Aaron Freedman

5.4K posts

Aaron Freedman

@freedaaron

PhD candidate @CUHistoryDept @sw_columbia dissertating on the political economy of Wall Street in the 1980s. Words @washingtonpost @theprospect @jewishcurrents

Brooklyn, NY Beigetreten Mayıs 2013

8.3K Folgt11.1K Follower

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·7 Nis

My new masterpiece: vibe-coded chart showing the collapse of the New Deal financial order by the flow of bank deposits to bigger and bigger banks. From 1990 to 2024 NYC banks more than double their deposit share. Small banks and thrifts go from more than half of deposits to <20%.

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·10h

Baffler salary discourse

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·11h

The value proposition of college to all but the tiny share who go onto PhD programs has always been “here’s what you need to stay ahead or get ahead”

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·11h

The problem for the humanities academy is its heyday actually depended on social inequality: as a finishing school for the WASP aristocracy, and a mandatory form of elite socialization for those climbing the class ladder. Students today follow that same logic to other majors.

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·11h

@constans Ding ding ding

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constans@constans·11h

The tough position to be in is people raised upper middle class, attended a good college, & took a “prestige” media/arts/policy job but whose parents werent rich enough to give them a trust fund or at least pay their rent. They got ahead of what their social class can sustain!

brecht apologist@madison_tayt

watching everyone talk about my salary range like it’s the most disgusting and abject poverty they could imagine

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·11h

Yeah it’s almost like capitalism’s natural tendency towards inequality is socially destabilizing and almost self defeating

Conor Sen@conorsen

Society keeps getting richer but nobody seems happy about the ways in which the top 20% spend their growing wealth. It’s not like it’s going to go to more ketchup and paperclips.

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·11h

Like: this ship hits the iceberg or it doesn’t. How fast we rearrange the deck chairs doesn’t really change things.

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·11h

The stakes of the AI data center debate are actually quite small. Either AI fundamentally restructures labor as we know it, or it doesn’t. The marginal data center, the marginal token cost, isn’t going to move the needle either way.

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·15h

@MattZeitlin More generally, I think the capital and talent stories are sort of distinct. The talent story has to do with the declining prestige of corporate management amid a return of the entrepreneurial fetish that both tech and the rise of PE and hedge fund share

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·15h

@MattZeitlin If by physical economy you mean real estate development, the rise of finance aligned with big building boom in the 1980s and kept going through a bust and then a real estate super cycle into 2008. More so than the City, Wall Street was very intertwined with real estate (see CMBS

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Matthew Zeitlin@MattZeitlin·16h

this is highly speculated on my parnet but i wonder how much of the flow of talent/capital/etc into finance (and then tech) that we often attribute to neoliberalism, reagan-era-and-beyond tax and regulatory changes etc etc is due to restricting growth in the "physical economy"

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Aaron Freedman retweetet

David Wallace-Wells@dwallacewells·1d

Here @BrankoMilan compares US income growth from 1964-1979 and 1979-2019. In the first period, growth is fastest among the poorer and slowest among the very rich. In the second, incomes grew much more slowly for everyone but the rich—and grew more slowly the poorer you were.

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Aaron Freedman retweetet

James Medlock@jdcmedlock·1d

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·1d

Baffler salary discourse rapidly metastasizing into a debate on the role of markets in structuring the basic contours of modern urban life

constans@constans

If you want to live in your own decent sized apartment in NYC with a preference for Manhattan or inner-Brooklyn/inner-Queens, I would choose a career path that gave me the ability to afford those things. If the job is more important, then you make lifestyle sacrifices for it

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·1d

@RyanRadia @besttrousers @captgouda24 in NYC we pay more for less space=more density=less carbon intensity, we are heroes

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·1d

@RyanRadia @besttrousers @captgouda24 Ignite the discourse on fire by looking at per sqft housing costs...

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·1d

@constans @3stddev The comp isn't Newark to Brooklyn so much as say the Ironbound to Bay Ridge. Both have comparable commutes into Manhattan.

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constans@constans·1d

@3stddev It’s also easier to life near transit in any part of Brooklyn than in Newark. Yes, Newark Penn Station to NYC is not that long of a commute but you have to GET to Newark Penn Station first

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constans@constans·1d

Newark is WAY further away from Manhattan than Brooklyn is. They’re not remotely in the same category.

Daniel Wortel-London@dlondonwortel

Urban NJ is to NYC what Brooklyn was to conventional Manhattanites in the 1960s - hopelessly gauche and largely unknown (except for token enclaves in Hudson county). You wouldn’t cross the bridge into Brooklyn then - you do now. You don’t cross into Newark now - but you will.

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Aaron Freedman retweetet

Joe Bernstein@Bernstein·1d

Straight guy who got into magazine journalism because of the Christian Thompson character in Devil Wears Prada and is devastated he's not in the sequel

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·1d

From MIT Living Wage calculator for Manhattan: Minimum livable salary for two adults no kids: $50k per person Two adults 1 kid: $68k per adult one adult no kids: $79k livingwage.mit.edu/counties/36061

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·1d

The real cost of living cliff in NYC is DINK vs everyone else

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·1d

@ZeeshanAleem Oh yes you nailed it!

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Zeeshan Aleem@ZeeshanAleem·1d

@freedaaron exactly!! I noted: x.com/ZeeshanAleem/s…

Zeeshan Aleem@ZeeshanAleem

@dbessner Doesn’t this entire thing hinge on what constitutes “comfortably”? Which is in and of itself laden with class background and class aspirations? It’s not objective. I think certain people are resistant to the downward mobility of media workers, whereas others are not.

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Aaron Freedman@freedaaron·1d

Ah the question of social reproduction (being middle class and raising a middle class family in NY) as distinct from physical reproduction (being able to live and raise a family in NY), a classic distinction revisited through a scolding, self-righteous online discourse…beautiful

db@dbessner

I truly do not understand this point of view. Study after study says you need at least 150k *for a single person* to live comfortably in NYC. why fetishize shitty pay? so many leftists are Calvinists at heart

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Entdecken

@constans @MattZeitlin @BrankoMilan @RyanRadia @besttrousers @captgouda24 @3stddev @elonmusk