Steve Randy Waldman

@interfluidity

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in orthodox economics, the value of firms is entirely derivative of the value of consumption by final purchasers. providers of intermediate "capital" goods are valuable because they contribute to production of consumables. with that in mind…. fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1X3BM

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jul 8

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jul 7

from @steveroth.bsky.social angrybearblog.com/2026/07/how-...

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If cumulative NIPA saving did represent households' total wealth accumulation (and their resulting stock of "savings" 3), households' 2023 net worth would be $29T - the blue area in Figure 1 - versus the observed measure of $155T (the black line).

Over 24 years, 91% of Total saving has redounded to the top quintile (which includes more asset holders receiving property income, so it has accumulated assets at a much higher rate than the bottom 80% (more workers and transfer recipients).

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jul 7

Americans now pay about as much in profits to disproportionately wealthy shareholders as they do to the Federal government, up from as low as a third in the 1980s. fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1X1WA

A FRED graph of the corporate profit share of GDP and the federal receipts share of GDP. Federal receipts have been relatively constant over the postwar era, while profits fell to roughly a third of that in the 1980s but now approach the level of Federal receipts.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jul 6

a peeing little girl statue in Belgium (which is known in general for its peeing statues).

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jun 25

Cumulative transactions in US equity (EXCLUDING revaluation effects) by non-US purchasers. Just a cumulation of this series: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FORLT... see www.federalreserve.gov/econres/note... the era beginning May 2024 has been quite extraordinary.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jun 24

Thanks, Netflix.

Screenshot of a notification from Netflix:

“Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen was picked just for you”

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jun 14

the United States invented McDonaldses. why are they palaces every else but inside the United States. yes, those are electrical outlets at almost every seat and table. bestill my geeky heart.

View of the sea, some palm trees through the all glass wall of a McDonalds in Montevideo.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jun 12

from @ryanlcooper.com prospect.org/2026/06/09/t...

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If judicial review is not to be abolished entirely, as is the case in most other democracies, I’ve come to favor a reform idea recently proposed by Justin Briley in Liberal Currents. He would double the number of circuits and district courts—thus alleviating the severe backlog of cases at those levels—and have the Supreme Court drawn from the entire federal judiciary at random for each individual case.

This would solve the problem of a self-sealed system of power, and it would greatly reduce the temptation for justices to enact their partisan preferences through faux-legal argle-bargle. With the knowledge that a judge will only get a chance to make Supreme Court rulings occasionally, there will be a strong incentive to rule in a way that fits with law and precedent, so it will stand up to scrutiny. And rather than responding to Republican cheating with Democratic counter-cheating—which naturally invites counter-counter-cheating—it would make the system facially fair for everyone, thereby increasing the reform’s chances of persisting over time.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jun 4

Here's both full serieses, just drawing lines across data gaps, via Excel. 2/

Graph, U Mich Consumer Sentiment and US Labor Share, FRED data, full series, rendered in Excel to overcome some graphing quirks.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jun 4

@besttrousers.bsky.social here's another interesting mashup. I've cherry-picked by beginning at 1985, the picture is less compelling from 1978-1985, and the gappy consumer sentiment data doesn't render on FRED well before that. I'll include the full range available on FRED next tweet. 1/

FRED graph of consumer sentiment and labor share, 1985-present.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jun 2

If we're doing graphical mashups, here's one that works maybe surprisingly well. The green line is Biden's Gallup approval rating, taken from news.gallup.com/poll/329384/..., just stretched (horizontally and vertical) to match a FRED graph of consumer sentiment 1/21/2021-1/21/2025. 1/

A graph of Biden's approval rating juxtaposed with Michigan consumer sentiment over his term. They line up not perfectly, but maybe surprisingly well.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Jun 2

Wisdom (of course!) from @chrisdillow.bsky.social chrisdillow.substack.com/p/fetishisin...

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Insofar as fiscal rules serve a purpose, it is because they prevent the government from borrowing and spending so much as to increase inflation and therefore interest
rates.

But, but, but. If workers are being hired to build new towns, this is potentially inflationary anyway insofar as it adds to demand for workers and building materials thereby pushing up wages and prices. This is true whether the building is financed public or privately. Reeves can bypass the fiscal rule by using private finance, but she cannot bypass the inflation constraint.

And it is this that really matters.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 31

from @apenwarr.ca apenwarr.ca/log/20211229

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There's research showing that, for example, financial compensation in a job is more likely a demotivator than a motivator (ie. if you pay me too little, I'll work less hard or quit, but if you double my pay, it won't double my output). If you tie cash compensation to specific metrics, people will game the metrics and usually do an overall worse job. If you pay someone for doing you a favour, they are less likely to repeat the favour. Gifts are inherently socially and emotionally meaningful. Ruin the giftiness, and you ruin the intangible rewards.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 31

Here's a very simple graph that vindicates both our stories a bit. In levels terms, yeah, you are right, we are only back to immediately post-crisis, suddenly awful then, 2014. 2/

personal consumption expenditures per household over median household income.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 27

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 20

Ovid in exile.

A nighttime photo of the statue of Ovid in Piața Ovidiu, Constanța, Romania, May 2026. The Grand Mosque and submarine steampunk bar Hypso25 are lit up in the background.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 20

crypto was going to be something different.

A screenshot of an e-mail: Kraken, a crypto exchange, sends out a very stereotyped, conventional “economic brief” about Fed minutes.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 16

can't imagine why the period from 2019 to 2022 might have left people who had hoped to buy a home a bit bitter. (and then, of course, there is the effect of rising interest rates on mortgage costs, ht @steveroth.bsky.social)

A graph of all-transaction-home-prices-for-the-US divided median-household-income-in-the-US, showing a sharp rise from 2019 to 2022.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 16

AM radio, 2026.

A radio app on a dashboard touchscreen, set to AM 930 KHz.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 8

wow.

A map showing the location of Tristan de Cunha, in the middle of the South Atlantic ocean about equally nowhere near South America, Africa, and Antarctica.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· May 2

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Apr 29

pizzagate is real.

Photo of Pizzeria Podesta on Av Rivera in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Apr 27

@hussmanjp.bsky.social suggests essentially an excess margins tax. www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc26...

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In my view, a more reasonable corporate tax structure would be to apply corporate taxes to gross value added (revenues less intermediate inputs) minus a generous normal return allowance (r x Capital Base) on the company’s stock of real investment and R&D, minus an allowance for labor compensation (up to some fixed amount like $150,000 per employee). It’s simple math, but in this way, you incentivize real investment, R&D, and employment, but you tax the surplus “dominance rents.”

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Apr 10

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Mar 30

extraordinarily Keynes predicted the calamities, not as an outgrowth of economic liberalism per se, but as an outgrowth of unsupportable indebtedness. ICU is fundamentally about preventing dangerous indebtedness that emerges under liberalism absent regulation. www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1...

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If we take the view that for at least a generation to come Germany cannot be trusted with even a modicum of prosperity, that while all our recent Allies are angels of light, all our recent enemies, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, and the rest, are children of the devil, that year by year Germany must be kept impoverished and her children starved and crippled, and that she must be ringed round by enemies; then we shall reject all the proposals of this chapter, and particularly those which may assist Germany to regain a part of her former material prosperity and find a means of livelihood for the industrial population of her towns. But if this view of nations and of their relation to one another is adopted by the democracies of Western Europe, and is financed by the United States, heaven help us all. If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilization and the progress of our generation.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Mar 30

my approach to literature is much too casual and eclectic to give great answers. this week i’ve been reading Keynes on his ICU proposal, where he is quite explicit about failures of economic governance yielding fascism. api.parliament.uk/historic-han...

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The American plan requires the member States to provide so-called security against their overdrafts, a requirement which could certainly be met if it is thought useful; but the security in question only to a very small extent consists in an outside security in the shape of gold. It consists mainly of an I.O.U. engraved on superior notepaper, better than would be the case, perhaps, under our own scheme. I have said that, if that is thought useful and worth while, it does not involve any particular problem. The American scheme, again, sets a maximum to the liability of a creditor member to hold a credit balance, and there again that is a provision which is equally possible, if it is helpful, on either plan. But what happens when a creditor reaches his maximum is, in the American paper, somewhat obscure. I have not the slightest doubt in my own mind that a synthesis of the two schemes should be possible; but it does not seem advisable to attempt it until there has been time and opportunity to discover what the expert opinion of other nations and of all the world finds difficult or unacceptable in either scheme, and what it finds sensible and good. In the light of that opinion, the synthesis in due course should and must be attempted. I trust that your Lordships will wish the two Treasuries God-speed in their high enterprise. So ill did we fare in the years between the two wars for lack of such an instrument of international government as this that the resulting waste and dissipation of wealth was scarcely less than the economic cost of the wars themselves; whilst the frustration of men's efforts and the distortion of their life pattern have played no small part in preparing the soiled atmosphere in which the Nazis could thrive.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Mar 23

from Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires.

photo of an above ground, crypt-like grave, with an open arched entry and a white marble sculpture of a young woman in repose beneath a black cross.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Feb 28

from www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/w...

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The Shajareh Tayyebeh school was holding its first of multiple rotating school shifts when the strike hit, according to Hengaw, a Norway-based group that focuses on human rights violations in Iran. It said in a statement that it was investigating the killings, and estimated that about 170 children were in class at the time.

Videos verified by The Times show that the school is adjacent to a naval base belonging to the country's most powerful military force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC. Another video verified by The Times on Saturday showed a strike hitting the same IRGC base.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity· Feb 21