Fabian Schmidt
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fabschmidt.bsky.social
Fabian Schmidt
@fabschmidt.bsky.social
1.1K followers 690 following 330 posts
Political economist // Industrial policy for future // Brussels // Rail ultra
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fabschmidt.bsky.social
Pretty visualisation tool for mobility shares - choose your city/country:

vis.csh.ac.at/citiesmoving/

@olivier-rbxl.bsky.social
November 17, 2025 at 3:24 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Machinery already in deficit since 2015 apparently. The writing has been on the wall for quite a while.

cepr.org/voxeu/column...
Graph
November 12, 2025 at 2:54 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
This is how the separation of powers works in Brussels:

Just build two highways through the European Quarter right between Commission, Council and Parliament.
Rue de la Loi separating Council and Commission.
October 5, 2025 at 7:42 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
And if the issue does come up, if there’s one thing officials at the European Commission are really good at — maybe better than anyone else on earth — it’s bureaucratic delay and obfuscation. Maybe at some point big, strong European men with tears in their eyes will meet with Trump and say, “Sir, we have a temporary hangup over clause #14159 of the 1986 Single European Act. But we’ll get it cleared up any day now.”
July 30, 2025 at 3:06 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Well, Europe is following the US loser path and the new German government seems very keen on keeping it like that.

www.ft.com/content/f867...
China paces ahead in electrification, while Europe and the US flatline
July 10, 2025 at 2:46 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
You mean FT got sth wrong here?
The South Korean supplier to General Motors and Tesla on Monday estimated its operating profit for April to June to be Won492bn ($360mn), up 152 per cent from year earlier. Excluding the so-called advanced manufacturing production credit, second-quarter operating profit would be just Won1.4bn, LGES estimated
July 8, 2025 at 1:38 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
German economic elites aligned quickly with the Nazi regime as shown by party membership:

Between 1933 and 1938, 37% of CEOs and board members of large corporations became members of the NSDAP.

That is *three times* as much as the population average.
Photo of relevant page from Thamer: ‚Zweite Karrieren‘
July 4, 2025 at 10:10 AM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Great dataset showing international variety in EV expansion but also, and more importantly, its relative stagnation in most countries recently
Sweden and Switzerland: Share of EVs flattens out in both countries, hybrids still enjoy dynamic growth in Switzerland
June 28, 2025 at 11:34 AM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Great point here by Mark Schwartz on state capacity: it is not some abstract autonomous force from above but the networked state linked closely and ‘productively’ with the private sector.
I actually don’t like the phrase “state capacity,” even though I use it all the time, because it’s really the fusion of public and private power. That’s what we see creating the capacity to push through the funding and regulatory space, the changes in property rights that make it possible to have growth. All of that requires some degree of conscious, stable policymaking on the part of state actors, which means they need to be talking to people who are actually in the industry.
June 24, 2025 at 11:23 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
“One issue is that cars foul the air regardless of the fuel they use.”
“An electric car doesn’t produce any nitrogen oxide pollution, but that doesn’t mean that an electric car is not producing particles,” said Tobias Wolf, the city’s chief engineer of air quality. “Our true problems are PM 10 and PM 2.5,” he said, referring to fine particulate matter that can settle deep within the lungs and even pass into the bloodstream.
April 11, 2025 at 9:12 AM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Redirect EU FDI from the US to Canada and we’re good.

CA natural resource clusters
+
EU net zero industry clusters
=
🤌🤌🤌
April 5, 2025 at 1:00 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
The EU and Canada have more in common than you think
April 5, 2025 at 12:52 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Butterfly meme: German government seeing US top academics "Is this infrastructure?"
March 24, 2025 at 12:44 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
In the US, foreigners with visa and all are thrown into the Ice prison camp system and kept for weeks. Here one Canadian account, below one German.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
It was surreal listening to my friends recount everything they had done to get me out: working with lawyers, reaching out to the media, making endless calls to detention centers, desperately trying to get through to Ice or anyone who could help. They said the entire system felt rigged, designed to make it nearly impossible for anyone to get out. The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit. Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts. The more detainees, the more money they make. It stands to reason that these companies have no incentive to release people quickly. What I had experienced was finally starting to make sense.
March 19, 2025 at 5:16 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Same square - once in times of acute climate crisis, once during the 19th century
March 14, 2025 at 6:59 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
No European suppliers, no F-35
Illustration showing different parts of the F-35B variant coming from European suppliers
March 10, 2025 at 1:42 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
More like this
Söder
March 7, 2025 at 7:32 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Dazu auch richtungsweisend
Buch: Die Ökonomie des Alltagslebens. Für eine neue Infrastrukturpolitik
March 7, 2025 at 5:51 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Nicht so gut. (Quelle: www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2...)

Vor allem in Kombination hiermit: www.tagesschau.de/inland/regio...
Graph So ist die Zahl der Sozialwohnungen seit 2017 gesunken Über 200.000 Sozialwohnungen sind bundesweit verschwunden, nur im Osten gab es neue.
February 5, 2025 at 1:58 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Germany‘s manufacturing crisis as clear as it can get: Industrial production and capacity use approaching pandemic nadir levels

www.ft.com/content/be14...
FT graph showing industrial production and manufacturing capacity use over time.
January 18, 2025 at 12:49 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Looks like a shift in the German growth model could finally be underway
2014: top 5 DAX firms are Bayer, Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, BASF, Allianz 2024: top 5 DAX firms are SAP, Allianz, Airbus, Siemens, Deutsche Telekom (with Munich Re a close 6th)
December 25, 2024 at 10:57 AM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Ein Bild, das alles aussagt über diese Koalition
November 15, 2023 at 10:10 PM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
A conservative, i.e. stratified welfare state like the German one has the strategic purpose to break up the working class.

(Schwartz, 2018, States vs Markets, p. 96)
October 22, 2023 at 7:54 AM
fabschmidt.bsky.social
Brussels-based political economy folks, join our new reading group!
October 18, 2023 at 2:32 PM