Brendan Greeley

What a day to cover this topic.

Short version: Financial hegemony is when you don't need to start wars to get what you want; and also when, if you 𝘥𝘰 start a war*, your borrowing cost goes down and your currency goes up.

* Which you'll be tempted to start one regularly.

Well played.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

OMG BIG TRUTH

Monetary theorists: do we pronounce "chartalist" as 1) "chartalist," or 2) with what's evidently the proper Latin, "kartalist"?

Promise?

This is comforting, thank you. I started the PhD in the middle of writing the book because I had reached a point sitting alone in a room where I thought either a) these are good and new ideas, no one's ever done this before or b) no one's ever done this before because the ideas are insanely stupid.

Did everyone else go through a moment in their dissertation sitting in the archives looking at a cart of documents, when the full astringent shock of how little you know hits you, followed by the faint bitter aftertaste of how implausible your idea is?

There's a brief section in my dollar book where I try to explain bank money creation because you can't understand dollar notes and deposit dollars with a loanable funds model in your head.

Please do this. Writing financial history I have this regular challenge where I have to first remind people what they were taught in college about money and banking, then I have to tell them it was wrong.

I regularly have to explain to students in their third or fourth year of an undergrad economics degree that commercial banks create most of our money when they make loans.

Chart of the day - from a column by @katie0martin.ft.com on the death of the Trump trade. Chart by @raydouglas.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/cfdc...

My only issue with London is that I can’t stop singing “Walthamstow” to the tune of “Gangnam Style.”

If the President of the United States has free rein to address fundamental international payments problems then I would like to announce my candidacy

Boss: Oh never mind
Clerk to other clerk afterwards: I can't believe he just made me waste an entire page

A handwritten page in an old ledger that begins “to all whom” and then abruptly ends

I mean, starting a proclamation for the Royal Mint and then forgetting what the hell you were going to proclaim, who hasn’t been there before

A clerk in 1693 or so doodled the word “elephant” on his ledger for no clear reason. Office work has always been boring.

Regulatory clarity: I clearly don’t wish to be regulated

WH tells NY Fed it is subject to The Mandate Of Kevin.

There is nothing in finance that can’t be done more profitably with less oversight

This open contempt makes me worried about what's going to happen to the research staff at the Fed's Board of Governors under the other Kevin.

This answer - from one of the president’s key economic advisors - is disgraceful.

And, fwiw, the number for tariff pass through is closer to 94-96 percent

Welcome! I follow mostly academics, where the loathing for “the media” is high. Sometimes I try to remind them that’s me and everyone else I ever worked with, mostly I just block the worst of it.

"Not sustainable in any way."

While President Trump declares victory on affordability, companies are preparing to raise their prices to offset his tariffs. @bhgreeley.bsky.social and Natasha Sarin discuss on the #11thHour.

The Almighty Dollar by Brendan Greeley: 9780593138885 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books In this ambitious and groundbreaking history of the dollar, financial journalist and economic scholar Brendan Greeley makes a new argument about the origins of our money—and the people and nations...

Our first session in the Year of the Fire Horse will be with @bhgreeley.bsky.social on Friday, March 27, at 12 PM Eastern/9 AM Pacific. The topic: his forthcoming _The Almighty Dollar_. As ever, contact joseph.tinguely//AT//usd.edu for the Zoom link

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634502...

Have we hit peak dollar bearishness? No respect for the greenback

Couldn't agree more with the conclusions @robinwigglesworth.ft.com draws here. The dollar's decline looks overdone against the fundamentals, flows into US markets remain robust, and positioning looks crowded.

FT Alphaville: Have we hit peak dollar bearishness?
www.ft.com/content/89b9...

This shut down my brain. I keep trying to respond but it’s robbed me of the ability to think

I cut 15,000 words from the second draft and my wife now pronounces the galley “totally readable.”