Rise of the Military Industrial Complex Influencers
It’s becoming clear that the influencer economy is not just transforming the art of marketing – it is transforming everything. Latest estimates from social media analytics firm Social Shepherd project that the influencer sector will grow to around $15bn by the end of 2022, versus a mere $1.7bn in 2016. This growth applies to far […]
UFOs as a Counterintelligence or Information Theory Problem
A note from the editor: UFOs might not seem an obvious area of interest for a finance-focused outlet. But the potential economic and societal implications of the phenomenon have never been more relevant. Since last year, government bodies across the world have chosen to treat the phenomenon increasingly seriously, dedicating ever greater budgetary resources to […]
ALTIF Transcripts: HS2
With Britain facing “eye-watering” decisions about public spending, many have set their sights on HS2 as the sort of gilded “grand project” the UK can no longer afford. But does scrapping it make sense, and what sort of infrastructure should Britain invest in instead? Neil and Jonathan talk to rail expert Tony Berkeley and Tom […]
Spot Markets Live Transcript: 07/10/22
Today’s Spot Markets live session is with Anjuli Davies, formerly of the Telegraph and Reuters, Davies’ last posting was as Senior City Editor for the Telegraph, moving there from her role as Acting Chief UK Financial Correspondent for Reuters. Comments addressing audience statements are in bold. Izabella Kaminska 11:58 … Hello and welcome to Spot […]
In the Blind Spot (Brazil, Techno-geddon, A Fiscal Swap)
This is a bumper “retrospective” edition of the Blind Spot Wrap based on the fact Izzy has been on the road all of last week. Econ, Business, Finance etc: The White House deleted a tweet related to social security increases after a community-led fact check by Twitter highlighted the increase was due to long-standing inflation […]
Twitter and the privatisation of the memes of production
For a long time, I’ve viewed the internet data-driven economy as analogous to the communistic Gosplan system under the Soviet Union. I recently applied that thinking in a Twitter thread to Elon’s restructuring of Twitter. I compared his move to charge $8 for verification to a perestroika moment for the social media platform. I’d like to […]
Tom Hayes responds to Matt Levine’s Libor take
Bloomberg’s Matt Levine has been thinking this week about the decision by a New York court to drop charges against Tom Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, who had served more than five years in prison in the UK for Libor manipulation. According to Levine, the defence was a pretty weird one. It rested […]
Spot Markets Live Transcript: 31/10/22
Today’s Spot Markets live session is with Anjuli Davies, formerly of the Telegraph and Reuters, Davies’ last posting was as Senior City Editor for the Telegraph, moving there from her role as Acting Chief UK Financial Correspondent for Reuters. We also have a fly-by from Tom Hayes, the former UBS rates trader who was sentenced […]
Ignore Francafrique at your own peril
The French enjoy speaking about their country’s supposed decline. Complaints about the impoverished areas of Saint-Denis, poor job prospects, or the calamitous state of the RER metro line are typical. But France’s decline is most visible a few thousand kilometers to the south – in the slow downfall of Francafrique. The Sahel has been rocked […]
In the Blind Spot (Robotaxis, Amazon, BoE)
Techno Hubris: Driverless cars may be “the hardest technical problem of our time”, says Doug Field, who left Apple Car to become Ford’s technology head in the FT, as Ford admits self-driving cars are proving impossible to scale at a profit. In 2015, when everyone in the car industry was predicting that driverless autonomy would […]