The Infrastructural Geography of the US/Israel War on Iran…
…From data centres to logistical bottlenecks, supply chains to real estate markets, shipping to petroleum networks
globalcorridor.substack.com/p/global-cor...
As data and compute power become spatially fixed as expensive and integral infrastructure, it won't be surprising when the dynamics of violently securing its logistics emerge in ways geographers have documented in sectors like fossil fuel extraction and shipping.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
I have a new open access article in Geoforum, looking at how abrasive online “finfluencers” promise riches through buying cheap properties to rent to Housing Choice Voucher (“Section 8”) holders, using outdated spatial arbitrage strategies and AI automation: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Very low on the list of concerns, but why are data centers so ugly? You are spending untold billions on these things, spend a bit more and at least make them vainglorious monuments to our tech oligarchy rather than drab rectangles. We used to be a society - do our elites have no pride!?!
I once completely faked out an active NBA player on the fast break during a charity basketball tournament.
Call for applications -- Antipode Foundation "Right to the Discipline" grants -- due date 10 April 2026 -- funding available for imaginative, daring, and unruly scholarship and praxis, including scholar-activism, workshops, and much more antipodeonline.org/a-right-to-t...
Text excerpt from NYT article linked in second skeet saying: “Most of the profits are flowing to the very affluent Americans, who are not subject to this cost-of-living crisis anyway because they’re so rich. They’re getting richer, and everyone else is dealing with inflation,” said Gregor Semieniuk, associate professor of University of Massachusetts Amherst who led the study. The United Kingdom responded to fossil fuel companies’ bumper year by adding a windfall tax designed to capture some of the excess profits and use the money to ease the burden on households facing higher bills. Semieniuk’s team calculated what would have happened if the U.S. government redistributed the portion of the fossil fuel industry’s 2022 profits that exceeded its 2021 returns. They found that the move would send $1,715 to every American household, which, they argued, could have helped ease the burden of inflation on lower-income households.
![Text excerpt from the FT article in the second skeet saying:
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/.
https://www.ft.com/content/43fe2f44-d3ea-45c9-a641-e6f0e68949af?accessToken=zwAAAZy4l4RPkc9D_i9E0-pFydOmQebw5olJrw.MEUCIH4nsXTramXEOh6tWM6n9rrMqI0FnMfHQsz7tU0HufXAAiEAx8x5MmOYujURIqdhdxGDYHysYSEB2eVuSpM9n1iDuhA&segmentId=e95a9ae7-622c-6235-5f87-51e412b47e97&shareType=enterprise&shareId=a96149bb-d68a-4bc5-b023-2174a60fd9c5
Research on the oil and gas crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 showed that the gains of the boon on energy producers were not equally shared.
The wealthiest 1 per cent of the US population eventually received more than 50 per cent of energy companies’ windfall from that particular surge in prices, according to a paper published in September 2025.
“If anything [the US has] become a more powerful exporter and producer of fossil fuels since 2022. And of course, their oil majors are active globally. So I think [US shareholders] are poised to take advantage even more [now],” said Gregor Semieniuk, a professor at the University of Massachusetts who was one of the authors of the research. “Wealth distributions don’t change overnight.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zzkt72yllokx7rstuph6rlrw/bafkreigrlauo2i24owltmckxgpdt4gyzzwwu6hvotpslz57hqdbodogxba@jpeg)
Text excerpt from the FT article in the second skeet saying: Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/. https://www.ft.com/content/43fe2f44-d3ea-45c9-a641-e6f0e68949af?accessToken=zwAAAZy4l4RPkc9D_i9E0-pFydOmQebw5olJrw.MEUCIH4nsXTramXEOh6tWM6n9rrMqI0FnMfHQsz7tU0HufXAAiEAx8x5MmOYujURIqdhdxGDYHysYSEB2eVuSpM9n1iDuhA&segmentId=e95a9ae7-622c-6235-5f87-51e412b47e97&shareType=enterprise&shareId=a96149bb-d68a-4bc5-b023-2174a60fd9c5 Research on the oil and gas crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 showed that the gains of the boon on energy producers were not equally shared. The wealthiest 1 per cent of the US population eventually received more than 50 per cent of energy companies’ windfall from that particular surge in prices, according to a paper published in September 2025. “If anything [the US has] become a more powerful exporter and producer of fossil fuels since 2022. And of course, their oil majors are active globally. So I think [US shareholders] are poised to take advantage even more [now],” said Gregor Semieniuk, a professor at the University of Massachusetts who was one of the authors of the research. “Wealth distributions don’t change overnight.”
Who stands to profit as energy prices are rising due to the escalating war in the Middle East? NYT and FT quoting our research on the 2022 energy crisis! Spoiler: in the West it's mainly affluent shareholders.
High time to dust off the discussions on excess profit taxes & strategic price controls.
Hi friends - I'm working on article about efforts to measure, track, and adjust WORKLOAD in higher ed, both for staff and faculty.
I'm interested in talking to people who have experiences w/:
-Workload management gone wrong
-Exemplars of workload measurement
-True tales of workload being adjusted
Can a PM cross the floor to join another party? Because Carney might as well just merge the Conservatives and the Liberals at this point.
These are “low enrollment” majors but the classes are regularly at capacity. They changed the funding structure a few years ago here, switching the allocation from course enrollments to majors then blamed these departments for a structural, top-down change. This is entirely a political choice.
A hell of a graphic from the Economic Policy Institute
How many times per month is this going to happen?
Great event on March 3: How powerful corporations — including Amazon, Instacart, and major landlords — are using pricing algorithms to inflate prices and undermine competition. With Doha Mekki, Katie Wells, Ted Tatos, and moderator Geoffrey Fowler. Register here: ilsr.org/article/inde...
the democratisation of private markets is going just great www.ft.com/content/cdca...
A jar of change on a desk with a computer keyboard and financial documents. Text on a teal background reads: Ontario students need more grants, not more loans, to make university more affordable. Ontario universities need stable, long-term government funding. These are the keys to a thriving postsecondary sector.
At a minimum, cuts to OSAP grants will have paid for 43% of announced university funding increases—and possibly more. These changes exacerbate the affordability crisis and risk putting a university education out of reach for many students. tinyurl.com/yjccsa9r
Guys I found the best Epstein Files email. The one that illuminates an elite class that's cocooned themselves into an unaccountable shell of wealth and privilege, fighting to protect their secrets and offenses.
I could write a novel about this email.
prospect.org/2026/02/17/e...
The pace at which US wealth concentration is rising is simply staggering
The concentration of AI wealth into the hands of a few tech barons + plutocratic capture ==> unchartered territory
“That people move from representing the presidency to representing banks is so normal that we forget the costs: the private job done with the savvy to outfox one’s former public-sector colleagues, the public job done gently to keep open doors” @anandwrites.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/o...
Between the announced provincial cuts to student aid and the apparent reduction in federal aid back to pre-covid levels (which the feds claim they are still undecided on but come on), low-income Ontarians are looking at an aid cut (or net tuition increase if you prefer) of about $2500 next year.
Thread worth checking out on how the Government of Ontario has paired their long-needed increase in funding for higher ed with a corresponding decrease in student aid grants.
We forestall the burgeoning crisis and decline in higher ed quality on the backs of equitable, accessible education.
I'm particularly impressed that when Ford reduced/froze tuition fees, he decided that the policy corollary was "let's cut student aid"
Now that tuition fees are going up again, the policy corollary is "let's cut student aid!"
Nothing if not consistent.
Wonderful interview with Harvey. Starts off with a great reflection on the importance of geography on Marxist political economy and (close to my heart) touches on the importance of studying finance to understand capitalism and the role of the Fed / central banks in addressing its contradictions.
With this and the Oren Cass financialization piece in the NYT, I'm beginning to think the chattering capitalist class is trying to undercut political economists by stealing all our takes to troll us: "What if we admit they are right and just change absolutely nothing?"
You know things are bad when the WSJ puts it this plainly:
"The rewards are going toward capital instead of labor. Profits have soared since the pandemic, and the market value attached to those profits even more. The result: Capital is triumphant, while the average worker ekes out marginal gains."
The more I think about this problem, the more it seems like one of those fundamental Marxist contradictions — and it’s going to generalise. Coding is just the canary in the coalmine.
Absolute anti-financialization screed by Oren Cass in NYTs (paywall). I wish populists would start to take these arguments (which many of us in the academy have been making for years if not decades) more seriously. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/o...
Market be like
Notable ideas like postal banking and taking on Canada's price grocery oligopoly from the Lewis campaign.
Given the effects of concentrated market power (seller's inflation, low wages, personalized pricing), they are important challenges to market-based discourse.
lewisforleader.ca/ideas/public...
AI allows the results of human sociability and collective pursuit of knowledge to be appropriated as private property. That’s the killer app.
William Nordhaus received the Nobel Memorial Prize for these flawed economic models, and Bjorn Lomborg built a highly lucrative career on them.
They told rich and powerful people what they wanted to hear.
While helping to consign us all to catastrophe.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
