Rakesh Bhandari

I work in an interdisciplinary studies program, and last night was trying to explain how I understand interdisciplinarity. Here are a few quick thoughts for those who may be interested. I would love to hear more ideas!

You can see the narrowness of economists in their response to the EU-US deal. They can't integrate the EU's security worries about the US withdrawal from Ukraine & NATO into their understanding of the EU's position. They have no explanation for why Trump insisted on oil/gas buys

If you think of yourself individualistically, you'll underestimate the effect that you have on the world through the cooperative ventures of which you are a part. Individualists tend to deny anthropogenic climate change: no mere individual can change the Earth's climate.

To understand MAGA, you have to remember the two core commitments: fossil fascism that strands no fossil fuel asset anywhere in the world and radical reductions in the taxation of capital income (by, e.g., replacing the progressive income tax with regressive tariffs). It is…

The tariffs may be a smokescreen. The real objective was to disable the EU from replacing RU fossil fuel products with renewables by having them commit to purchasing $750 bn in US fossil fuel products. Trump came to Europe to arrest the learning by doing in renewables. The EU has…

It's gone without saying that Trump restated the false accusation that hunger in Gaza is due to Hamas stealing food even as Israel has dropped the charge.

Netanyahu would never let the war end to prevent criminal proceedings against him. Trump is a Russian asset which makes credible that he'd run the domestic risk of totally abandoning Ukraine, which in turn made Europe concede to his tariffs. The billionaires are fine-tuning AI…

I'd imagine that at least some Europeans are thinking that they had to pay a high price because American voters elected a person all-too-willing to do Russia's bidding and abandon Ukraine outright, activating memories and fears of territorial aggrandizement in Europe.

What an example of the intertwinement of security & economic policy. Trump's taken advantage of European fears that he'd abandon Ukraine & NATO before they can step up their military support. Eventually, Europe won't be vulnerable & will retaliate. Trump lives in the short term

The EU won't be buying $250 bn of US energy products; who in the EU is going to invest $600 bn in the US? Will it be foreign portfolio or foreign direct investment? The EU already invests $2 tn plus in the US. Will the EU "invest" in shell companies in the US to avoid tariffs?

Europe will buy this now, & Japan will pay that tribute. But they aren’t buying time until America reverts to a good trade & security partner. Trump is America. They’re buying time to reorient their economies & security away from the US. Only a harsh repudiation of Trump will…

OK more America arms & fossil fuels to Europe, but how much less chemicals, plastics, rubber, leather products, machinery and mechanical appliances, and transport equipment. The American brand is sinking. Trump's not chairing the executive committee of the American bourgeoisie.

Europe now has to buy American weapons and fossil fuels. Europe doesn't have to buy any other American brand. So America is a gun-running petro-state as the planet burns.

So we are selling oil addiction (and planet destruction) and running guns? "the EU has agreed to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on US energy products and weapons, and accepted a broad 15 per cent levy..." ft.com/content/c1737b…

Grok is much more dangerous than it is risible. A sports reporter was frustrated with it. I prompted Grok about Trump's intelligence. It made up a study that had him as a genius, hallucinated complex phrases Trump used in a presser, concocted his SAT score based on the fact that…

Otherwise, they will wreck the place?

“from the early days of the repo market to the heyday of asset-backed securities and derivatives, central banks have used monetary-policy tools to support the expansion of finance from the traditional and well-regulated banking sector into shadow banking.” prosyn.org/Ez7y8n6

Adorno reminds me of this from the Gramscian John Hoffman in 1975: "Positivism tries to restrict science to the world of 'appearances' and thus leaves it vulnerable to fetishism of every kind. The truth of a phenomenon is only intelligible when we really understand it, when we…

Ivan Krastev has suggested that Putin has wanted to annex Ukraine less for its territory than its population. I suggest that this recalls the populationistic bias of the mercantilists. See here x.com/postdiscipline…

This is someone who knows of what she speaks. El-Gamal is a former civil servant who worked on Middle East policy at the Department of Defense during the Obama years.