Timothy Weaver

Timothy Weaver

@timweaver.bsky.social

Political economy, urban politics, APD, neoliberalism @ualbany. Editor @UrbanAffairsRev. Also, rugby, whiskey, whisky. Author of Blazing the Neoliberal Trail & Inequality, Crime, and Resistance in New York City tprweaver.com

1.6K followers1.2K following284 posts

Once you throw in the massive cost of the forever wars, the debt to gpd ratio would be even lower and completely manageable. All the talk about the cost of welfare state as being a driver of unsustainable debt is nonsense.

Bobby Kogan@bbkogan.bsky.social

You can’t talk about debt without talking about how we got into a bad predicament, and there’s only one correct answer: tax cuts enacted this century

Congrats to the geniuses who managed to concoct the perfect policy mix to transform a recovering economy into a stagflationary one, timed perfectly for the midterms. 👏👏👏

Ben Casselman@bencasselman.bsky.social

Employers cut jobs in July, and job growth was revised down for May and June. Net result is that the pop in hiring that we saw earlier this year now seems to have largely evaporated. We've now averaged just +20,000 jobs/month over the past three months. #NumbersDay

If you exclude the mountains, Switzerland is basically flat.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Kevin Hassett on Fox News argues that if you exclude the sectors that lost hundreds of thousands of jobs, "you actually had a number that was about plus 100,000" 🙃

Crucial to remember that major change is possible and that, because of political struggle, things are much better now than they were before the New Deal.

Erik Loomis@erikloomis.bsky.social

This Day in Labor History: June 25, 1938. FDR signed the Fair Labor Standards Act. This groundbreaking piece of legislation set the standards of labor that defined post-war America, including minimum wages, overtime pay, and the banning of most child labor. Like everything, it was also incremental.

It seems quite clear that Starmer was not a very good PM. However, it seems likely that Burnham will soon fall out of favor since he is unlikely to resolve the deep structural problems that people are very reasonably unhappy about. And round and round we go.

Timothy Weaver reposted

Tesla paid $0 in federal income taxes in 2025, despite making $5.7 billion. This Tax Day, remember that you have paid more in taxes than a multi-billion dollar company—all thanks to corporate tax breaks from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

Great video. All mayors want to show that the city is able to “do something.” Often this means performative policing, which means a lot of stop-and-frisk but no change in crime. Mamadani is taking a different path, placing emphasis on the public goods the city can should deliver.

I was elected as a democratic socialist, and will continue to govern as a democratic socialist. 100 days in — and we’re just getting started.

Delighted to be part of this symposium on Cedric’s wonderful book.

Urban Affairs Review@urbanaffairsreview.bsky.social

NEW on the UAR Forum! A book review symposium on Cedric Johnson's "After Black Lives Matter," feat. commentaries by Touissant Losier, @bmcquade.bsky.social, Joseph Ramsey, @timweaver.bsky.social, and a response by Cedric Johnson. www.urbanaffairsreview.com/after-black-...

Regrettably that “miraculous protection” did not extend to the 13 dead, over 300 wounded, and estimated $2.1-$3.6 billion in damage to equipment. If god deserves all the glory, does he also deserve all the blame? Or does that lie with his faithful adherents on earth, I wonder?

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Hegseth: "God deserves all the glory. Tens of thousands of sorties, refuelings, and strikes, carried out under the protection of divine providence. A massive effort with miraculous protection."

Winners of the war so far: - Putin - The arms industry* I think that’s about it. *The arms industry generally wins.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Gen. Grynkewich: "The price of oil and has has gone up. We know that Putin depends on that. I think how much he benefits from it depends on how long those prices remain elevated. I know the president is watching this very closely."

Timothy Weaver reposted

A depressing but interesting conversation with @gregsargent.bsky.social @newrepublic.com on the miscalculation (noncalculcation?) the Trump administration made over the Strait of Hormuz. There’s gonna be a Trump premium on oil for a while.

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social

Trump officials privately pessimistic there's a strategy to end war, but they fear telling this to Trump, NYT reports. On the pod, @profsaunders.bsky.social brilliantly explains how this shows perils of "personalist" rule and the total absence of constraints on him: newrepublic.com/article/2076...

Epic stupidity

404 Media@404media.co

A DOGE staffer assigned to the National Endowment for the Humanities to flag grants for "DEI" tries to explain what "DEI" is. This deposition is part of a lawsuit by the @acls1919.bsky.social, @historians.org and @modernlanguage.bsky.social.

It’s a pity that neither the public nor its representatives in Congress got to weigh in on the decision to spend billions more dollars on weapons.

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social

Oh. “We have agreed” — how nice of them! Surely they’re doing this work pro bono right?

🤣🤡🤣🤡🤣🤡🤣🤡 As anyone who actually read Orwell would know, he would never have written such a thing. Fortunately for Noem, she’ll now have plenty of time for reading.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Kristi Noem: "It reminded me of the quote that is often attribute to George Orwell that states, 'People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.'"

One is a murderous pariah state, the other is Iran.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Hegseth: "Death & destruction from the sky all day. We're playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by POTUS & yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise designed to unleash American power, not shackle it ... we are punching them while they are down"

Timothy Weaver reposted

Prof. Robert Pape: "I have studied every air campaign since WWI... I've modelled the bombing of Fordow and regime change in Iran for 20 years... We are now in the grip of the escalation trap... This has never worked in over 100 years... Trump is up against the weight of history".

Timothy Weaver reposted

Demanding Idi Amin-level sychophany will destroy our military and bureaucratic capacity for generations to come.

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social

Trump has dismissed Vice Admiral Fred Kacher, deputy director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for issuing warnings to him about what might go wrong in a new war against Iran, Reuters report. www.reuters.com/world/us/pen...

The irony

Financial Times@financialtimes.com

UK citizenship applications hit a record high at the end of 2025, with a particularly sharp rise in applications from US nationals, amid an increasingly febrile political climate in America under the Trump administration. ft.trib.al/AbYzmlu

Olympian levels of stupidity.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Burgum: "CO2 was never a pollutant. When we breathe, we emit CO2. Plants need CO2 to survive and grow. They thrive with more CO2. So the whole endangerment thing opens up an opportunity for the revival of clean, beautiful, American coal."

Accusation as admission, as usual.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Mike Johnson: "Their policies are so unpopular -- they are refuted and repudiated at the ballot box over and over -- so they feel they gotta cheat. Frankly, that's it."

How can this be allowed? The original price is exorbitant; a resale price of $3667 is shameful. FIFA is such a disgrace. The World Cup ticketing process is turning the event into a carnival of greed.

Timothy Weaver reposted

Alistair Darling and the official Treasury were always aware that investment banks had an inside track to Number 10. But the brazen nature of that inside track is rather breath-taking.

Dan Neidle@danneidle.bsky.social

Who leaked this Number 10 discussion to Jeffrey Epstein? And are there consequences for the leaker? It’s an internal discussion re. getting markets moving in the aftermath of the financial crisis. No doubt of great interest to Epstein and his financial market clients.

On the upside, the cars were a lot more colorful. Maybe we could simply aim for fewer, more colorful cars.

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social

Remember this picture, & others like it, every time you hear someone in your city say "we're not Amsterdam." This was #Amsterdam in the 1970s. Many of the cities we admire made better choices regarding cars in the past. and are still making better choices today. Better choices instead of excuses.

Doesn’t exactly look like a deadly rioter who could not possibly have been subdued without being shot and killed.

Mark Gongloff@markgongloff.bsky.social

We’re supposed to believe this is a domestic terrorist attacking ICE with a gun