The Data War Comes 黑料社区

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The Trump administration鈥檚 ongoing attempts at manipulating US government economic data echoes controversies that have existed in the realm of development data for decades. These controversies highlight the unavoidable, intrinsically political nature of measuring social phenomena with economic statistics, and the role of economists in legitimizing (or not) such measures.

In early August, the employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed weaker than expected job growth for July and announced downward revisions (fewer new jobs than previously reported) for the two months prior. Trump responded by . This move provoked a from other civil servants, economists, and experts on democracy, which only intensified when Trump initially nominated as the replacement E.J. Antoni, the chief economist for the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation. Antoni had been an jobs data altogether, and was widely perceived by critics as both and for the position. There is that the jobs report will become less reliable, even leading to the current staff at the BLS to still trust their numbers, for now. The BLS is also responsible for producing the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the central measure of inflation produced by the US government. Inflation鈥檚 centrality in recent politics, including promises from Trump to bring down prices on 鈥�,鈥� have led . There would of a degraded CPI measure,  which affects tax brackets, the value of some treasury bonds, and social security and other social insurance payments.

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Lula da Silva and Brazilian financialization: Learning from Dilma and the Limits of Confronting Finance

sergiomartinpaezLeave a comment

The year 2025 will be the third consecutive year in which the Brazilian economy experiences sustained growth. During the first two years of his administration, economic expansion was above 3% annually, while the outlook for 2025 is for a slowdown: 2.4%, according to IPEA, one of Brazil’s leading state economic analysis agencies.

Since June-July 2024, during the U.S. presidential election and with the possibility of Trump being re-elected, Brazil, like other emerging economies, faced devaluation pressures. This led to higher inflation due to rising exchange rates and supply shocks caused by climate issues. These issues have reduced the food supply (mainly coffee, eggs, and beans), causing prices to rise.

This macroeconomic instability scenario was reloaded by the Trump-driven trade war, particularly when the 50% tariff on purchases from Brazil was announced under a mix of arguments between commercial (trade deficit), political (preventing Bolsonaro from being judged for an attempted coup d’茅tat and US bigtech鈥檚 regulation), and geopolitical (the advance of the BRICS on a possible replacement of the dollar in commercial relationships).

What was the response in terms of economic policy? The institutionalization of the inflation target led to an increase in the SELIC interest rate from 10.75% in September 2024 to 15% in June 2025, the highest level since 2006. The orthodox argument suggests that raising interest rates reduces the money supply, curbing aggregate demand and reducing inflation. From another perspective, raising interest rates promotes carry trade, which attracts foreign capital through the capital account and allows the exchange rate to appreciate. In this way, the economy partially protects itself from speculative capital outflows and reduces the prices of imports and exports, thus decreasing the inflation.

In contrast, a sharp rise in interest rates deepens the pernicious effects of financialization: it impoverishes indebted families and concentrates income. Are there any other alternatives available? The economic toolbox offers other options. Many observers have noted a striking characteristic of Lula鈥檚 third administration: the absence of open confrontation with Brazil’s powerful financial sector. This is no coincidence. The painful lessons of Dilma Rousseff’s presidency (2011-2016) and her impeachment weigh heavily on current political calculations.

To understand this, we need to analyze the historical lesson of Rousseff’s removal, its macroeconomic causes, and how this experience has limited economic policy options.

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The Fiscal Black Holes of Mainstream Economics

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By Jacob Assa and Marc Morgan

鈥淭he purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.鈥�
鈥� Joan Robinson

Recent years have seen a proliferation of debates on the shrinking of fiscal space in both industrialized and developing countries. In the former, the discussion often takes the form of agonizing over fiscal 鈥樷��, whereas in the latter it is usually presented in the context of 鈥樷��.

In reality, the real black holes, or blind spots, are those found in neoclassical economic models underlying such debates, rather than in the real economy (Table 1). We describe three such neoclassical fiscal black holes, based on our recent paper 鈥樷��.

Table 1. Overview of fiscal black holes in the neoclassical paradigm.

Source: Authors鈥� elaboration. Shaded in black are the black holes of the neoclassical fiscal paradigm.

We show how fiscal space is not the absolute sum of taxes and borrowing, but rather relative in several ways. It depends on macroeconomic conditions, such as unemployment and inflation, countries鈥� degree of monetary sovereignty, and their level of productive capacity. Furthermore, fiscal space is relative to what governments do with it, expanding or contracting depending on the function of public spending.

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Jorge Lobo Miglioli (1935-2025): Marx, Kalecki and the desenvolvimentistas dream in Brazil

Carolina AlvesLeave a comment

I met Professor Jorge Miglioli in 2000, the year I started my undergraduate studies in Economics at UNESP, Araraquara 鈥� Brazil, fully convinced it was the right path if you wanted to change the world. I did briefly consider Sociology too, but my mum (like any another mum who dreams of their children doing better than they did) put her foot down: I didn鈥檛 work this hard to give you a good education just so you could become a schoolteacher! That settled it.

Just a little over a month into the course, I found myself in the middle of one of the longest national university strikes in Brazil. For context: Brazilian universities are publicly funded by both national and state governments, and higher education is tuition-free. That strike, so early in my academic journey, made me question whether I had chosen the right course. Most of my peers simply returned to their hometowns instead of staying and engaging with what was happening. It wouldn鈥檛 be fair to say they were against the strike; they just didn鈥檛 care. Many of them came from the Brazilian middle class or up, which reflects the schizophrenia of our tuition-free higher education system. They were on a clear path to join the elite, working in banks, big corporations, and so on, and the strike had simply disrupted that trajectory. They just wanted to get back to their normal lives. Things were even worse in my department, the Department of Economics, where only two, maybe three professors supported the strike. The majority made it clear they were against it and disappeared for the entire duration, which lasted nearly four months

On the bright side, that moment introduced me to fellow Economics students who stayed, supported the strike, and opened the door to an economics that actually mattered 鈥� they would also become dear friends. It was through them that I first encountered Karl Marx. I also met Renata Belzunces, the student leading the strike in my campus, admired by many, including Professor Jorge Miglioli, and who went to become one of the most inspiring role models I鈥檝e ever had.[1] And it was in this moment that I met Professor Jorge Miglioli too.

Miglioli, who eventually became 鈥淢iglis鈥� to me, a nickname he never fully liked but accepted nonetheless (I鈥檓 not sure I ever gave him much choice!), was different. There were no 鈥榖uts鈥� with Miglioli when it came to the strike. I remember him saying something like How else do you expect capitalists and the government to hear us? But it wasn鈥檛 just what he said, it was how he said it. There was no attempt to convince, no rhetorical flourish. It was more like: why are we even debating this? His tone carried a kind of quiet certainty, and beneath it, a deep frustration and disillusionment with the fact that this even needed to be explained.

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New World Order against Tariffs: SCO Development Bank as an anti-sanctions tool?

Farwa Sial1 Comment

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO鈥檚) 2025 summit in Tianjin produced a series of outcomes that, although modest in appearance, are strategically significant. The most prominent developments were the agreement in principle to establish an , seeded with approximately 楼2 billion in grants and a further 楼10鈥�14 billion in concessional loans from China. The summit also saw Beijing extend access to its , enhancing both civilian and defence applications from aviation and port logistics to military procurement. On the security side, leaders condemned the  in India, a diplomatic win for India that underscores China鈥檚 effort to align with India at a moment when the U.S. has imposed tariffs of up to 50% on Indian exports, citing India鈥檚 purchases of Russian oil. These headline measures were complemented by  on counter-terrorism through RATS (the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure) and a set of intensified SCO security-council meetings, together signalling a broadening of the organisation鈥檚 remit from finance into hard security enablers.

An additional dimension, often overlooked, is the SCO鈥檚 latent potential to serve as a platform for India鈥揚akistan rapprochement. Much as Beijing successfully mediated the Iran鈥揝audi d茅tente in 2023, the SCO framework offers a structured environment in which India and Pakistan are compelled to engage on shared issues such as counter-terrorism, energy connectivity, and infrastructure finance, under the auspices of a formal multilateralism rather than crude bilateral confrontation. The Tianjin summit鈥檚 emphasis on regional security cooperation, and its explicit condemnation of the Pahalgam attack, is already a small step in this direction, reflecting a willingness to acknowledge Indian concerns in a joint forum. With signs that India-China relations have modestly stabilised following high-level military disengagement talks along the LAC, there is space for Beijing to use the SCO to nudge India and Pakistan toward functional cooperation. This is not purely hypothetical: emergent trilateral conversations between India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh around trade corridors and energy-grid integration suggest that South Asia鈥檚 major economies are beginning to see value in pragmatic coordination despite unresolved disputes. In this sense, the SCO could provide an institutional ecosystem for gradual confidence-building between New Delhi and Islamabad, where shared participation in multilateral projects lowers the political cost of engagement, much as regional institutions elsewhere have historically diluted bilateral rivalries.

In line with a broader shift in global governance,  by Xinhua portrays the SCO as emblematic of Eurasian agency and multipolar resonance; 鈥�a living expression of multipolarity,鈥� bringing together diverse actors under a shared framework of non鈥慽nterference, counter鈥憈errorism, and connectivity. The enrolment of rivals within a single institutional ecosystem, makes the SCO, less of a confrontational bloc and closer to a practical architecture for regional autonomy and development.

Literature on the international financial architecture, has often highlighted the tension between established Western institutions and the alternative arrangements that have grown around them with much of the scholarship focusing on institutional challenges such as the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) or the New Development Bank (NDB). Yet the more subtle processes of institutional layering, where new mechanisms grow alongside existing ones, gradually altering the balance of power have received far less attention.

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Systems Thinking, Polycrisis, and the Blind Spot of Power

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Why do so many people who claim to 鈥渟ee the whole system鈥� remain blind to power?

This question struck me while listening to a recent episode of Planet Critical. The guest was Joseph Tainter, best known for The Collapse of Complex Societies. Tainter is celebrated as a pioneer of collapse studies and systems thinking. Yet when the conversation turned to the genocide in Gaza, his framing reduced it to Israel鈥檚 鈥渉istorical fear of Arabs.鈥� The structural realities of colonialism, imperialism, and resource politics 鈥� central to understanding both Gaza and the Middle East more broadly 鈥� disappeared. Here was a thinker revered for complexity, offering an analysis that was Eurocentric, ahistorical, and politically na茂ve.

This is not about Tainter alone. Similar patterns appear in the work of figures like Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger, both of whom have influenced me personally. Their mission is helping people make sense of the complex issues: Nate by weaving ecology, energy, financial systems and human behavior into accessible frameworks; Daniel by building sweeping syntheses across cognitive science, culture, and existential risk.

The often criticise most disciplines for their blindness. But their critique of blindness has its own blindness. Across their work, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and class power rarely appear as sustained focal points. Yes, Daniel sometimes critiques modernity and gestures toward indigenous knowledge, and Nate occasionally hosts guests who reference colonial history. But overall, the crisis is cast as a species-level problem 鈥� as though 鈥渉umanity鈥� collectively overshoots limits 鈥� rather than as the outcome of specific, historically rooted systems of exploitation with identifiable beneficiaries and victims.

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How Philanthrocapitalism Will Not Save the World Health Organisation

viveknenminiLeave a comment

In the past two decades, global health governance has undergone a quiet revolution, shaped less by sovereign states and more by the growing influence of private capital. The World Health Organisation (WHO), once envisioned as the democratic engine of international public health, has increasingly come to rely on large-scale philanthropic foundations. This shift toward what is now commonly termed 鈥攚here billionaire-funded entities use business strategies and methods to tackle social and environmental challenges鈥攈as profound implications. It is not just a matter of money, but of power, accountability and legitimacy. Amid what many now describe as a , the WHO鈥檚 growing dependence on a handful of wealthy private actors has exposed deep cracks in the system of multilateralism upon which it was founded. Thus, philanthrocapitalism is undermining democratic global health governance by concentrating power in the hands of the wealthy and eroding public accountability.

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The Doughnut and the Divide: Can Norway Confront Its Imperial Mode of Living?

mohsenLeave a comment

In June, 1,200 scholars and activists from around the world gathered in Norway for a historic convergence of two movements: degrowth and ecological economics. During the closing plenary session, I listened to three speakers, two of whom鈥擪ate Raworth and Max Ajl鈥攔epresented radically different approaches to our current crises. Though Raworth and Ajl engaged in respectful dialogue, the tension in the room became almost palpable when Raworth’s polished slides on doughnut economics gave way to Ajl’s anti-imperialist critique: Can an apolitical reform tool truly coexist with the Global South’s demand for systemic revolution?

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