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Mike Konczal

@mtkonczal.bsky.social

10K followers 330 following 360 posts

Econ person. Director of Policy and Research, @economicsecurityproject.org. Former NEC. #Rstats, dad, Chicago Guy. mikekonczal.com

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Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · Feb 27

Very excited to start a new role with the Economic Security Project, helping direct their research and policy.

In this chaotic moment, the essentials - fighting economic insecurity and corporate abuse, building social insurance and competitive markets - are more important than ever.

economicsecurity.bsky.social @economicsecurityproject.org · Feb 27

ESP is growing! We’re proud to announce two new team members who previously served in the Biden-Harris Admin: Adriane Brown as Senior Communications Director and Mike Konczal (@mtkonczal.bsky.social) as Senior Director of Policy & Research. Seen first today in @politico.com Playbook.

This is Trump’s first in-person meeting with Starmer since his return to the White House.

www.politico.com

Reposted by Mike Konczal

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17h

thank you brett kavanaugh!

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 17h

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 3d

New from @nataliefoster.bsky.social on how the pending health care premium spikes are going to really impact young people, already feeling intense economic stress with a weak labor market and sky high housing costs.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/o...

Opinion | G.O.P. to Gen Z: Pay Double for Health Insurance or Go Without

www.nytimes.com

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 4d

!!! I was at a R conference and I do remember people talking about this now, they were saying it's a big deal. Fantastic, will dig in.

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 4d

Looks interesting! But they are going to bury me in the Positron IDE, it was my upgrade from RStudio and now that it has quarto and Python build-it it's over for me. There or it's not happening.

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 4d

I knew Stiglitz was the 🐐. Discontents made me want to study econ. I got to work with him while at RI, we even wrote a book together (!?!).

But to spend a night having your brain melted and rebuild to understand Dixit-Stiglitz monopolistic competition; the absolute🐐🐐🐐.

This ends investments. /9

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 4d

I for-real love Fumio Hayashi's 1981 microfoundations of Tobin's Q. I love Q from my finance days, and do feel like I get it more now.

Plus it's an elaborate argument to do what you just wanted to do anyway (take the average), and what else is the human condition than that? /8

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 4d

I didn't realize that having proper microfoundations for the Modigliani-Miller theorem was a missing part of my life, but it was?

I was fine with a vague milk and cream (or better, a bottle of ketchup) analogy from finance class and a lame arbitrage proof, but now it's on solid ground. 😎 /7

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 4d

Me: Can you believe we're going deep on CES production functions? There was this big fight 11 years ago, I wrote about it online, over whether that sigma value could be greater than 1, after this French...

Classmates: Oh really? [Gen-Z stare saying “ok boomer-millennial”] /6

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 6d

Brutal from Larry Summers. I got a deeper dive below.

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 7d

Thanks! 😎🫡

For monthly data like BLS I'd always want to highlight the latest month clearly on the axis, and ggplot's base date breaks would be random, even showing like 2026 right now on the scale. That is one I enjoy using.

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 7d

I wouldn't say it's nice as much as "CRAN finally accepted it" - but I'll be iterating on it and cleaning up the docs!

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 7d

This is not ready to take on the big dogs of R macro. Your quantmod, your tidyquant.

Yet.

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 7d

Oh no! It's jobs day and I need all 250 subindustries that are in the Current Employment Survey Diffusion Index.

We got you.

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 7d

Folks we are live. Still very initial version, but the first thing I actually got around to pushing to CRAN.

pkgdown website coming eventually (I know I know).

Reposted by Mike Konczal

George Pearkes @peark.es · 7d

Wow! This is a welcome surprise.

www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/p...

White House withdraws Antoni’s nomination to lead BLS | CNN Politics

The White House has sent paperwork to the Senate to withdraw the nomination of E.J. Antoni as head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, three sources told CNN.

Reposted by Mike Konczal

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 8d

Horrifying— Barbara Gomes Marques went with her US citizen husband and lawyer on 9/16 to a green card appointment at USCIS office in downtown LA where she was tricked into walking down a hallway away from them, was snatched by ICE and never came back. She now faces imminent deportation in Louisiana.

Los Angeles man demands answers after wife was detained at scheduled green card meeting

A man is speaking out and asking for help after his wife was detained by federal agents at the end of a scheduled green card hearing in downtown Los Angeles in early September.

www.cbsnews.com

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 8d

Oh man I wish I remembered that while writing!

Reposted by Mike Konczal

Dom White @domw.bsky.social · 8d

Think you might be being a bit uncharitable. It’s not like he has a history of back-filling the logic to an answer that’s already been arrived at.

Oh, wait…

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 8d

Here's the genuine problem. There's a lot of bottom-up arguments Miran makes for r* = 0%, each a good deal outside of consensus but interesting.

But there's also another thing that could make someone argue r* = 0%, as show in the algebra below (all discussed in the piece).

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 8d

New post, I finally wrote my thoughts on the Stephen Miran Federal Reserve speech.

I think it shows yet another reason for central bank independence. Without it, you can't tell what's a genuine outsider take and what's just carrying water for the Executive.
mikekonczal.substack.com/p/mirans-cas...

Miran’s Case for Cuts: A Reminder of Why Independence is Essential

Stephen Miran's recent speech highlights not just a debate over r*, but the deeper risks of allowing White House talking points to shape monetary policy.

mikekonczal.substack.com

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 10d

Colin Powell put his credibility on the line to say that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

An Australian skincare brand did a chant circle TikTok.

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 10d

Oh I'm going, the question is which.

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 10d

No spoilers. One Battle After Another: consensus on IMAX or 70mm for viewing?

Don't have the 70mm IMAX here, but the bounty of Silver Spring, Maryland, has each within a block of each other, AFI has the 70mm

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 11d

Speechwriter, being told 2pm on a Friday:

"so we're going to need about 20 minutes on the warrior ethos. Make it inspiring, but also terrifying like the audience is going to get purged.

We want soaring language, but also watch the vocab because DefSec might have a few in him by that point."

Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 11d

love the idea of staff editing this speech

DefSec_warrior_ethos_allstaffgeneral_v1_v2_092625_2pm.docx