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Albert Pinto Profile picture
Albert Pinto
@70sBachchan
Alternately Defiant, Dispirited, and Despondent. Without illusions but not disillusioned. Focus on Climate, Inequality and Development.
Herve Moal Profile picture Dana Eyre Profile picture p rehmer Profile picture Balaji Venkataraman Profile picture Kevin Docherty Profile picture 8 subscribed
Oct 21 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
White House request to Congress for $106 billion in emergency funding for foreign aid.

A budget tells you more than words about actual priorities. Full breakdown in this PDF incl military aid to Ukraine, Israel, intl development (World bank) etc Thread whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…
Image 2/ UKRAINE: US so far has sent more than $75 billion to Ukraine. Of new $106B, Biden asks $61B for Ukraine.

~$50B military aid, loans for military gear, DOD stocks of weapons etc (Pg 4-27_
~$11.75B economic (pg 42)

New aid is opposed by GOP in House
whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…

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Aug 16 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
“opposite responses of China and the U.S. have revealed that the two countries appear weak only because their strengths are asymmetric”

Key point from @BuddyYakov: US and China can mobilize their fiscal and productive capacity in a way that EU cannot.
noemamag.com/the-american-f… deja vu Policy debates in US-EU-China

US, 2021:
Do more fiscal spending into the pockets of most vulnerable households and businesses!

EU, 2022:
Do more fiscal spending ....!

China, 2023:
Do more fiscal spending into the pocket of most vulnerable households and businesses
Aug 3 • 36 tweets • 19 min read
The deranged idea—as @GhoshAmitav describes—that we are safe, that things are under control, that bad things only happen to people who are far away, persists.

Anticipating future ruin, we fail to act in the here & now.
New @polycrisis @kmac & I: phenomenalworld.org/analysis/globa…
Image This July has been the hottest in our recorded history and, most likely, over the last 120,000 years

On stocks and flows, action and inaction in the planetary impasse: phenomenalworld.org/analysis/globa…
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Jun 15 • 10 tweets • 7 min read
What do ppl mean when they say the existing ramshackle global financial architecture heaps pain upon the weakest & poorest shoulders?

@kmac & I wrote about negotiations between North & South at next week's Paris Summit @polycrisis. Figure ht @CSEINDIA
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/globa… Image Former US National Security advisor Fiona Hill acknowledged that the “Rest” were rebelling against the West. She cited an Indian interlocutor asking, “Where are you when things go wrong for us?”

We contrast Mia Mottley in Paris with Modi in DC
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/globa… @kmac Image
Jun 15 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"Clear waters AND lush mountains are our silver and gold’,” Xi said. “Harmonious coexistence of humans and nature should be a mission embedded in our development plans.”

Translation: China going big into green hydrogen to decarbonize its enormous steel!
ft.com/content/596736… Crazy how few people outside energy circles know this: "China now leads the world in offshore wind, onshore wind, solar installations and solar manufacturing, EV uptake, EV manufacturing, hydro, PHS, nuclear and smart grids" -@TimBuckleyCEF
Thread:
May 24 • 13 tweets • 7 min read
Wonder why EU, US, Asia are fighting so desperately over cars? As the largest chunk of cross-border traded goods, the car *is* globalization

In @polycrisis we ask the essential questions:
Who makes them? Who feeds* them?

*never forget about corn in cars https://t.co/AL7KbqCALqphenomenalworld.org/analysis/cash-…
The days of internal combustion engines may be numbered, but we should expect the unexpected. The entrenched car industry is going to rage against the dying of the light
https://t.co/eAUB7YB2vTphenomenalworld.org/analysis/cash-…
May 12 • 11 tweets • 7 min read
Is it costly?Will it work? Keynesians sitting at the Dept of Energy are the not so secret engine of the energy transition in the US.

Terrific Jigar Shah profile on how to take measured risks with public risk-bearing capacity crowding in private sector
nytimes.com/2023/05/11/cli… We mention in our talk how Dept of Energy is secret engine of #EnergyTransition. IRA supercharges its authority to put full faith & credit of US govt behind pvt projects for the public good.
Jigar Shah on Odd Lots ht @tracyalloway
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/odd…
May 11 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
open question: why is the White House doing this?

“The president frankly doesn’t love everything in the bill, but we support it because that’s what compromise means,” Mr. Podesta said.
nytimes.com/2023/05/10/cli… Image 300 environmental organizations sent a letter to Biden & Dem leaders urging them to reject Manchin’s plan, saying that although it would “marginally” help the development of RE it would be “massively dwarfed” by expedited O&G letter:biologicaldiversity.org/programs/energ…
May 5 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Washington Consensus? S Korea is on edge with threats  of N Korean & Chinese retaliation to Washington Declaration. The peace that knit together the growth miracle for billions of people could end in a bang. @kmac
Our newsletter, thanks to @WonkVJ book
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-e… Image 2/ Now that North Korea has demonstrated ICBM ability to strike US homeland,71% of S Koreans want their own nukes “New York for Berlin” was extended deterrence dilemma of old cold war. The new question: Would the Americans really trade “Seattle for Seoul?” phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-e… Image
Apr 21 • 7 tweets • 6 min read
.@POTUS Biden - Negotiate a free trade agreement with Indonesia and Jokowi before it is too late. Making a standalone deal with EU and Korea makes no sense as firms VW, Tesla, LG are all patterning with Chinese firms in Indonesia to get battery nickel
foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/17/chi… Image Western firms are playing catchup with Chinese firms. Ford, Tesla, VW etc all licensing tech and knowhow of CATL, BYD, mining firms.
@rachman_joseph is doing great reporting on the battery + metals rush in Indonesia. Jokowi's strong arming is working! foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/17/chi… Image
Apr 14 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
full tragic absurdity of the current system.

"for every dollar that the IMF provides to a poor country for social spending, it requires the country to cut four times more through austerity measures." ht @eurodad @Oxfam
eurodad.org/springs_reacti… thread on life or debt
Apr 3 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Political Rhetoric versus Economic Reality on BRICS currency.

Brazil's RMB Share of foreign exchange reserves has dropped over last year
Mar 2022: ~5 %
Feb 2023: ~2 %

Will it actually change with Lula visit to China? @MonaAli_NY_US @davidrkadler data.imf.org/regular.aspx?k…
Mar 27 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
"The end result of this interaction bw our strategic autism and the response functions of our allies, adversaries and third parties, is that we're running a substantial risk of losing the Cold War we've started outright"

US is now at the find out stage of fucking around. Thread Image
Mar 27 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Desi takeover of the British isles ;)

Humza Yousaf, Scotland - Pakistani-kenyan parents
Rishi Sunak, UK - Kenyan-born Punjabi descent
Leo Varadkar, Ireland - Irish Indian
ht @ziahaiderrahman
bbc.com/news/uk-scotla…
Mar 24 • 13 tweets • 9 min read
With footloose petrodollars, every story is an oil story.

Silicon Valley Tech bubble? Oil
Twitter buyout? Oil
Credit Suisse meltdown? you guessed it, oil.

Our newsletter on how the West is now outsourcing even the energy transition to the Gulf Kingdoms phenomenalworld.org/analysis/stran… Image Theres not just unburnable pvt owned Oil - Exxon etc - but National Oil. Companies like Aramco are tied to countries Sov funds,fiscal budgets & jobs. 2 Carbon crash scenarios w different politics:#StrandedAssets & #StrandedCountries
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/stran…
Mar 15 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
52/ Podcast with @tedfertik @MkBlyth is out. How the crisis of hegemony of democratic capitalism created the IRA? How does IRA change politics? And how you definitely need to tell your friends about IRA's bottomless mimosas
slides <tinyurl.com/IRATimTed>
53/ DOE does IRA cost-benefit analysis.

It pays for itself. Cuts 600-900 million tons CO2

"US power sector pollution reductions from 2023 to 2030 result in avoided global climate damages ranging from approximately $670 billion to over $960 billion"
energy.gov/sites/default/… Image
Mar 10 • 11 tweets • 7 min read
EV advocates should highlight the Big Ag, Big Auto, BigOil frenemy/alliance

The sacrifice zones of farmer friendly biofuel policy— American midwest, Brazil's sugar and Indonesia's palm plantations — are enormous

@NatBullard @colinmckerrache @triofrancos phenomenalworld.org/analysis/cash-… 2/ BigOil & BigAg feed your car
Farmer coalitions won biofuel policies that support their crops. Upto 10% of petrol is X
X= Corn Ethanol in US,
Sugar EtOH in Brazil,
Palm Oil in Indonesia
Biodiesel in EU (palm)

Political buyouts => Habitat destruction
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/cash-…
Mar 9 • 14 tweets • 10 min read
Don't worry about lithium. Worry about the corn in your cars!

Taken 6 months since our @polycrisis launch to post our first newsletter on just the energy transition. Thanks to @natbullard slides, it was fun to write. Read and subscribe here: phenomenalworld.org/analysis/cash-… Decarbonization is about
redirecting capitalists’ cash,
retooling cars, and
remaking the chemical basis of fossil fuel civilization.

We track the different plots twists in the climate political economy in our latest @polycrisis dispatch us16.campaign-archive.com/?u=30638b4a175…
Mar 9 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
oh wow looking at assets AND liabilities i.e both sides of a balance sheets. some big brained thinking afoot at the IMF. Maybe debt financed public infrastructure and state owned assets are good again??

loads of rethinking going on at WB/IMF as the West tries to find answers to China's state capitalism. ht @IliasAlami onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
Mar 9 • 9 tweets • 6 min read
Don't worry about lithium. Worry about the corn in your cars.

Sign up here for our latest @polycrisis dispatch. Out tomorrow.
phenomenalworld.org/series/the-pol… Gravitational pull of US energy demand on biosphere. Last time it made a law intended to reduce fossil fuels -RFS subsidy for corn ethanol/biodiesel in 2007- rainforests & peatlands in Borneo were destroyed.

CO2 emissions ~1 billion tons! ht @AbrahmL
features.propublica.org/palm-oil/palm-…
Mar 8 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
"If India is buying a fleet of fighter planes from, say, France, it knows that lynching & a little mass murder will, at most, get a delicate finger-wag. A big market is excellent insurance against moral censure."
-Arundhati Roy amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/22… In Cold War, US protected authoritarians. Is US now looking the other way as Modi turns screws in Kashmir & on India's muslims?

Declassified US Indo-Pacific strategy "outlines a major expansion of military,intelligence,& diplomatic support to India'
axios.com/2021/01/12/ind…