Max Kossek
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maxkossek.bsky.social
Max Kossek
@maxkossek.bsky.social
economics: fiscal, monetary, industrial, trade | all views personal
Anthropic seems to be the only frontier LLM provider that displays the timestamp of messages. Why don't the other LLM providers (Google, OpenAI, xAI) give you this feature?
December 16, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Great to see more backing for the ROAD to Housing Act. www.politico.com/live-updates...
White House backing push to attach Senate housing package to must-pass defense bill
House Financial Services Chair French Hill said the housing package must have buy-in from his committee.
www.politico.com
December 5, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Lou Jiwei also suggested that pilot programs for a property tax should be launched as soon as possible after the economy returns to normal growth. A property tax system was first proposed in 2013, but implementation has been delayed because of difficulties assessing the tax base.
Caixin cites Lou Jiwei as saying that China's property contraction will continue for at least another five years. I agree, and think prices will bottom out in the next year or two in the top-tier cities, but won't for many more years in lower-tiered cities.
www.caixinglobal.com/2025-11-14/c...
Caixin Summit: China’s Property Transition Will Take at Least Five More Years, Ex-Finance Chief Says
Lou Jiwei says expansionary fiscal policy is needed to support structural reforms of the household registration and land systems, which could help with the transition
www.caixinglobal.com
November 16, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Countries with larger populations tend to be less trade dependent because they have larger internal markets. The U.S. is one of the least trade dependent nations in the world.
November 3, 2025 at 7:33 PM
ChatGPT loves to generate multi-week structured routines as if it were desigining a training regimen.
October 25, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Central bank decisions become more political as debt-to-GDP increases. A 1% rate hike has a much larger fiscal and distributional impact when debt-to-GDP is 125% vs 25%.
May 23, 2025 at 4:25 PM
I've lost count of the number of different media outlets that have treated the Mar-a-Lago Accord as some masterplan rather than a provision of policy options.
April 28, 2025 at 1:04 PM
This misses the main point: tariffs are not just about economics. Tariffs can have non-economic justifications such as national security, social cohesion, environment, etc. Many economists have had blind spots in these areas.
Note to fellow journos: If only one "economist" agrees w Trump tariffs—as evidenced by fact that this particular "economist" is now being interviewed and cited everywhere as only "expert" willing to publicly defend them—consider confirming that he's actually an "economist." Check CVs, for example.
April 15, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Focus should be on output, not input. The more output is provided for in a reliable way (low supply chain risk, spare capacity, etc), the more room there is for job flexibility. Industrial policy should focus on the basics first (food, energy, education, healthcare, infrastructure, mfg, etc).
Screaming about industrial policy not being about employment.
April 13, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Lobbying presents a double problem for effective tariff policy: not just the strong influence from entrenched interests, but also the weak or non-existent influence of corporations or industries that have already been offshored, went bankrupt, or don't exist yet.
April 13, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Media shapes the narrative. Republicans hear messaging from the administration about the goal being no or zero inflation. Meanwhile, Democrats hear messaging about tariffs being inflationary. I would like to see the variation in individual responses rather than averages.
Michigan numbers are brutal. But one amazing thing: Republicans still think Trump will magically end inflation. From Goldman Sachs:
April 11, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Possible names to make MMT more appealing to the right: sovereign economics, national capacity economics, or fiscal realism. De-emphasizing policy prescriptions would also help to get past straw-mans.
March 20, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Thread on how to define tariff success: Does domestic production increase faster than domestic consumption? Furceri et al (2019) found this may be easier for less advanced economies and during recessions. www.imf.org/en/Publicati...
November 29, 2024 at 2:28 PM
Highly recommend this report--interesting throughout. Especially section 9, which provides data on how export controls with weak FDPR enforcement may have incentivized U.S. semiconductor manufacturing equipment firms to offshore manufacturing. www.csis.org/analysis/tru...
November 27, 2024 at 3:57 PM
Interesting article. The quote by @kclausing.bsky.social sounds right. Curious though what alternative unilateral measures the US should then focus on to decrease its trade deficit? The decrease in the fiscal deficit under Clinton had little effect because of other factors.
November 24, 2024 at 11:15 PM
This pattern of U.S. and European support reflects a conflict of interest between them wanting to avoid horizontal escalation while Ukraine pushes for enhanced capabilities to face Russia's vertical escalation. The resulting cautious approach by the West is a recipe for a prolonged conflict.
The United States and Europe have had 1000 days to tip the balance of military power decisively in Ukraine’s favor, but they chose not to. Biden’s decision on ATACMS will help, but like much else in this war, it is too little too late.

My latest for the @bulletinatomic.bsky.social
Biden allowing Ukraine to strike into Russia is much ado for little consequence
It took 1000 days for Western allies to let Ukraine use their long-range missiles against Russia. It's probably too little too late.
thebulletin.org
November 19, 2024 at 12:02 AM