I lost my job at a progressive think tank partly over this, because it was seen as destructive to a big tent anti-trump coalition. The problem is, any coalition with libertarians is going to be incapable of defeating trump, as we’ve since learned. www.rawstory.com/amp/libertar...

Think about the mindset, and the expectation of immunity, of someone who texts this to friends.

While procuring big raises for themselves, these presidents were dismantling entire departments, firing faculty en masse, and signing expensive contracts with the epistemicide company in defiance of shared governance. Abject betrayal of the university mission. www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

Perry Bacon is one of ~15 influential commentators I follow because I consistently find his perspective oriented toward organizing. Just finished this @higheredlabor.bsky.social report and agree: this report puts forth an assessment and vision for higher ed around which to construct a new majority.

This proposal from @econmarshall.bsky.social, @higheredlabor.bsky.social and others to overhaul higher education is really compelling. Worth reading in full. marshallsteinbaum.org/wp-content/u...

In a new paper, @andrewelrod.bsky.social and @econmarshall.bsky.social explain how to transform American higher education from an engine of Inequality to a pillar of the public interest.

This Wednesday: Join us in NYC for a panel discussion on how to rebuild American higher education from an engine of inequality to a pillar of the public interest. Featuring @jmargetta.bsky.social, @econmarshall.bsky.social, Jennifer Chernega & @adamhsays.com. 🎟️ www.eventbrite.com/e/why-americ...

Reminder: this Wednesday Dec. 3rd we (Higher Ed Labor United/JFI/TCF) are hosting a panel discussion about the future of higher education in NYC, where I’m releasing a new paper. Register here: jainfamilyinstitute.org/event-on-dec...

How does human capital theory survive the existence of this paper?

On Dec. 3rd, I will be releasing a @higheredlabor.bsky.social/Jain Family Institute paper co-written w/Andrew Elrod: Rebuilding American Higher Education: from an Engine of Inequality to a Pillar of the Public Interest In-person panel discussion in NYC: jainfamilyinstitute.org/event-on-dec...

On Dec. 3rd, I will be releasing a @higheredlabor.bsky.social/Jain Family Institute paper co-written w/Andrew Elrod: Rebuilding American Higher Education: from an Engine of Inequality to a Pillar of the Public Interest In-person panel discussion in NYC: jainfamilyinstitute.org/event-on-dec...

Very glad to have been on @leftanchor.bsky.social to discuss l’Affaire Summers and the grotesquerie of “progressive” economic policy types covering for him & retaliating against his accusers to forward their own careers/garner his approval. #econsky

fresh @leftanchor.bsky.social bonus ep, we have @econmarshall.bsky.social on to talk about Larry Summers, his good pal Jeff Epstein, and Summers' noxious influence on the discipline of economics as well as Democratic Party policymaking www.patreon.com/posts/144130...

WOKE IS BACK

Summers is gone. Now: why did he survive so long? www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

I have been feeling depressed and discouraged that this man has the power and influence he does at my school and in my profession And I am a tenured professor at Harvard! How much more protected can I be? Imagine how STUDENTS feel. Junior faculty. This quote nails it

“Short bursts indicate an ICE sighting. Long whistles indicate agents making arrests. If you hear the whistle and you’re undocumented, said [Whitney Hu, a community activist and organizer with South Brooklyn Mutual Aid], ‘you hide. And if you’re somebody who’s not, you go to the street.’”

Fantastic podcast episode. At one point @katewagner.wehwalt.net points out that McMansions come in all sorts of styles, including post-modern, which consists of oddly arranged rectangles. Behold my neighbor, completed ca. 2024. The owner is from Texas. www.patreon.com/posts/143733...

We should introduce a new heuristic for judging academic careers: If they pursue the same field than their famous academic relatives, it's likely because of networks not ability.

On this point, any regrets from the progressive nonprofit industrial complex for vilifying Claudia Sahm for blowing the whistle on Summers in 2020? Or was it all worth one failed administration’s worth of fancy economic policy appointments?

Damn, almost makes you feel sorry for @americanprogress.bsky.social building their whole economic policy platform around him, until you remember that they put Neera back in charge and so not cleaning house when you have the chance seems to be their MO! The dangers of gerontocracy.

gosh I wonder why they called her peril www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

😬 👇 😬

A lot of the (often quite powerful!) guys emailing Epstein were asking him for dating advice, which seems to suggest that they saw his own sex life as aspirational.

I highly recommend everyone to read this article for background on Summers’s entwinement in “progressive” economic policy nonprofits, including how that entwinement seriously undermines & compromises their work: www.thecaravelgu.com/blog/2020/12...

If I’ve got my timeline right, this is Larry Summers emailing his buddy Jeff Epstein for advice on how to creep on younger women *a couple days* after the publication of the Miami Herald piece that made him the country’s most infamous sexual predator.

It’s hard to be surprised by the actions of a man already known as the “Prince of Darkness” who sits atop a professional renowned for misogyny (good time to revisit @claudia-sahm.bsky.social, will post link). But by god I am surprised. Even now, Larry Summers repugnance continues to surprise me.

The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.

Forthcoming book review in the JEL: "Monopsony in Labor Markets: Theory, Evidence, and Public Policy by Brianna L. Alderman and Roger D. Blair" by Marshall Steinbaum. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Alternately, the possibility of *monkey's paw curls* Representative Marshall Steinbaum.

I’m starting a new subfield: the History of the History of Economic Thought.

Oh my god @dkuehn.bsky.social is in the JEP. Live footage of Phil Magness

The week in review: @econmarshall.bsky.social on anti-monopolism as an ideology of the left, and Amna Akbar, @sameer-ashar.bsky.social, and @jocelynsimonson.bsky.social on movement law under fascism. Plus, the best of LPE from around the web 🧵👇

Chicago on Chicago crime (H/t @pricelaborecon.bsky.social)

Today, @econmarshall.bsky.social continues the discussion about Antitrust and Marxism, making both the radical and moderate case for anti-monopoly as an ideology of the left.

Important piece from Marshall. Dismantling kleptocracy is the most urgent goal, & anti-monopoly policy must be part of that. The problem we face, as I tackled last week, is that with very few exceptions, U.S. anti-monopoly policy has been antitrust, & has ranged from weak to counterproductive.

Excellent essay! It rebuts Marxist pessimism about the anti-monopoly movement, highlights the importance of contesting Capital's control of economic production, and ties it all into the recent failures of the movement (particularly wrt. the recent anti-monopolisation case against Google).

I have a new piece in @lpeblog.bsky.social “Anti-monopolism as an Ideology of the Left” responding to @gabrielwinant.bsky.social’s “provocation.” lpeproject.org/blog/anti-mo...

this is not quite an anti-trust tragedy but it's certainly some kind of capital market regulation problem if people can buy assets that provide huge public goods specifically in order to destroy the public good provision

This morning I was filming ICE abducting sometime in Petworth. One of the agents told me "the last US citizen that did this he put in cuffs all the way to the courtroom".

Taking as given that some of the labor share of GDP has shifted to the self-employed/pass-through share, 1. Is that share “really” labor or capital income? 2. Among the self-employed/pass-through share, is it the low earners who are “really” capitalists or the high earners who are “really” workers?

This is a good piece about the unstated assumptions underlying political data analytics, and specifically Wins Above Replacement. As so often in economics, once you make the counterfactual you’re measuring candidate performance against explicit, the inference you claim cannot possibly be supported.

Very sad to hear Malcolm Rutherford died. The world can be divided into people who do and do not understand the history of our discipline, on the basis of whether you have or have not read his book “The Institutionalist Movement in American Economics, 1918-1947.” #econsky

Ugh. Didn’t realize Marshall Steinbaum was here

I never made a trailer for the show, but this episode with Marshall Steinbaum on the NTY’s farcical coverage of college students and the University of Chicago’s dabbling in crypto may as well be it @econmarshall.bsky.social www.buzzsprout.com/2396665/epis...

The University of Chicago’s present financial difficulties are the very-long-run result of the successful effort by Stigler, Friedman, and Director to purge the influence of Robert Maynard Hutchins from the university & American higher education more broadly. www.buzzsprout.com/2396665/epis...

A big problem is university presidents trying to transform their institutions into something at odds with their prior identity, at the behest of delusional board members, and running into severe financial difficulties, which they blame on woke professors.

Criticizing student debt cancellation as a Brahmin Left demand is itself Brahmin Left.

Carefully 👏 distinguish 👏 causation 👏 from 👏 correlation 👏 except 👏 when 👏 talking 👏 about 👏 educational 👏 attainment 👏 and 👏 earnings 👏 (or 👏 wealth 👏)