JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
Associate professor of economics, John Jay College-CUNY, senior fellow at the Groundwork Collaborative. Blog and other writing: jwmason.org. Study economics with me: https://johnjayeconomics.org. Anti-war Keynesian, liberal socialist, Brooklyn dad.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
· Sep 30
Against Money
A powerful deconstruction of humanity’s most influential invention, from the acclaimed economists J. W. Mason and Arjun Jayadev. Money is unavoidably fundamental to our daily lives. It lurks behind ...
press.uchicago.edu
Coming this spring. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
The point is, the advice to not talk about race when race isn't relevant is fine in principle, but not very helpful in practice, since presumably everyone who talks about race does so because they think it is relevant.
November 24, 2025 at 7:54 PM
The point is, the advice to not talk about race when race isn't relevant is fine in principle, but not very helpful in practice, since presumably everyone who talks about race does so because they think it is relevant.
This is sort of in the category of we should have more music that rocks, and less music that sucks.
November 24, 2025 at 5:07 PM
This is sort of in the category of we should have more music that rocks, and less music that sucks.
If you have a deadly enemy that you're not currently prepared to go to war with, that's a very good reason for meeting with them.
November 24, 2025 at 5:02 PM
If you have a deadly enemy that you're not currently prepared to go to war with, that's a very good reason for meeting with them.
A simpler and more plausible explanation for the meeting is tactical: The federal government can make things difficult for NYC in many ways, and if the new mayor is going to deliver on his agenda he needs to try to limit how much Trump is actively trying to wreck it.
Matt Stoller: “..Trump & Mamdani defeated establishment in their own way, representing hunger of voters on the right & left who want something different. If those sides cd come together.. that would be a sea change in how we organize our political economy”.
www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-r...
www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-r...
Monopoly Round-Up: Why the Establishment Freaked Out Over a Mamdani-Trump Press Conference
Meta wins its antitrust case, there are now two fire truck antitrust claims, the stock market got wobbly, and Larry Summers was exiled from the establishment, at least for now.
www.thebignewsletter.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:53 PM
A simpler and more plausible explanation for the meeting is tactical: The federal government can make things difficult for NYC in many ways, and if the new mayor is going to deliver on his agenda he needs to try to limit how much Trump is actively trying to wreck it.
But he is also right that the structure of our safety net creates very high effective tax rates on incomes just above the official poverty threshold. And he is right that hedonic adjustment is misleading when we are concerned with the minimum cost of accessing some essential good or service.
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 PM
But he is also right that the structure of our safety net creates very high effective tax rates on incomes just above the official poverty threshold. And he is right that hedonic adjustment is misleading when we are concerned with the minimum cost of accessing some essential good or service.
Now, if you want to say that calling this a "survival line" is a bit hyperbolic, I won't object. Obviously most US families do have incomes below this, and they seem to be surviving. But overheated language is not the greatest sin here.
November 24, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Now, if you want to say that calling this a "survival line" is a bit hyperbolic, I won't object. Obviously most US families do have incomes below this, and they seem to be surviving. But overheated language is not the greatest sin here.
If you look at EPI's Family Budget Calculator, it gives numbers very close to his. Now you could say that the country's premier labor-focused research institute doesn't understand poverty or living standards and is obviously dumb and wrong. I mean, you could say that. www.epi.org/resources/bu....
Family Budget Calculator
EPI’s Family Budget Calculator measures the income a family needs in order to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living. The budgets estimate community-specific costs for 10 family types (one or...
www.epi.org
November 24, 2025 at 2:54 PM
If you look at EPI's Family Budget Calculator, it gives numbers very close to his. Now you could say that the country's premier labor-focused research institute doesn't understand poverty or living standards and is obviously dumb and wrong. I mean, you could say that. www.epi.org/resources/bu....
I read it, and I don't see anything obviously dumb. You can say it is exaggerated or overstated, but it seems to me that it's making some valid points. The officially poverty line *is* meaningless. Much of what we call consumption (e.g. commuting) *is* better thought of as a deduction from income.
November 24, 2025 at 2:52 PM
I read it, and I don't see anything obviously dumb. You can say it is exaggerated or overstated, but it seems to me that it's making some valid points. The officially poverty line *is* meaningless. Much of what we call consumption (e.g. commuting) *is* better thought of as a deduction from income.
Apropos of nothing, the wikipedia page for Dow 36,000 is pretty entertaining.
November 24, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Apropos of nothing, the wikipedia page for Dow 36,000 is pretty entertaining.
Stock markets are especially nice for this sort of thing because they combine 1) a clear set of mathematical relationships that really do describe a lot of the relevant behavior; 2) an enormous amount of easily accessible data; 3) a strong connection to substantive things we actually care about.
November 24, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Stock markets are especially nice for this sort of thing because they combine 1) a clear set of mathematical relationships that really do describe a lot of the relevant behavior; 2) an enormous amount of easily accessible data; 3) a strong connection to substantive things we actually care about.
The FT Alphaville piece by @tobyn.bsky.social that the quote is from is an outstanding example of how productive it can be to take an obviously silly idea, and carefully work through why it is silly and how someone might nonetheless come to believe it. I learned a lot from it!
November 24, 2025 at 2:29 PM
The FT Alphaville piece by @tobyn.bsky.social that the quote is from is an outstanding example of how productive it can be to take an obviously silly idea, and carefully work through why it is silly and how someone might nonetheless come to believe it. I learned a lot from it!
Should we expect stock prices to rise by another 280 percent, like, immediately? Sure why not. www.ft.com/content/a7f1...
November 24, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Should we expect stock prices to rise by another 280 percent, like, immediately? Sure why not. www.ft.com/content/a7f1...
Indeed it would not be, but I think this is just Stoller's fantasy.
November 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Indeed it would not be, but I think this is just Stoller's fantasy.
That is what it looks like, yes. Which should be our starting point for wondering if there is something deeper going on. youngvulgarian.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 6:05 PM
That is what it looks like, yes. Which should be our starting point for wondering if there is something deeper going on. youngvulgarian.substack.com
not what this is about. but don't worry, there will be other times you can use that quote!
November 21, 2025 at 1:19 PM
not what this is about. but don't worry, there will be other times you can use that quote!
Mike, for understandable reasons, frames this as an argument against a set of ideas, rather than a criticism of specific people. But if you follow the links to what he convincingly calls the error of "class abstractionism," you'll find a lot of them go to Vivek Chibber and the editors of Jacobin.
November 21, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Mike, for understandable reasons, frames this as an argument against a set of ideas, rather than a criticism of specific people. But if you follow the links to what he convincingly calls the error of "class abstractionism," you'll find a lot of them go to Vivek Chibber and the editors of Jacobin.
This outstanding essay by @itsmccarthy.bsky.social in Hammer and Hope captures a frustration that I have long felt with a certain strand of left opinion-makers. hammerandhope.org/article/iden...
November 21, 2025 at 1:15 PM
This outstanding essay by @itsmccarthy.bsky.social in Hammer and Hope captures a frustration that I have long felt with a certain strand of left opinion-makers. hammerandhope.org/article/iden...
Correct.
He won because he combined economic populist demands — rent freezes, universal child care, fast and free buses, municipally operated grocery stores to curtail inflation — with explicit solidarity with Palestine, immigrant communities, and New York’s most marginalized residents.
November 21, 2025 at 2:56 AM
Correct.
Even at Harvard, the kids are all right.
Larry Summers’s co-teacher at Harvard:
“We will miss his insights and his wisdom”
Student:
“NO WE WON’T”
dude pretends he doesn’t hear, then intros Tony Blair lmao
“We will miss his insights and his wisdom”
Student:
“NO WE WON’T”
dude pretends he doesn’t hear, then intros Tony Blair lmao
November 21, 2025 at 2:55 AM
Even at Harvard, the kids are all right.
This is very important. The intrusion of AI slop into higher education is not mainly coming from below, from the students. It's coming from the top.
What I've been noticing lately in convos with students is that they *despise* the AI-slopification of everything as much or even more than I do. And yet our universities & their admin seem to believe that students for some reason want it integrated into everything. THEY DON'T.
“To be sat there with this material in front of you that is just really not worth anyone’s time, when you could be spending that time actually engaging with something worthwhile, is really frustrating,” he said.
November 21, 2025 at 2:34 AM
This is very important. The intrusion of AI slop into higher education is not mainly coming from below, from the students. It's coming from the top.
That squeaking noise you hear? It’s the relations of production out of alignment with the means of production.
whatever the Xai people did to make grok speak more positively about its owner seems to be backfiring
November 20, 2025 at 10:28 PM
That squeaking noise you hear? It’s the relations of production out of alignment with the means of production.
I mean, as anyone who follows me on here knows, I defer to no one in my contempt for the AI-industrial complex. But, as one of my favorite college professors used to say to pretentious students: Words have meanings.
November 20, 2025 at 9:59 PM
I mean, as anyone who follows me on here knows, I defer to no one in my contempt for the AI-industrial complex. But, as one of my favorite college professors used to say to pretentious students: Words have meanings.
The "accounts for" here is like fingernails on a chalkboard. To me at least.
✨ Nvidia crushed expectations with $57B in Q3 revenue — but look closer. Its inventories have nearly doubled to $20B in unsold chips, and its operating cash flow is falling fast. The growth story may not be what it seems.
November 20, 2025 at 9:54 PM
The "accounts for" here is like fingernails on a chalkboard. To me at least.
ok, I don't have the expertise to debate this. you are probably right that I would not have posted about it at all.
November 20, 2025 at 3:44 PM
ok, I don't have the expertise to debate this. you are probably right that I would not have posted about it at all.