Feb 2013

"Mr. Bessent, like many investors, has long been trying to determine when the Japanese currency would begin to weaken, something that seemed inevitable because the country was moving from a current-account surplus to a deficit, according to people familiar with this thinking. In fact, he had been considering shorting the yen for about a year."

"Convinced there was money to be made, he visited Japan in late October. While there, Mr. Bessent heard rumblings that a new election could bring leaders determined to lower the currency, and he began putting on the trade. Mr. Bessent increased his bets in subsequent weeks when he and his team became more convinced that government leaders would act to weaken the currency to help defeat deflation."

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 20/08/2026

I had almost forgotten about it. Good old times.

From the ECB website: Securities Markets Programme (SMP)

On 10 May 2010 the central banks of the Eurosystem started purchasing securities in the context of the Securities Markets Programme, with a view to addressing the severe tensions in certain market segments which had been hampering the monetary policy transmission mechanism.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 18/08/2026

It's a little interesting that corporate insiders had the foresight to issue record amounts of equity in 2000 Q1. And then again in 2007 Q4. Oh, and also in 2026 Q1.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 18/08/2026

EU: Public consultation to "explore ways to make it easier for investors in private companies to sell their stakes" because everyone knows you can't have a leading edge corporate sector without private equity doing lots of leveraged buyouts. Meanwhile in China:

‘Not worth the squeeze’: global private equity makes zero deals in China
Firms avoid new equity investments as Beijing tightens scrutiny of foreign capital in sensitive sectors

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 12/08/2026

Jash Wang, 33-yo delivery rider in Shipai

“"Capital is testing the limits of the working class," says Wang in Shipai, smoking a cigarette while perched on a black moped. "If the price drops too low, there will be more discontent... they'll tentatively adjust it upwards."”

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 12/08/2026

"FT has found evidence of controlled detonations and demolitions by Israeli forces and civilian contractors in dozens of border communities." Most of the destruction happened *after* the April ceasefire when territory was already under Israeli control (dark red dots). www.ft.com/content/25bc...

FT Visual investigation
How Israel is making southern Lebanon ‘unliveable’
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed homes, roads, farmland and forests despite ceasefire with Hizbollah

Patterns of destruction before and after the first ceasefire

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 10/08/2026

Same argument always, and always wrong. The private sector is *never* in a better position to buy and operate not-for-profit assets because its cost of capital and, therefore, required returns are always—always—higher than the state's. Which means higher user costs and/or lower service quality.

"Britain has only a handful of for-profit universities and Senhaji said the scepticism towards the model in the sector was “a hurdle to overcome” in much of Europe. But he argued that private capital was better placed to invest than a financially stretched public sector."

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 10/08/2026

How could things in UK higher ed possibly get worse? Hello for-profit universities run by a firm owned by the Bettencourt family and Canada's biggest pension fund. www.ft.com/content/f094...

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 05/08/2026

Capacity utilisation at light vehicle plants across Europe. Stellantis, dear lord. www.ft.com/content/9a59...

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 04/08/2026

That’s a nice chart but the most important actors are missing: The banks that are the ultimate source of leverage, and the government that will be the ultimate backstop when the music stops.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 28/07/2026

Two public funds run by the municipality of Hefei, the provincial capital, just had a $148 billion gain from their local firm's IPO. For perspective: That's in the ballpark of the total assets of the entire European Investment Fund. www.ft.com/content/d643...

CXMT’s blockbuster IPO delivers windfall for its home province
Funds run by local government in Hefei make gains of 5,000% from chipmaker’s blockbuster listing

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 24/07/2026

Extreme drought, raging fires, "Make America Great Again" Christian nationalism, privatization of "near space programs dealing with communications". If, like me, you hadn't read Parable of the Sower (1993) & Parable of the Talents (1998) before – there's never been a better time.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 22/07/2026

Just installed the Zemble plugin for Zotero. To test it, I shared some literature linked to the "Democracy at work" report we wrote for the Spanish government. Literally one click in Zotero. @semble.so is going places. #atproto #atprotoscience See here: semble.so/profile/benb...

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 19/07/2026

More benign conditions at the museum where the objects and wall paintings retrieved from Akrotiri are displayed. Just absolutely mesmerizing.

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 19/07/2026

While you all rushed to the air-conditioned theater after reading one FT interview with Nolan‘s favorite translator I’m breathing hot air thick with volcanic ash at Akrotiri to understand how the eruption of Thera weakened the Minoans, paving the way for the Mycenaean takeover.

Picture from the archeological site at Akrotiri

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 10/07/2026

Imposing heavy losses on top wealth owners in a targeted way is, imo, one of our most pressing political economy challenges. The UK somehow achieved a 50% devaluation of assets held exclusively by the super rich (West London mansions), without much fanfare. www.ft.com/content/1daa...

"One house recently sold for more than 30 per cent below what it might have gone for a decade ago. Taking into account inflation, the price had more than halved."

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 07/07/2026

As usual, Anton says it best: "the desiccation of the mass-party capillary structures that once connected elected governments to local supporters has weakened rulers’ ability to forge hegemonic cross-class blocs or mobilize support for long-term business strategies" newleftreview.org/issues/ii159...

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 07/07/2026

“You see, I merely work there. I, too, hate Belgium.”

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 03/07/2026

Well, at least some in Europe are taking a hard look at those exposures. "Shorting America", as they call it in Kiel. www.kielinstitut.de/fileadmin/Da...

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 29/06/2026

Who are the crypto bros? The amazing Izaura Solipa crunched the data. Short answer: Crypto bros share the same privileged traits, educational credentials, and institutional access that characterize elites in 'traditional' Wall Street segments. Just out in SER: academic.oup.com/ser/advance-...

Title and Abstract of the linked paper:

New finance, old structures: cryptocurrencies and the reproduction of financial elites in the USA

Crypto research highlights the anarcho-libertarian feature of the crypto movement, characterizing the industry as a radical departure from governmental and corporate influence. This study investigates the characteristics of the US crypto elite, highlighting how the demographic structure and the institutional connections of the industry resemble those of the established financial elite. Drawing on original data from board members of top US crypto and financial firms, Fortune 1000 companies, and major policy-planning organizations, it develops three comparisons. Results show that crypto elites share similar socio-educational traits with traditional finance leaders and engage with powerful corporate and political affiliations, despite being more peripheral in corporate networks—likely due to the sector’s recent emergence. Notably, the White House appears in the career paths of both groups, suggesting a shared pattern of revolving door integration into state structures. Rather than a structural transformation, crypto appears to align with the broader elite configuration of the US political economy.

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