Back soon!
Just a quick note to say that normal service will resume this week. We much appreciate your patience and understanding while we took our break. And hey, it’s not like there was any significant news this August 😉
BoE ramps up preparations for normalizing long-term repos (POLITICO)
By Geoffrey Smith, July 22 The Bank of England is raising the pressure on banks to get ready for the moment when things start to get tough. Banks should ensure that they are ready to borrow at scale through the BoE’s various facilities before its steady withdrawal of excess liquidity starts to create volatility in […]
In the Blind Spot (The productivity paradox lives on)
SNEAK PEEK — Lessons from James Goldsmith on what’s really ailing Western productivity. — Make being a housewife great again — not least because it will help improve corporate productivity, argues Izzy. — Bangladesh is being destabilised by students scrambling over 3,000 precious government jobs. Dario has more. Good morning subscribers! There’s no better […]
Techies, meet J.D. Vance (POLITICO)
By Mallory Culhane, with help from John Hendel, Steven Overly and Brendan Bordelon TECHIES, MEET J.D. VANCE — The official Republican candidate for vice president was elected to the Senate in 2022 with a $10 million infusion from PayPal founder and tech billionaire Peter Thiel. But his relationship with Thiel and the broader tech world […]
Meet Germany’s Lord of the Drones (POLITICO)
By Gian Volpicelli · Jun 20, 2024 Florian Seibel has seen the future of war — and it has robots in it. He now wants to convince Ukraine — and Europe — that they need to embrace autonomous weapons. A former helicopter pilot in the German army, 44-year-old Seibel is the chief executive of Quantum […]
In the Blind Spot (A Truss-style stitch-up for France?)
SNEAK PEEK — Why this week’s petrodollar 50th anniversary “fake news” saga demonstrates a major misunderstanding about what really empowers the dollar. — China is issuing ultra-long bonds at 2.53 percent, but is it a sign of strength or weakness? — We check in on Russell Napier’s prophetic warnings about why France, not […]
Russian central bank gears up for more rate hikes as war economy overheats (POLITICO)
By Geoffrey Smith · Jun 7, 2024, 4:36 Vladimir Putin has been touting his economy’s resilience at his annual showpiece conference in St. Petersburg this week, but his own officials are telling a very different story. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) issued its sternest warning yet on Friday that it may have to resort […]
Counter-disinfo tactics are getting more sophisticated ahead of election season
A coalition of publicly-funded fact-checking institutions, some boasting NATO affiliations, have embarked on a grand tour of American newsrooms to “inoculate” journalists against the disinformation of bad actors and foreign powers ahead of this year’s presidential elections, the Blind Spot can report. In a sign of growing counter-disinformation sophistication among fact-checking bodies, reporters are being […]
In the Blind Spot (Carthago delenda est)
SNEAK PEEK — Dario delves into what constitutes the “state of exception” in the democratic world. — Who is Holland’s new prime minister Dick Schoof really? — Tunisia’s fledgling democracy is experiencing a few setbacks. Happy Sunday afternoon, and to those of you fielding half-term, well done. It’s over now. You’ve now got about […]
A (not so) brief ‘criminal’ history of the ECB (POLITICO)
By Johanna Treeck, Carlo Boffa · May 28, 2024 FRANKFURT – Malta’s central bank chief Edward Scicluna was formally charged with fraud and misappropriation in court this week, joining an illustrious group of European Central Bank policymakers who have faced criminal charges, convictions or even jail time. Most such brushes with the law relate […]