Blair Fix

What if 'business' and 'industry aren’t synonyms? This essay introduces the business-to-industry index (the ratio of income share to energy-use share) to map the financial core of global capitalism, and to trace the rise and fall of capitalist empire. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/09/19/t...

Protestors Criticized For Looting Businesses Without Forming Private Equity Firm First https://theonion.com/protestors-criticized-for-looting-businesses-without-fo-1843735351/

This is a very nice piece on what makes for clarity or confusion in writing about science. It seems to me that almost all of its advice applies equally to writing about economics. www.americanscientist.org/blog/the-lon...

Naturally, the Trump regime wants to cut its funding.

Here's the capitalist world system in 2023, as captured by the business-to-industry index (share of world income relative to share of world energy use). economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/09/19/t...

Luv this little bit from NIPA 5.10 Fixed-assets Table. There are holding gains attributable to general inflation, labeled "Neutral," and then there's… "Real" nominal holding gains. Oxymoron alert. fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tabl...

Stop letting your future security be used for genocide, war crimes, and apartheid. #CPPIB #cdnpoli actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

Fucking #compradores 'Such a deal would upend the traditional structure of petroleum extraction, in which royalties flow to the owner of the resource.' www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic... #OgdensburgTreaty #18August1940 #12February1947 #ableg #abpoli #cdnpoli

In case you missed it, here are my thoughts on what distinguishes useful automation from useless machine slop. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/10/03/t...

Killed. NSF’s SBE was killed, in violation of law. The President does not have the power to choose to kill programs at a whim by defunding them. The imperial presidency was a mistake and we are in a separation of powers constitutional crisis.

"automation can be useful ... But if automated chatbots gobble fossil fuels in order to liberate us from thinking, well, civilization had a nice run." -- .@blairfix.bsky.social

As we enter the late stage of the AI hype bubble, it seems like a good time to reflect on the requirements that make automation actually useful. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/10/03/t...

“You see, efficiency improvements are not a new invention; they’ve been happening continuously for at least three centuries. & over that time, resource use didn’t shrink. It ballooned.” #degrowth A Tour of the Jevons Paradox - @blairfix.bsky.social economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/05/18/a...

Here is the steady realignment of US politics along business-industry divisions. Vertical axis: partisan composition of state legislatures Horizontal axis: state business-to-industry index (world income share relative to world energy use share) economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/09/19/t...

US politics are now divided along a structural schism in US capitalism. Turns out the Harris-Trump margin was a tight function of each state's business-to-industry index (share of world income relative to share of world energy use). economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/09/19/t...

At first glance, this map looks like it plots US partisan politics. But it's actually a map of each state's business-to-industry index: its share of world income relative to its share of world energy use. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/09/19/t...

Here's the geography of global capitalism in 1990, as captured by the business-to-industry index (share of world income relative to share of world energy use). Note the industry dominance in Asia, where communist policies were popular. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/09/19/t...

I respect Sabine, but her takes on economics are consistently bad. This one's the worst yet. youtu.be/8GYDQU5ftBs?...

Here's the rise of China, as captured by its world income-share and energy-share (left). The ratio of these two views gives the business-to-industry index (right). Notice the period of disruption during Mao's tenure. That's no accident. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/09/19/t...

Pertinent, I think: Much-vaunted "innovation" can serve two different turns. 1. It can invent new things, and increase output per hour, or 2. it can create methods to capture and extract the monetary benefits from inventions and production. Disruption is # 1. Monetization is #2.

Here's the rise and fall of Britain, as captured by its world income-share and energy-share (left). Combining these two views gives the business-to-industry index (right). Notice the two stages: 'disruption' followed by 'monetization'. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/09/19/t...

If you look at the *distribution* of the NIPAs’ (balance-sheet-incomplete) Income - Outlays = Saving, the results are completely implausible. Bottom-80% have been spending down their assets for decades? Annual "Total" saving here = NIPA’s Household income + accrued holding gains - outlays.

When we talk about the costs that LLMs impose on society we should not forget the fact that nothing works anymore because everyone is so scared of getting their shit scraped. I can't even use google scholar from my university or starlink because they send too much traffic.

Given this week's AI doomer hype, I'm going to repost this old essay from 2023 because, well, nothing has changed. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/06/10/n...

Lol, Trump is reducing global greenhouse gas emissions despite himself.

The @canadianlabour.bsky.social's new report 'Public Runways, Private Profits' shows why Carney's plan for privatized ownership of Canada's airports will mean cuts to jobs & higher prices. @dtcochrane.bsky.social explains on the Perspectives Journal Podcast: perspectivesjournal.ca/terminal-profits

"Free market thinking is successful, I argue, because it uses the language of freedom to cloak the accumulation of power." Read more: evonomics.com/why-free-mar... @blairfix.bsky.social

Predictable consequences of the Iran war, coming home to roost. 247ureports.com/2026/09/us-d...

I was intrigued to see that @jwmason.bsky.social's book 'Against Money' has a section about 'capital as power', but then somewhat mystified that it contains no discussion of an entire book called ... 'capital as power'. I dislike policing citations, but this is a frustrating omission.

Saudi Arabia shuts down East-West crude oil pipeline - its bypass for the Strait of Hormuz - after multiple attacks www.cnbc.com/2026/09/11/s...

"...if we continue to develop better fossil-fuel tech, the efficiency will inevitably backfire, catalyzing more fossil fuel consumption... Pull the funding for anything related to fossil-fuel efficiency & pump the money into renewable energy"- @blairfix.bsky.social

"As heat engines grew more efficient, humanity consumed more fossil fuels." @blairfix.bsky.social wrote about efficiency as a catalyst for technological sprawl: economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/05/18/a...

This is the most Republican story you will read all day. A Republican who represents Trump’s home district was arrested for molesting his OWN GRANDSON and could face the death penalty under a state law he sponsored. There has to be a German word for this.

We put a tracking device in a shipment of rare books acquired by an anonymous buyer. It ended up at an Amazon facility where the company scans books for training data and destroys them in the process: www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...

EXCLUSIVE: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. @evystadium.bsky.social has more. Investigation by @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social here: www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...

Everybody in the "climate space" (which means everyone on earth...) needs to understand these mind-blowing figures. Google's "total electricity consumption jumped from 31 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024 to 43 TWh in 2025." In ONE year. The AI corporate arms race is eating the world.

A letter from President Harry S Truman in 1947 called what the zionists were doing criminal, embarrassing, and predicted that it would backfire. This is the history they keep hidden from American textbooks.

Rigorous number crunching from Erald Kolasi and Jesse Damiani concludes that AI now consumes 1.1% of the world's energy. A must read: eraldkolasi.substack.com/p/the-global...

THREAD. Contrary to what you are being told, 40 years of polling have established that shifting money away from police/prisons toward social services is one of the most popular public policies among *all* political demographics. But it's not just that, it goes way deeper.

Dr. Anthony Fauci urges Americans not to accept "Normalization of Untruths".

Neoliberal or classic economics also misses this, to be fair. Power is not measured in any meaningful way except by proxy, but it's a HUGE factor in actual day to day economic interaction (@blairfix.bsky.social does great work on exploring this).

The recent hysteria over bike and ebike regulation is infuriating, dumb, and counter-productive.

So CBS and others invested in a pro trump audience that won’t arrive, alienating their actual audience, and trump propagandists are losing audience bc people are souring on Trump. Also helps explain the increased racist shrieking as they try to farm engagement www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/u...

Congrats on getting Hamas to say “okay fine, we’ll disarm after Israel totally withdraws” and Israel to say “okay fine, we’ll withdraw after Hamas totally disarms.” No one’s accomplished that before, better make it the top headline.

Insane satellite imagery. This is the change from May to July. Europe has cooked. (🎥 Colin McCarthy)

A massive giveaway from Carney to Big Tech. Elbows up to punch yourself in the face, I guess. www.thewirereport.ca/2026/07/28/b...