Thomas Herndon
banner
thomasherndon.bsky.social
Thomas Herndon
@thomasherndon.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Economics, John Jay College, CUNY. Bass player for Light Sweet Crude and Minaxi. All thoughts my own.
Pinned
Come hang this sunday if you're in the East Ridgewood/Bushwick area! Got a lot of cool bands on the bill 👊👊👊 @weisenthal.bsky.social @pewilliams.bsky.social @mattlindauer.bsky.social
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
all i can say is that we are going to win
November 22, 2025 at 3:49 AM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
once again joining the many people who have observed how much of a world-historical problem it is that Trump is so fucking funny
Q: Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist?

MAMDANI: I've spoken about--

TRUMP: That's okay. You can just say yes. I don't mind.
November 21, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
November 22, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
you’ll never believe the newest meme pair for “Find someone who looks at you like…”
November 21, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
One of the most pathetic examples of corporate capture I've ever seen.
CFPB is requiring bank examiners to read a "humility in supervisions" pledge before any examination begins, basically apologizing for having the temerity to monitor compliance.
Here's the pledge.
files.consumerfinance.gov
November 22, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
You probably saw videos of a nighttime raid in Chicago. Agents rappelling from a helicopter, bursting down doors, questioning brown-skinned immigrants.

We investigated -- and found little evidence to support the government’s claims about Tren de Aragua.

www.propublica.org/article/chic...
“I Lost Everything”: Venezuelans Were Rounded Up in a Dramatic Midnight Raid but Never Charged With a Crime
Authorities said Tren de Aragua “terrorists” had taken over the building. A ProPublica investigation found little evidence to back up the government’s claims. For the first time, the Venezuelans arres...
www.propublica.org
November 13, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
"the woke conspiracy is why i'm not a winner"
... their high human capital wing (their political staff, legal workers, industry elites), such as it is, seems to crucially rely on recruiting from bitter losers who have adopted hateful yet pathetic self serving delusions to cover for their failure to achieve success in an expanded meritocracy...
November 13, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
Something absolutely perfect about Larry Summers riffing about the scourge of woke cancel culture being unfair to predatory men in a friendly email to his pal JEFFREY EPSTEIN.
November 13, 2025 at 12:25 AM
Come hang this sunday if you're in the East Ridgewood/Bushwick area! Got a lot of cool bands on the bill 👊👊👊 @weisenthal.bsky.social @pewilliams.bsky.social @mattlindauer.bsky.social
November 10, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
I think this touches a deep, often-overlooked point. In my labour law days, I saw some employers spend MORE money fighting unionization than they would have paid accepting it. Loss of control was driving them at least as much as profits! Control is vital – with environmental policy as well.
I should write the argument up properly somewhere, but I think this is fundamentally wrong. A decisive fraction of the capitalist class does oppose addressing the climate crisis, but *not* because it would be bad for profits. If anything, a green New Deal type program would raise aggregate profits.
Yes, this is correct. And the reason is because our capitalist classes have decided that it is not sufficiently profitable, so they're not going to do it.

We must understand this reality. Capital *cannot* be relied upon to address the climate crisis.
November 10, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
On the collapse of COP30 and general climate inaction. I think this is correct and important: there are plenty of profits available in a full-scale green transition. But it won't happen without public orchestration and *that* is what threatens holders of capital.
The problem from their point of view is that rapid decarbonization requires public, collective decisions about the organization of production, in a way that threaten capital-owners' authority over both the production process and the political system.
November 10, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
@jwmason.bsky.social as Green New Kalecki.

(i think he’s right. @schwarz.bsky.social’s “iron law of institutions” applies to particular capitalists and the economy at large. they’d accept economic collapse and catastrophe if that’s what preserves their own capacity to control.)
The problem from their point of view is that rapid decarbonization requires public, collective decisions about the organization of production, in a way that threaten capital-owners' authority over both the production process and the political system.
November 10, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
Fascist on Fascist violence
Here we go. Tyler no longer Groyper adjacent. Leaked Police interview with his family, Tyler Robinson hated Charlie Kirk because Kirk wasn't conservative enough+ Robinson admired/followed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. The entire GOP talking head-a-verse will be exploding and unwriting every narrative now.
September 12, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
Bonus points for being one of the best Warhammer posts ever
September 11, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
Fanone gets it: Opposition to political assassinations includes people whose views have no redeeming qualities, like Charlie Kirk.

Sugarcoating his views not only is dishonest in itself, it conveys that maybe you wouldn't oppose assassination of people whose views you don't sugarcoat.
Thank you Michael Fanone. For those who do not recognize the name, Michael is one of the officers who defended America on January 6th and was left permanently injured as a result. He is a true hero of our Democracy.
September 11, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
1) going to keep saying: a society that wants to keep functioning must discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

2) calling a lie a lie seems like it could help

www.newsweek.com/robert-f-ken...
RFK Jr caught in lie about Jeffrey Epstein flight
"I was on Jeffrey Epstein's jet two times," Robert F. Kennedy told Fox News on Tuesday, weeks after conflicting information was shared with Newsweek.
www.newsweek.com
September 7, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
i find this image so fascinating. it is both a literal example of authoritarianism but also a second-hand reproduction of the aesthetics of other authoritarian states. it's like a simulacra of authoritarianism whose purpose is to attempt to make the simulacra real.
This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself.

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
August 28, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
New ICE deportation data just dropped: on average ICE deported 1100 people every day last month, a huge escalation

Although less than half the pace needed for Trump's goal of one million annual deportations, Congress gave them their funding, and we should expect this rate to rise
July 8, 2025 at 3:03 AM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
A global minimum tax on the ultrarich could change planetary politics. Right now South Africa, Chile, France, and Spain are pushing for it
France could raise around €20 billion per year from this tax

That’s half of the €40B the government is looking for this year

Globally? $302–377 billion could be raised—every year

From the ultra-rich. Who currently pay very little.

gabriel-zucman.eu/files/report...
July 8, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Absolutely. One often missed aspect of bi/multi racial identity is we usually don’t fit into the categories that make us up. I’m 1/2 chinese, 1/2 white, checked both boxes on my apps, but have never been considered chinese or white by those communities, and don’t consider myself that either.
just saying: if you didn't grow up crafting a default answer to "what are you/where are you from?" with some version of "what do you mean?" you may want to consult people who did about what's going on here
July 7, 2025 at 7:17 AM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
Yeah I help kids fill out their demographic information for, like, PSAT tests and when Latino is not a race because that’s separate question and kids are like what do I put I just gotta say I don’t know man, vibe it out I guess.
maybe more obvious to me as a child of immigrants socialized around other such people but categories here are not even used consistently by people who were socialized here - possibly because they don't actually make sense. it's quite possible that people from elsewhere just actually don't understand
July 4, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
Reporters are responsible for doing their own fact checking. This is true for most non magazine newsrooms. They killed the copy desk in 2017. The only part that gets external fact checking is NYT magazine. Also, interestingly books.
The point here isn't to beat up on Jordan Lasker. It's to ask how the NYT called a white supremacist hack an "academic" when his only academic work of note was so awful that its ethical and scientific awfulness was a national scandal. No one even Googled. No one fact-checked this story AT ALL. 5/
July 4, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
Something beautiful about Miami-Dade is “what are you/where are you from” is the usual first order of business.

Alongside vast Latino diversity are Black, African, and/or West Indian heritages, too, ranging from Black Americans “from here” to Bahamians, Haitians, Dominicans, Jamaicans and Cubans.
just saying: if you didn't grow up crafting a default answer to "what are you/where are you from?" with some version of "what do you mean?" you may want to consult people who did about what's going on here
July 4, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Reposted by Thomas Herndon
"how is it that someone could fail to realize that 'African-American' here does not necessarily refer to an American person from Africa, and that 'African' also does not necessarily refer to a person from Africa?"

no idea man, the world's a strange place
July 4, 2025 at 11:44 AM