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Reposted by Thomas Veenstra

David Woodruff

@dmwoodruff.bsky.social

The independence of the Bank of England was supposed to facilitate the application of economic reasoning to public policy. But if independence=taboo on discussing the interactions btw fiscal & monetary policy, then not even technocrats deliberate on one of the biggest economic policy issues!

David Woodruff @dmwoodruff.bsky.social · 22d

IMHO, Murphy's very sloppy. But UK fiscal policy since QE/QT amounts to MMT that dare not speak its name. Viz:Osborne et al spent ~£120 bln of the money created to purchase gilts in QE. Too much monetisation-financed fiscal spending, or too little? MMT could at least pose the question! As for QT 1/n

Jo Michell @jomichell.bsky.social · 23d

This stuff really is snake oil. Would be a great shame if @zackpolanski.bsky.social fell for it. Politically it’s a one way ticket to nowhere. Important under current circumstances to have an articulate and credible voice on the left. Zack needs to steer clear.
www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/11...

December 6, 2025 at 9:06 AM

Reposted by Thomas Veenstra

NRC

@nrc.nl

‘Israël luistert massaal telefoongesprekken tussen Palestijnen af en slaan die op in datacenters in Nederland’

Het Israëlische leger gebruikt servers van Microsoft om militaire data op te slaan, voornamelijk afgeluisterde telefoongesprekken tussen Palestijnen op de Westelijke Jordaanoever…

www.nrc.nl

August 6, 2025 at 5:27 PM

Reposted by Thomas Veenstra

frysk-busboekje.bsky.social

@frysk-busboekje.bsky.social

Wy hienen in moaie presintaasje fan it nije #Bûsboekje, edysje 2026, ferline wike op it Bouwurk fan @arcadiafrl.bsky.social. It boekje hat as tema ‘boadskippen’. De reade kleur fan it omkaft is in boadskip op himsels. Read as symboal foar as der oer grinzen hinne gien wurdt, en dat bart hjoed faak….

July 23, 2025 at 6:03 AM

Reposted by Thomas Veenstra

Benjamin Braun

@benbraun.bsky.social

Time really is a circle. Leveraged hedge funds make billions; bets blow up; dash for cash; the Fed steps in; repeat. Here's what I wrote four years ago about central banks as guarantors of this unjust and inefficient (some might say: stupid) system.
benjaminbraun.org/assets/pubs/...

Consider the turmoil, in late 2019, in the US repo market, wherefinancial firms borrow and lend cash against securities, pledged as col-lateral. A major cause of this turmoil was liquidity demand from hedgeand private equity funds. These funds are typically levered — in ordermaximize their returns, they borrow large sums in the shadow bankingsystem, often pledging the assets they acquire as collateral. In order tostabilize the repo market, the Federal Reserve increased its balance sheetby 10 percent, or USD 400 billion, between September 2019 and Janu-ary 2020. The question “What is the social value of levered hedge fundsand private equity buyouts?” was not asked.The same pattern recurred — on a much larger scale — in the wakeof the COVID outbreak in early 2020. In order to prevent the economicshock caused by the pandemic from leading to another systemic financialcrisis, central banks across the world chose to backstop not only banksbut also the broader shadow banking system. The most audacious meas-ures — in both size and scope — have been implemented by the Fed-eral Reserve. By purchasing so-called “junk bonds” — bonds issued bycorporate debtors with lower credit ratings — the Federal Reserve againbackstopped private equity funds, which routinely transfer debt to theirbuyout targets, forcing the latter to issue junk bonds. By backstopping

both the money market and the (high-risk) capital market, the FederalReserve effectively protects both the liability side and the asset side oflevered investors’ balance sheets.In other words, the Federal Reserve ensures that the arsenal of themost predatory actors in the financial system is fully stocked and readyto be deployed — for further financializing currently distressed sectorsof the economy, such as elderly care. Shareholders understand — thestock price of firms such as Blackstone and Apollo bounced back spec-tacularly after the Federal Reserve announced its measures. Unless gov-ernments take swift and decisive action to curb the ability of hedge andprivate equity funds to gobble up assets, COVID will become a majormilestone in the long history of central bank-facilitated financialization.The upshot is that while central bank planning already exists, it iscurrently geared toward propping up a system in which the planning ofinvestment is in private hands. This system is both unfair and inefficient.Central banks have become the lenders of last resort for a manifestly un-sustainable status quo (Fontan, Claveau, and Dietsch 2016; Jacobs andKing 2016; Streeck 2014).

April 9, 2025 at 8:11 AM

Thomas Veenstra

@thomasveenstra.bsky.social

Dit kabinet........

omroep NTR verdwijnt - nos.nl/l/2562343

Publieke omroep over vier jaar op de schop, omroep NTR verdwijnt

De publieke omroep is niet meer van deze tijd, vindt het kabinet. Het stelsel wordt "fundamenteel" gewijzigd, zegt minister Bruins.

nos.nl

April 4, 2025 at 3:33 PM

Thomas Veenstra

@thomasveenstra.bsky.social

Gemeente checkt of huurders niet te veel betalen: 'Het is bij de beesten af' - nos.nl/l/2558971

Gemeente checkt of huurders niet te veel betalen: 'Het is bij de beesten af'

De Wet Betaalbare Huur maakt het mogelijk verhuurders die veel te veel huur vragen, te dwingen de prijs te verlagen.

nos.nl

March 10, 2025 at 11:50 AM

Reposted by Thomas Veenstra

Nathan Tankus

@nathantankus.bsky.social

"I really must stress that, in the olden days, a customer coming to a bank and asking to borrow money and the bank lending it to them was called bank lending"

My new strategy with @matt-levine.bsky.social newsletters is just to read until he makes me burst out laughing and then post the quote