From the Blind Spot:
- Covid modelling that prompted first UK lockdown based on ‘inaccurate’ case numbers – Telegraph. (More evidence that the report that panicked the world into economic self-harm was based on flawed assumptions.)
- Fraud and embezzlement allegations at Austrian packaging company Schur Flexibles involving luxury Mayfair properties – FT.
- Albert Edwards on Recession watch.
- Keep watching the grain market – FT.
- Scientists create new synthetic coronavirus from scratch – Express.
- Barclays settles LOBO/Libor loan dispute with Newham Council.
Hindsight watch:
- Investors are apparently shocked about Russia’s attack on Ukraine roiled markets – FT. (Small plug for The Blind Spot here since my concerns about escalating geopolitical tensions didn’t get much resonance in my other life. The compartmentalisation in old school media prevents informed parties in the wrong division from being able to voice concerns or insights — however informed — as everything must go through the approved correspondent channel. If that correspondent has a different view, well… they’ll come down on you like a tonne of bricks for muddying the picture. With hindsight I think some media establishments have been on a de facto Brackenian war-footing for a long time now. Those who subscribed to my original newsletter would have read this on Feb 6 though:
Feb 6 doesn’t seem that long ago, and in hindsight the above doesn’t seem so crazy. But I want to remind readers that even on Feb 6, the idea of starting an official WW3 Watch in any respectable newspaper would have been met with rolling eyes by senior editors. - Here’s me in November on GB News clearly expressing that February would be a crunch point in gas markets in a slot on hybrid warfare. What I would also have said if I didn’t fear “serious people” backlash was that the crunch would equate to the moment Putin would be geopolitically strongest and thus most empowered to strike. Do read my piece on Pricing in Hybrid Warfare from November 16.
- Here’s Poland’s Kaczynski in 2008 warning about Russian ambitions.
From the “Fake News” zone:
- RT news being labelled “Russia state-affiliated media” on Twitter.
- Russell Brand is worried about shifting Covid narratives and the fact information is being blocked. Here’s the supporting NYT story.
From the “Truth” zone:
- The problem is not enough confrontation.
- Did anyone else clock the spate of standing DSMA Notice updates in November 2021, mostly to do with cyber.
- New research points to Wuhan market as pandemic origin – NYT. (When this story was initially published it was entirely one sided — at least in the online version I saw. It’s been filled out since, but it’s still worth focusing on the construction, which buries dissenting points. Nor does it mention the conflicting relationships of some of the authors.)
- Yandex warns of Moscow threats against media.
- 1970s nuclear preparation videos are doing the rounds (probably for good reason).
From the “Neutral” zone:
- A thread on how the gulf between popular perception and strategic reality continues to grown in Ukraine.
- Will Western reality spinning make much difference in a world full of newly emerged powers that don’t trust the narrative?
- David Starkey says we’ve lived a world of illusion which made us wrongly think war was off the table.
- Ukraine’s deadly gamble — why the whole thing isn’t so black and white.
Film recommendation du jour:
