Today’s GDP release, and in particular how the economy has adapted, a thread.👇

Re: Fannie/Freddie-The Path Is Actually Clearer NOW. On its face, this claim may sound ludicrous off the back of a precipitous drop in valuations due to what some interpret as SM losing his nerve and punting to a hostile Admin. In this thread, I posit the exact opposite.

First, the economic realities: 1) GSEs are the bedrock behind our housing market which in turn is the bedrock behind our economy, 2) after 12 years and $300 bn, gov has thus far squandered the opportunity to recap, 3) this economy recovery is VERY long in the tooth.

When Trump took office, we all hoped that he would usher in a regime change from the Admins that enacted conservatorship and then the Net Worth Sweep. Well, he actually did that with the appointments of SM and MC.

Yet, what always bothered me about SM was his perfect poker-face. For those of you following me for awhile, you know I’ve been saying that I couldn’t tell whether he was just playing bad cop or really was Darth Vader incarnate.

The primary consensus exit preconditions were: 1) there has to be a demonstrable path to meeting cap reqs, 2) the SPS needs to be forgiven, 3) court cases need to be settled.

Diminishing Marginal Returns

The productivity of our debt is collapsing and that is creating a major problem.

The problem is here now, and not in the future.

Here is why:

1)

Charted below is the increase in total debt and the increase in nominal GDP in the 8 quarters before each of the last six recessions.

In other words, how much did debt increase, and how much did GDP increase in the final two years of each economic expansion?

2)

As the chart shows, it is taking a larger amount of debt to increase GDP.

3)

Graphed another way, leading up to the 1980 recession it took about 1.94 dollars of debt to boost GDP by 1 dollar.

Leading up to the COVID recession saw debt increase nearly 6 dollars for each 1 dollar of GDP growth.

4)

Flipping the ratio shows the decline in the utility of debt.

We are only generating about 15-20 cents of growth for each dollar of debt.

This becomes a larger problem when we think about "growth rates" instead of nominal dollars.

5)

Until 2050 we'll likely see "a #supercycle in investments in 'clean' energy infrastructure, 'clean' transportation & everything that's required for the '#green' transition."

There's so much bullshit in here, I'll unpack some of it in a

2/x

1st (cf. @MGSchmelzer): there is no reason to assume that a massive productivity- & hence production-boom will lead to reduced emissions, because it will increase production&growth, & it is those two variables that global greenhouse emissions track most closely. #Degrowth.

3/x

Every time capitalism has made massive productivity gains (e.g. w/ the #steamengine; the taylorist #assemblyline; computers), that has led to a *radicalisation* of capitalism as a mass production system (as opposed to earlier versions, where luxury goods were for elites),...

4/x

So there's no reason believe that a new round of capitalist accumulation (#accumulationbydispossession / #primitiveaccumulation) - in this case: some kind of "#greencapitalism - will in any way positively impact emissions rates, but every reason to believe the opposite...

5/x

I would like to look into this, as it speaks to an often-overlooked issue: the relationship between different phases of capitalist development, such as imperialism, fordism, & post-fordism, connected to energy regimes (coal-based, oil-based, renewables-based capitalism)?

The problem with (and for) #SiliconValley is their lack of #entrepreneurship. Yes, really: they're bad at being entrepreneurs, at providing the entrepreneurial function in the economy. To put it differently, they are technology driven in their profit-seeking but not consumer

driven. The difference is monumental both for the economy and the companies, and this is why they're failing. No, failing doesn't mean they are necessarily losing money, but that their profits are short-term and that they are undermining their own market positions. The business

they are in is not sustainable. This goes way beyond the selling of eyeballs, which is the focus of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and others. As it's often said, if you are not the paying for the product you *are* the product. Facebook is selling you, and your future purchases, to

their advertisers. The service the company provides is to lure you in, keep you busy, and make sure you don't leave while they feed you ads and collect data on who you are. It's the same with Google's search, maps, etc. But my point is not this, but that the focus by these

technology companies, more broadly, is unentrepreneurial--that they have lost sight of the consumer and, therefore, the real value they facilitate. They're not entrepreneurial. This, in turn, explains their behavior in everything from attempting to steer, direct, if not censor

To see how the innovation economy has left much of the US behind, we traveled to the small town of Bryan, in northwestern Ohio's Williams County. This is a thread about how to fix what the innovation economy broke about America.

This is Valerie. She’s 46 and has worked all her life—three jobs currently—yet she has just $65 in her checking account. Her husband works full time at a metal fastener plant.

Altogether, after health insurance premiums but before taxes, Valerie and her husband make about $45,000 a year.

The story of her working life is also the story of Bryan. The town is broken in some of the same ways that much of the rest of the country is broken. Understanding what broke Bryan is crucial to understanding how it might be fixed.

For decades, America’s political and business leaders acted as if places like Bryan didn’t matter.