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Brian Judge

@realbrianjudge.bsky.social
418 followers 821 following 99 posts

Director of the Program on Finance and Democracy at UC Berkeley. Read my book about Finance and Democracy: cup.columbia.edu/book/democracy-in-…

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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to [insure speculative loans backed by collateral my company makes] every day?”
ft.com
Nvidia turns to insurers to spread the risk of AI build-out
World’s largest listed company looks for new ways to draw Wall Street deeper into the financing of the AI boom
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
"Having raised $122bn in March, it is on track to exhaust that cash in 2028...According to some investors, the delay is also motivated by fears about how the public markets might receive the heavily lossmaking company."
ft.com
OpenAI expects to burn $280bn by 2030
AI start-up has projected deeply negative cash flows as it invests in infrastructure and faces price pressures
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
REMINDER: Newsom vetoed SB1047 that would have imposed a duty of care and a baseline set of safety requirements on AI companies. The failure to enact even a minimum set of AI regulations belongs to Sacramento as much as Washington. So much for the California Effect...
gov.ca.gov
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Project Syndicate @projectsyndicate.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Fears of mass joblessness or human extinction offer OpenAI and @anthropic.com a good reason to restrain spending without conceding that further model improvements might prove uneconomical, Brian Judge explains. bit.ly/4r9cp5P
bit.ly
AI Firms’ Self-Serving Warnings
Brian Judge sees calls for a “pause” on development as a way to hype AI’s profit potential and reduce development costs.
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Project Syndicate @projectsyndicate.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The vast majority of private credit going to AI is provided by institutional investors: pension funds, insurance companies, and university endowments. What happens if investment returns disappoint? asks @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @b-eichengreen.bsky.social. bit.ly/3SztTvC
bit.ly
After the AI Bubble Bursts
Barry Eichengreen warns that opacity prevails in the private debt markets that investors and policymakers need to watch.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
terrific essay by Stefano Sgambati in @phenomenalworld.bsky.social "...a Trump administration politically aligned with private markets and alternative finance that now finds itself using the state’s fiscal capacities to manage the market for its own liabilities."
phenomenalworld.org
Stefano Sgambati | Private Leverage, Public Costs
How hedge fund speculation destabilized the bond market
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"Achieving an investment-grade rating from Fitch, Moody’s and S&P...would open the door to pension funds, insurers and other institutional investors that take far more limited positions in riskier speculative-grade debt."
ft.com
Anthropic and OpenAI bankers push for top-tier credit ratings post-IPO
Investment-grade designation would unlock cheaper financing for AI labs and their infrastructure partners
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
looking forward to the inevitable industry white paper: "the market" is the original form of superintelligence and American prosperity depends on insulating both from political interference
politico.com
Mark Zuckerberg said a national AI regulator was a flawed idea in a secret call with President Trump
The Trump administration is now considering both a FINRA-style approach and David Sacks’ industry-led approach as potential paths forward.
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Adam Posen @adamposen.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
New podcast! Glad to be on Odd Lots again from Jackson Hole. Thanks Joe and Tracy! We spoke about the Fed and its new Chair, US inflation, Treasuries and the US Treasury, AI impact on the macroeconomy, AI impact on economists, and what makes for dissent in central banks youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com
Odd Lots (Audio)
YouTube video by Bloomberg Podcasts
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
this was a lot of fun. i’m very grateful to Jorge Fontevecchia for the invitation and the terrific questions!
perfil.com
Brian Judge: “La financiarización no fue consecuencia del neoliberalismo, sino el aparato que lo instaló”
Doctor en Ciencia Política por la Universidad de California, Berkeley, donde dirige la investigación del Programa de Finanzas y Democracia, y exinvestigador en políticas públicas del Centro de Intelig...
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
The post-mortem of the OpenAI/HuggingFace incident betrays the complete and utter failure of AI regulation in the US: frontier AI models can autonomously launch sophisticated cyberattacks and the only response is a voluntary review from two independent* AI safety nonprofits.
metr.org
Brief independent investigation of agents’ behavior, reasoning and collaboration in the OpenAI / Hugging Face hacking incident
Two METR staff members and a Redwood Research contractor investigated an incident in which OpenAI agents coordinated a multi-day hack of Hugging Face on a shared unsanctioned message board.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
today is a good day to revisit @benbraun.eurosky.social in @ripejournal.bsky.social in 2016 on the perils of central bankers speaking to "two audiences that, ultimately, are also two constituencies with diverging interests."
tandfonline.com
Speaking to the people? Money, trust, and central bank legitimacy in the age of quantitative easing
Financial upheaval and unconventional monetary policies have made money a salient political issue. This provides a rare opportunity to study the under-appreciated role of monetary trust in the poli...
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
An increase in the average interest rate on U.S. public debt from today's 3.4% to ~5% would cost an additional ~$500 billion annually (1/2 a Pentagon).
ft.com
Don’t draw the wrong conclusion from Treasury yields
Investors are marking up their expectations for long-run economic growth in the US
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
helpful diagram of the AI capex ecosystem
"Untitled" by Arshile Gorky
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
absolute must read from @lenorepalladino.bsky.social on private credit!
journals.sagepub.com
Private Credit, Public Risk: Unregulated Finance and the Threat to Workers’ Interests - Lenore Palladino, 2026
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Reuters @reuters.com · 19/08/2026
US debt crosses $40 trillion threshold after doubling under Trump and Biden reut.rs/46aehBB
reut.rs
US debt crosses $40 trillion threshold after doubling under Trump and Biden
Total U.S. debt has topped $40 trillion for the first time, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, drawing fresh warnings that a fiscal crisis is brewing as ballooning costs for social safety-net ​programs and interest payments far outstrip revenues held back by tax cuts.
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The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 14/08/2026
Exclusive: World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s flagship crypto venture, says its trust company has received preliminary approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a bank. on.wsj.com/4wyvwat
on.wsj.com
Exclusive | Trump Family’s World Liberty Financial Gets Preliminary Approval to Launch a Bank
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gives the flagship crypto venture a conditional approval to be a trust bank.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The professional courtesies from the Trump administration are an essential safety blanket for the NY Times' self-conception as a neutral truth-seeker. Both are deeply invested in the administration appearing as "normal" as possible. One hand washes the other.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
"The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today exercised its emergency authority in response to KalshiEX, LLC’s notification of a market emergency and ordered the exchange to continue to operate in accordance with the Commodity Exchange Act’s Core Principles."
cftc.gov
CFTC Exercises Emergency Authority to Ensure Market Stability
The CFTC exercised its emergency authority in response to KalshiEX, LLC’s notification of a market emergency and ordered the exchange to continue to operate in accordance with the Commodity Exchange A...
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David Wessel @davidmwessel.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Axios: Warsh has told associates that before taking office, he built AI bots that ingested the collected works of economists Milton Friedman and James Tobin. He then turned to them for their insights on contemporary economic questions. [Who needs task forces?]
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Important set of charts from Torsten Slok at Apollo. There's a $4 trillion hole in financial space-time that markets expect to be filled with SP493 corporates feeding jobs into the infernal machine, flowing through to AI lab margins and Mag 7 free cash flow. What are markets pricing? (1/n)
apollo.com
A Slower AI Payoff Would Be Everyone's Problem | The Daily Spark
Consensus expects free cash flow for the hyperscalers to more than double over the coming years, see the first chart below. Subscribe for daily updates.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
fun fact: during the Biden administration "Trump" appeared on the front page of the New York Times more often than "Biden"
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
big deal 👇
reuters.com
EXCLUSIVE: Samsung, SK Hynix test Chinese chip tools as hedge against US risks
Samsung Electronics and ​SK Hynix are evaluating chipmaking equipment from China's Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) for possible use at their Chinese factories, three people familiar with t...
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
private credit got a little less private... "Unauthorized access to a portion of the NAIC’s environment was identified on June 11...the unauthorized party was able to obtain information needed to gain temporary access to certain data storage areas." /1
content.naic.org
Security Update
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Project Syndicate @projectsyndicate.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Most discussions of the downside risk from the ongoing AI boom have focused on the stock market, writes Brian Judge. But the bigger risk is to credit markets. bit.ly/4x5vxU7
bit.ly
The AI Threat to Financial Stability
Brian Judge homes in on the growing mismatch between speculative future revenues and current contractual debt obligations.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
look how they massacred my boy
wsj.com
Blackstone Rolls Out New Private-Market Funds—This Time With Vanguard
The new offerings for individual investors follow an exodus from private credit funds earlier this year.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Judge Capital Partners IV can guarantee S&P500 minus 300bps for much less than 2 and 20.
chart showing time-weighted returns of private equity, sp500 + 300bps and MSCI + 300bps over various time horizons
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CalMatters @calmatters.org · 20/07/2026
California’s largest public pension fund just had a banner year, riding a soaring stock market to record its second consecutive double-digit annual investment return. cal.news/4b4Nfi1 📸 Rich Pedroncelli, AP
The suns peaks over the California Public Employees Retirement System's building in Sacramento, on Sept. 6, 2022. Photo by Rich Pedroncelli, AP Photo
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Fascinating look at how NVIDIA is putting the AI in AIG
newsletter.semianalysis.com
Nvidia GPU Debt Backstop Unleashes the AI Project Trinity: Capital, Offtake and Datacenters
Over 7T AI debt by 2029, There can be no Neoclouds without the Trinity. Nvidia's Backstop Economics Explained. AI Debt Needs Quantified. Nvidia's Objective is to Broaden Compute Access, Develop AI Fin...
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
"Donald Trump earned more than $1.16bn in crypto sales and memecoin royalties last year upon returning to the US presidency"
ft.com
Donald Trump made more than $1bn last year in return to presidency
US president also earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from licensing of Bibles, watches and perfume
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Daniela Gabor @danielagabor.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
thanks @benbraun.eurosky.social @realbrianjudge.bsky.social @mkblyth.bsky.social for letting me talk about macrofinancial life of sovereign bonds for 1.5h. judging by this week's OECD conference, next summer school should be for Ministers of Finance (and Gillian Tett)
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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.social · 04/06/2026
Kicking off the Political Economy of Finance summer school v.3. At @lse-ei.bsky.social for the first time. Topic: “Finance and democracy”. Day 1: My co-hosts @mkblyth.bsky.social and @realbrianjudge.bsky.social in the morning, then @anninak.bsky.social, now @marionf.bsky.social.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
@grok is this true?
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
this Politico article/lede fills me with wonder: the first time I can recall seeing a major outlet tut-tut the Trump administration on basis of violating the sanctity of "laissez-faire" (!) good to see the beltway press hasn't lost their fastball
politico.com
Trump’s AI order is a blow against laissez-faire
While the White House backed away from mandatory vetting for AI systems, pro-regulation voices are hailing the new executive order as proof that the momentum is on their side.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Because Électricité de France is publicly owned and its existing nuclear plants are tremendously underutilized, France is perhaps the only place in the world where building AI data centers makes financial sense for the host jurisdiction and isn't an environmental catastrophe.
ft.com
SoftBank pledges €75bn to build Europe’s biggest AI facility in France
Masayoshi Son places France at the centre of his global AI ambitions
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
@calpers.bsky.social @calstrs.bsky.social
reuters.com
Danish pension fund excludes SpaceX citing governance and valuation
Danish pension fund Akademikerpension said on Friday it had placed SpaceX on ​its portfolio exclusion list ahead of ‌the company's initial public offering, citing concerns about the governance structu...
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
astonishing chart from Apollo today. who needs public syndication when you have your own captive life insurers?
chart showing rise of direct lending as source of financing for LBOs
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Project Syndicate @projectsyndicate.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Brian Judge urges EU leaders to champion the initiative as vital to the bloc’s strategic autonomy.
project-syndicate.org
Europe Needs the Digital Euro
Brian Judge urges EU leaders to champion the initiative as vital to the bloc’s strategic autonomy.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Centrism is a political ideology that is rarely described as such. Starmer is no less an ideologue than Truss. Those ideological commitments doomed both governments.
theguardian.com
These election results don’t mean tacking left or right, but delivering for the whole country | Keir Starmer
In the coming days I will be setting out our path to break with the status quo once and for all by building a stronger and fairer UK, says the prime minister, Keir Starmer
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
A crunch, not a run (for now): banks pulling back from the entire private credit space will cascade to sponsors, funds, and corporates. This creates a refinancing cliff for the 21-22 vintages minted at zero rates. IMF estimates 30-40% have negative FCF. Can they absorb the resulting rate shock?
ft.com
The leverage layer cake behind HSBC’s private credit losses
HSBC did not lend to collapsed mortgage provider MFS. It took a $400mn hit anyway
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
The global Central Banker's dilemma: shocks raise prices, raising rates can't fix supply, and debt loads make hikes fiscally destabilizing. Inflation targeting assumes demand shocks, policy convergence, and fiscal room. Policy-induced FX vol (e.g. MXN, JPY, GBP) is back with a vengeance. What now?
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
"finance" and "tech" are not separate phenomena
wsj.com
Anthropic Unveils $1.5 Billion Joint Venture With Wall Street Firms
Anthropic, Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman are each expected to invest around $300 million; Goldman Sachs also an investor.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
“Lenders…have spent more than six months distributing $38bn of construction debt tied to a data centre project leased to Oracle in Texas and Wisconsin, people familiar with the matter said.” “inflection point” = when something stops accelerating
giftarticle.ft.com
Banks seek to offload risk to avoid ‘choking’ on data centre debt
Global lenders explore private deals and risk transfers to cut exposure to AI boom
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
America is not a carbon democracy, it's a carbon republic.
reuters.com
BP lockout at Indiana refinery stretches into second month as union talks stall
A lockout at BP's 440,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Whiting, Indiana, enters its second month as contract talks ​between the British oil major and hundreds of union workers remain deadlocked.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
“The bubble isn’t the growth of private credit, it’s the lack of lending standards.”
giftarticle.ft.com
Former Apollo risk chief says some new life insurers could struggle in downturn
Chak Raghunathan cites heavy reliance on untested private credit and newer savings products that are vulnerable to withdrawals
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Project Syndicate @projectsyndicate.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Is a private-credit crisis imminent? In a new PS Big Picture, Brian Judge, Howard Davies, Dambisa Moyo, and others assess the risks raised by the surge in opaque, minimally regulated non-bank lending. bit.ly/48eTeQ6
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
"There have been gambling manias before corn manias, railway manias, mining manias, banking manias, cotton-spinning manias—in short, manias of every possible description...one leading mania gave to each epoch its distinct tone and character."
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
"The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, an organisation for US state insurance regulators, has launched a study into the risks of complex 'securitised' products, which private equity-backed insurers have been piling policyholders’ premiums into."
ft.com
US Treasury calls in regulators for talks on private credit risks
Discussions will include American and international insurance watchdogs
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Great to talk private credit this morning with Garth Bray!
nzherald.co.nz
Major Wall Street figures have begun sounding alarms about private credit | Herald NOW Business
Private credit has ballooned to $3.5 trillion since the 2008 financial crisis, but it operates with minimal regulation and deep structural conflicts of interest.
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Brian Judge @realbrianjudge.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Drexel Burnham Lambert: Where Are They Now? www.c-span.org/program/hous...
c-span.org
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