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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 12h

Yeah it’s *only* feasible because Logan is 30 mins from downtown Boston and not JFK level bad.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 12h

I can’t watch films anymore. So I work, or write, on the way out. And try to sleep on the return.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 13h

(Though it’s an odd number because I took a boat to NYC once, which was at least a change)

Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 13h

I know. It’s ungood. I revisit my life choices often.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 13h

Worth pointing out that UK government has been similarly poor in that regard for, I imagine, very similar reasons.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 13h

BOS -> LHR (flight 101 for those counting)

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 13h

The usual thing about bank fraud is that the bank in question would typically like it to be prosecuted. In this case it seems…extremely not the case.

Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 14h

I’ve never seen anything remotely this petty charged as bank fraud.

Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 14h

NEW: Here's the two-count indictment against NY AG Letitia James. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 13h

Actually, given the compounded issues with the Eurocrisis a couple of years later this makes even more sense

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 13h

Does anyone know what happened to advanced manufacturing productivity post-GFC? Not obvious (to me) why that slowed so much.

Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 20h

More recent data is here - read through is IT, finance, & advanced manufacturing (electronics, chems, transport equipment) drove gains 1990-pre-GFC; real estate was a large offsetting drag.

Post-GFC IT still +ive but gains slowed, manufacturing weakened materially and finance basically did nothing.

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Reposted by Tomas Hirst

George Pearkes @peark.es · 19h

Absolute banger of a blog post from Dallas Fed economist Anton Cheremukhin who estimates breakeven payrolls have fallen to *30k* thanks to rapid declines in population growth.
www.dallasfed.org/research/eco...

Chart showing estimates of US population growth at monthly frequencies from 2017-2025 from BLS, BEA/Census, CBO, and author's calculations

Estimated monthly contributions to monthly breakeven payroll growth across population, changes in institutionalization/civilian status, and labor force participation 2017 - 2025

Estimated monthly breakeven payrolls rate from 2022-2025

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 20h

More recent data is here - read through is IT, finance, & advanced manufacturing (electronics, chems, transport equipment) drove gains 1990-pre-GFC; real estate was a large offsetting drag.

Post-GFC IT still +ive but gains slowed, manufacturing weakened materially and finance basically did nothing.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 21h

It very much does. Yeah coincidence of North Sea oil boom fading just as finance capitulated did a number on the productivity trend. And we haven't really replaced either - plus added Brexit frictions to the mix.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 22h

And I've long wondered about this chart from a 2018 Haldane speech

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 22h

Chart is now *very* old but helpful as a top-line cut to see just how much of the growth was attributable to a very narrow set of sectors

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 22h

a man says it 's just a little weird in a white shirt

ALT: a man says it 's just a little weird in a white shirt

media.tenor.com

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 22h

For context, trading costs at the long end are typically higher than that. It’s a strange sort of market we’re in.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 22h

Spread breakevens at the long end of the curve are now ~10-15 bps. That means that if spreads widen by 10 bps your entire excess return over duration-matched treasuries disappears.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 22h

More credit fun facts for y'all - US long-dated BBB spreads are trading at almost 20 year tights both compared to their own history and relative to duration-matched single-A bonds. HY (which is trading ~its 5th percentile over the past 25 years*) now screens modestly *cheap* to IG.

*there's nuance

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 23h

Give him all of them, just to make that point clear

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 1d

Last three jobs (four if you include the website I launched with the support of people I met on Twitter), meeting FinTweeps, chatting with senior policymakers. It’s been great!

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 2d

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

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 1d

Reform of patent protections as a way to weaken rentier behaviour seems like a good goal of policy. I'm not sure ditching them altogether is sound but it does seem an area where serious reform-minded governments ought to be looking.

Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 1d

What policy:
- increases competition,
- lowers prices,
- lowers high-end taxes,
- lowers inequality?
@deanbaker13.bsky.social tells us. Preredistribution?
substack.com/inbox/post/1...

Weakening Patent Monopolies: The Most Effective Wealth Tax
It's better not to give the billionaires the money in the first place than to develop schemes to tax it away
Dean Baker
Oct 08, 2025
The idea of a wealth tax has gained considerable popularity in the dozen years since Thomas Piketty first popularized it with his book, Capital for the 21st Century. I have always been a skeptic myself, not because I have any trouble with taxing billionaires, but I think it faces enormous practical and political obstacles.

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 1d

Ask a good question. Will see what I can dig up.

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Reposted by Tomas Hirst

Chris Hanretty @chanret.bsky.social · 1d

This x100. Business degrees are cheap to run, easy to run badly, and face seemingly inexhaustible demand

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 1d

Something grimly predictable about the way that the conversation about 'ripoff degrees' in the UK is always about degrees that aren't rip-offs, but are instead fairly obvious 'this student has chosen something unlikely to pay off economically' rather than the short tail of crap business degrees:

Everyone needs educating in the fight over university degrees

Political confusion over the purpose of these institutions means the obvious fixes are being neglected

www.ft.com

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 1d

And this is *not* a public HY story

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 1d

Can you spot where private credit lending has been going?

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