Brian Callaci
briancallaci.bsky.social
Brian Callaci
@briancallaci.bsky.social
Economist
Pinned
Crassly dipping my toe onto this platform with self-promotion: My book, Chains of Command: The Rise and Cruel Reign of the Franchise Economy now has a beautiful cover, and a release date: April 20th. So you'll have something to enjoy with your 4/20 Taco Bell order! bookshop.org/p/books/chai...
Reposted by Brian Callaci
Economists when they see a policy change
November 14, 2025 at 12:10 PM
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no see using these photos would be beneath the Times, which would never take material from a dubious source, unless it was, say, hacked documents showing that a guy born in Africa had put 'African-American' on his application form for a university he didn't get into. You know, something important.
Can we circle back to the part where the NY Times never disclosed that they have incriminating information on Donald Trump from sent by Epstein that's been sitting on their email servers for nearly a decade?
Stuff like this makes me wonder why there hasn't been any reporting about Trump having affairs during his presidencies
November 12, 2025 at 11:11 PM
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I don’t have much hope that the economics discipline is willing and able to reform itself from the inside but here’s a pretty damn freaking obvious place to start.
Epstein Bantered Regularly With Larry Summers
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:49 AM
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🚀 I'm on the #EconSky Job Market!

My JMP asks a classic question:
Do large, dominant firms foster or hinder innovation?

To study this, I turn to the Great Merger Wave (1895–1904), when >2,600 U.S. firms combined into corporate giants like U.S. Steel and DuPont.

A JMP 🧵👇 (1/13)
November 11, 2025 at 7:55 PM
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The people who empower Trump would never countenance any man being held to account for hurting girls. That would offend their whole notion of justice (the strong get to eat the weak)
It’s a strange situation when we’ve established the POTUS is a criminal, we’re just trying to find a crime his party wouldn’t be okay with.
November 12, 2025 at 7:09 PM
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Honestly, we could have used a lot more cancel culture.
Insights from Larry Summers

"I observed that half the IQ In world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population..."
November 12, 2025 at 9:39 PM
"Deregulate and just let Sam Altman and his investors build whatever they want" may not be the best, most efficient, or socially optimal way to build out infrastructure
November 10, 2025 at 2:51 PM
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Somehow James Talarico following porn stars got covered before this
mainstream media report on jd vance’s twitter mutuals, challenge level: impossible
He has already chosen, what the fuck are we doing here
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
November 8, 2025 at 11:12 PM
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I often think about how the government hounded Aaron Swartz to death for scraping Jstor, yet all these AI companies scraped almost literally all of human knowledge (and continue to do so even when they're told to stop) and have had no criminal consequences.
November 8, 2025 at 9:16 PM
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he won an absolute majority in a 3 person race. the 100k or so people in those neighborhoods don't all have substacks.
November 8, 2025 at 3:20 AM
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The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.
November 7, 2025 at 7:39 AM
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One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
November 6, 2025 at 9:00 PM
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"you will recognize here precisely the same clipped, decontextualized, link-free, moronically breathless style of tweeting deployed by “financial news for low-trust illiterates” accounts like Unusual Whales or ZeroHedge (or, for that matter, in a slightly different arena, PopCrave)"
November 7, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Public servants should make a LOT more.

But I think this also illustrates an overlooked corrosive effect of inequality. If private CEOs make millions, then non-profit directors, union presidents, and governors feel like should make $500k for similar work.
ryan is right. people HATE hearing this. but it is just a matter of simple incentives. if you want a more representative legislature — and if you want a legislature more resistant to corruption — then you need to jack up the salaries. serving as mayor of NYC should net you a cool 500K *at least*
people hate hearing this but it's 100% true, creating a huge pay gap between political leaders, their staffs, and other elites is a recipe for corruption. of course the flip side of that is taxes on the rich should be jacked way the hell up
November 7, 2025 at 4:08 PM
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Bidenomics: Truly Transitory Inflation, Remarkably Successful on Employment & Growth—But Unable to Break Through the Media Misinformation Machine
My attempt to set forth a balance sheet: Bidenomics was an extraordinary success. The economy healed fast; the…
braddelong.substack.com/p/bidenomics...
Bidenomics: Truly Transitory Inflation, Remarkably Successful on Employment & Growth—But Unable to Break Through the Media Misinformation Machine
My attempt to set forth a balance sheet: Bidenomics was an extraordinary success. The economy healed fast; the story never did. A brief moderate transitory inflation. A long and strong jobs and...
braddelong.substack.com
November 6, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Incredible
An amazing chart-crime from researchers at the Dallas Fed to illustrate “Gosh people sure say a lot of things about AI singularities but most of it is kind of unhinged speculation! So let’s assume things will keep being normal! Some of the economists did a conservative projection that says that…”
November 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Taking part in this next week. Should be a good conversation. "Activists and the Academy: Bridging the Divide."
November 7, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Earlier this week I came across a book with this dedication page (from 1938).
November 6, 2025 at 5:10 PM
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Friar is right, she was calling for derisking state not for backstops - an important nuance that should be considered together with Jensen Huang claiming China ‘will win’ AI race with US at the same time.

Capital wants Trump to activate subsidies, invoking China card that worked so well w Biden.
They’re calling it “the most well-taken comment in history”
November 6, 2025 at 9:27 AM
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Y'all ever notice how nobody can ever actually point to any *specific thing* that Mamdani *actually said* that was antisemitic, and how people are just baldly asserting it anyway
November 5, 2025 at 9:12 PM
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Right wing masculinity experts are viewing the Zeteo stream and weeping at the left's masculine dominance
November 5, 2025 at 6:53 PM
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“How did you receive the foreigner? And did you receive him and welcome him or not?”

Pope Leo XIV challenges us to reflect on the moral cost of policies that target deeply-root immigrants and families.
November 5, 2025 at 5:05 PM
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previous increases in immigration enforcement caused child care centers to simply shut down
November 5, 2025 at 4:09 PM
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Hard agree
November 5, 2025 at 4:37 PM