Niko Block

Ph.D. student in political science at York University. Writing has appeared in The Guardian, Jacobin, New Internationalist, Canadian Dimension, and CCPA.

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

Can't wait to find out what'll be Time Magazine's Shipping Route of the Year.

[Isabella M Weber @IsabellaMWeber]

10/ And the most fundamental thing: end this illegal war. The fallout already in the pipeline must be addressed urgently. Governments must use every lever available — not let the shocks ripple through our economies and rip apart our societies.

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

It is a real honour to be published in this volume alongside thinkers like Alan Freeman, Andrew Kliman, Fred Moseley and (especially) Riccardo Bellofiore.

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

Research in Political Economy has just published my paper "Institutionalism and the Macro-Monetary Labour Theory of Value".

https://t.co/SWD77g2Gyc

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

In this framing Marxists' abstract value theory can coexist with institutionalists' objective orientation towards transactions, yet the former is not integral to the latter.

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

@_scornful_one @ccpa Yeah, I think they're different concepts. Financialization as I define it in this piece presupposes that housing is a commodity of sorts (i.e. privately bought and sold). The latter has been true for a long time, but the former is more recent. https://t.co/I2aMWhyr9Q

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

My analysis for @ccpa shows that arguments about immigration and "supply shortages" cannot explain housing inflation in Canada.

#cdnpoli #housing #financialization

https://t.co/sriQlfy23l

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

@EstelSpaghetti Inflation in food is often instigated by price shocks in oil. But credit can come into play when investment funds place big bets on wheat futures and so on. My understanding is that this happened in 2007-08. @IsabellaMWeber’s work on this topic great.

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

@EstelSpaghetti If you’re asking whether consumers’ access to credit might be boosting prices, my answer would be probably not — at least not meaningfully, but perhaps marginally.

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

And under what circumstances would you start to view the supply-shortage argument as lacking predictive power?

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

3. Yes, there are many empty bedrooms in the suburbs. This is part of the broader picture of housing inequality that I discuss at the end of the article.

https://t.co/BCxQ8yMVrD

[Dr. Mike P. Moffatt 🇨🇦🏅🏅 @MikePMoffatt]

@nikoblock Or to put it in practical terms: Do you really think we *don’t* have more older individuals and two person households in large homes in the suburbs than we did 25 years ago? Do you think the empty bedroom phenomenon is a myth?

[Niko Block @nikoblock]

If you see that a rise in the relative housing stock has been paralleled by a massive rise in real price, then why do you believe a further increase in the relative stock will on its own produce a different trend in the future than it has in the past?