Albert Pinto Profile picture
Defiant, Dispirited, Despondent. Without illusions but not disillusioned. Focus on Climate, Inequality, Development. Twitter threads turn into Polycrisis essays
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Aug 14 9 tweets 5 min read
“The market will solve climate”

The market: “The market will solve climate”

The market: Electricity hungry BigTech created a credits "system is akin to buying the right from a fitter colleague to say you have cycled to work, even though you arrived by a car that runs on petrol." @CamillaHodgson
ft.com/content/2d6fc3…

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Aug 2 22 tweets 10 min read
Netanyahu assassinates Haniyeh in Tehran & Hezbollah’s Shukr in Beirut. We are on cusp of regional war in Middle East. Forces are being deployed, Defences readied, Redlines of targets communicated.

Thread to track ‘response function’ of each adversary
nbcnews.com/news/world/hez…
Image 2/ In Israel's corner are US, UK, Egypt, Saudis, Jordan &Abraham Accord (informal milvalliance) with oil Kingdoms - UAE, Bahrain.

They have communicated to Israel that they will defend Israel if it is attacked by Iran axis but will not participate in a war initiated by Israel Image
Jul 26 6 tweets 4 min read
Unbelievable vibe shift in the US with Kamala Harris
Image The vibe shift, on the ground, in swing state Wisconsin

" Kamala Harris electrified the crowd in her first campaign rally as presumptive Democratic nominee. "I haven’t felt anything like this in many, many years,possibly since President Obama’s first run"
therecombobulationarea.news/p/in-west-alli…
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Jul 12 4 tweets 2 min read
Latest @polycrisis dispatch is out. @kmac & I show just how deep the finance-ecology-geopolitics rabbit hole Hurricane Beryl goes. Sign up here:

buttondown.email/polycrisisdisp…
2/ Ecology: With super hot oceans, we are very worried about this Atlantic hurricane season. THIRTY storms are predicted plus minus 5, depending on el nino

Finance: Worry that coming devastation will shake insurance industry to the core just as 2004-5 did
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/globa…
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Jul 4 9 tweets 6 min read
what reading one book by Brett Christophers does to a mf
‘while it is possible to prevent businesses from doing profitable things, it is impossible to make them do things they consider insufficiently profitable’. Why do all this 'market failure' nonsense
ft.com/content/b2b6fb… Brett Chrisopher's work on Rentier Capitalism has been eyeopening. Asset Managers like Blackrock now run the roads we drive on; the pipes that supply our drinking water; the farmland that provides our food; electricity & heat. Nice profile

@ddhitchens
compactmag.com/article/how-as…
Jun 4 42 tweets 20 min read
Yes, BJP still sets the terms in the Indian parliament. But it will not have the decisive electoral majority of 2019-2024 lok sabha where it ran bills with zero opposition or consultation. After this election it will have to respect India’s opposition and democracy India's stock market slides. Their logic?
BJP not winning in a landslide -> forced to have a NDA coalition government that will inevitably have to be more pro-welfare
--> hence the BJP cannot do nakedly pro-rich liberal reforms --> Oops, sell sell sell

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Mar 30 7 tweets 4 min read
1/ "What's happening in Guyana isn't just happening there. All over the globe, oil companies are racing to tap as many of the remaining fossil fuel reserves as they can"
@jeffgoodell :

Nice @WeAreDrilled @amywestervelt
rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
stitcher.com/show/drilled

Image 2/ This is not a a story of Guyana’s PM lecturing western liberals over hypocrisy climate, oil & Amazonian forests.

But a geopolitical story of developing country elites working with western firms (Exxon) to sell to western markets (oil goes to europe)
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/offsh…
Oct 21, 2023 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, 2023 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 11, 2023 6 tweets 3 min read
Three guesses:
1 Energy transition is from fossil fuels to metal-based economy
2 Revenues from metals is tiny compared to selling fossils => No current petrostate turns into electrostate.
3 Hi Capital requirments =>Majority of extraction will take place in Global North not South Image if 2 is true, then the future has no electrostates. None. Not Indonesia, Australia, certainly not Canada.

Revenues that a state will earn from digging metals & processing it will be too tiny to support an entire population with welfare or dividends. ft.com/content/0d2fba…
Aug 3, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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:
Jun 12, 2023 33 tweets 16 min read
headline you thought was coming in 2050, but its in 2023.
ft.com/content/a801a8…
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May 24, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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…