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Karthik Sankaran

@rajakorman.bsky.social

6.5K followers 1.2K following 5K posts

Bay Area US. Aging macro expat. Cheap lunch guy. 1st to ever rhyme Duce and Juche. Neoliberal peacenik. Has Herder immunity. Virulent vector of dad jokes. 1/3 each phlegm, spleen & dad humors.

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 27d

Here's a link to a conversation earlier this week on links between geopolitics and FX & FI markets; the role of CBs; different patterns of real and financial spillover & impacts on Global South; & few other things I have been known to go on about. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvw_...

EXANTE Webinar ‘Beach Reads & Bond Yields’

YouTube video by EXANTE

www.youtube.com

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 25m

Reupping something from last week about how the Argentine bailout (and Brazil tariffs) are mostly about the increasing mutual mirroring of left-right splits in North and South America.

www.barrons.com/articles/arg...

Argentina Gets a Bailout, Brazil Gets the Stick. What Unites Them.

The Trump administration’s judgements are rooted in political style, Karthik Sankaran writes in a guest commentary.

www.barrons.com

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Reposted by Karthik Sankaran

Peterson Institute for International Economics @piie.com · 19h

Rather than worrying about the China Shock 2.0 in developed economies, we should be much more worried about the China Shock 1.0 in low- & middle-income countries, Arvind Subramanian says.

Find slides & watch the Global Economic Prospects event here: www.piie.com/events/2025/...

The New China Shock is on Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs)
High and rising imports of low-skilled products from China
Magnitude and pace of China shock much greater than for rich countries

China Shock 2.0 Exaggerated
Implication: now impact for rich countries is mostly from Chinese high skilled esports
Magnitude and pace of China Shock 2.0 significantly smaller than China Shock 1.0
China SHock 2.0 no longer macro-economic but sectoral/technological/security

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 15h

One question, given the Fortune story about Hanke advising the UST about dollarization is whether this UST would then give a hypothetically dollarized Argentina would have its banking system have access to the discount window, repo for purely Argentine collateral (& then a BCRA ELA), an OMT etc.

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 15h

I was not quite prepared for the first UST currency intervention since buying USDJPY after the earthquake being selling USDARS instead of (as I had hoped, expected, and advocated) selling USDJPY above 150 which they have had a couple of occasions to do in recent years.

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 15h

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Reposted by Karthik Sankaran

Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 1d

“the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa”

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 20h

I mean…

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 20h

Few things could be funnier than the fact that stablecoin’s biggest backers themselves set off the biggest digital bank run ever.

www.wsj.com/finance/bank...

How Silicon Valley Turned on Silicon Valley Bank

The fallout threatens to engulf the startup world—and has exposed a new set of vulnerabilities for the banking system.

www.wsj.com

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Reposted by Karthik Sankaran

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 21h

And this, class, is why aiming at agricultural self-sufficiency rather than spreading risk across different countries through international trade is a *really stupid idea*.

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 22h

So in a sense there may be internal contradictions between the two things (official dollarization outside the US and US support of USD stablecoins) that are seen as boosting USD centrality and global demand for USTs.

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 22h

Lots to mull, but 1 point is pushing $ization in a country & also pushing $ stablecoin more broadly creates a situation where the potential instant digital substitution of a $ liability from a local bank to say Tether has huge finstab implications in the $ized country.

fortune.com/2025/10/08/i...

Inside the Trump team’s secret talks to rescue Argentina—with the help of the ‘Money Doctor’ who wants to stop the 'pink tide' sweeping Latin America | Fortune

Johns Hopkins professor Steve Hanke is an expert on "dollarization" and has helped the Trump Administration run through the options for intervening in Argentina's economy.

fortune.com

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Reposted by Karthik Sankaran

Guan Yang @guan.dk · 1d

Through the Spanish silver dollar/peso, they are brothers now reunited.

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 23h

Blast from the past. TFW liquidity is a euphemism for supply.

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 1d

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 1d

Discovered a soapbox for various obsessions, at least some of which took off more widely; got one job; made many friends & even more professional contacts; reconnected with two childhood friends from 45 years ago; and found an outlet for my terrible puns, thus sparing my family from them.

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 2d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 1d

Silver at 50 and a Hunt Bros mention there is a Steve Solomon klaxon.

Reposted by Karthik Sankaran

JRM Finn @finnagain.bsky.social · 1d

Even if it was tardy, you fulfilled your Civic duty with that pun.

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 1d

Sorry for the delay, but it’s obviously time for a Honda Accord.

FinTwitter @fintwitter.bsky.social · 4d

Honda: Yen going beyond 150 to dollar is a bit too much.

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Reposted by Karthik Sankaran

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 2d

Perhaps not the main point but I always hate it when people view it as a sign of failure when poorer countries grow faster. There is absolutely no intrinsic reason why Poland should have lower income than the UK or any other EU country forever, and that means it will have to grow faster sometimes

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 2d

"15 years ago, Polish workers came here to find opportunity. Now Poland is growing twice as fast as we are," says Kemi Badenoch.

Any ideas what may have happened in the interim?

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 1d

If Bob Dylan had won his Nobel much earlier in his career, he would learned of it by a Zimmerman Telegram.

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 1d

The one on the left is by Christopher Nolan. The one on the right is worth watching (even if they do some familial history mashing up).

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 1d

They actually made two movies that were really about Austria-Hungary’s pioneering space program in 2006, but they cleverly separated the plots to keep it a secret.

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 2d

This makes perfect sense TBF.

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Reposted by Karthik Sankaran

Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 2d

Politico gathered denunciations of Jensen Huang from a long list of the usual suspects in the China panic industry.

I was very glad to be the lone voice against Chinese exclusion in our immigration policy and great power conflict in our foreign policy.
subscriber.politicopro.com/newsletter/2...

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Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 2d

The Sound and The Furet

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 2d

It all started going downhill when the self-proclaimed rationalists at Quillete published an article defending Chouannerie.

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 2d

In turn forgetting something. bsky.app/profile/raja...

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 29d

I would once again like to remind everyone that one of the most memory-holed things on the planet is how a virtue-embracing English regime beat France to legislative regicide followed by a genocidal campaign against an observant Catholic peasantry by about 150 years. (Pinker, there).