Where finance and media intersect with reality

Search

In the Blind Spot (Turkey, LSE, Digital Euro)

Shutterstock_1937905573

This edition of the Blind Spot Wrap was compiled by Dario Garcia Giner (DGG) and Izabella Kaminska (IK).

Econ, Finance and Markets:

  • 16 months after Alibaba removed H&M from its Tmall following the western brands’ criticism of alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, H&M appears to have been allowed back in.
  • Is Twitter a tool of government censorship? WSJ cites former NYT reporter Alex Berenson’s case as indicating that the answer is yes.
  • Russia is now the third largest market for yuan payments.
  • Chinese factories are shutting down again, this time because of a heatwave.
  • The Bundesbank president has some thoughts about the digital euro.

    The new thing here is the recognition that a digital euro is very useful for usurping third-party tech and bring cross-border payments in the Eurozone onto Eurozone infrastructure. But the speech also points out that the facilitating cross-border payments could lead to the adoption of other nations’ CBDCs in the Eurozone and/or too much use of the euro abroad. Also worth noting, the sudden focus on wholesale CBDC. – IK

  • Blood, Bath and Bankrupt — debt investors see the stock going to zero.
  • The noble gas market’s perspective on the CHIPS act which was recently signed into law by Joe Biden is that it will create more demand for helium.
  • Alex Brummer argues that Haleon’s troubles (on the back of Zantac litigation) are yet more bad PR for the London market, which only listed the stock in July.

    If you haven’t read Paul Murphy’s iconic rant about what ails the London Stock Exchange from 2017, it’s about time that you do. He calls it the “debasing London” effect, a saga that goes back to its demutualisation. As he noted: “Along the way, the LSE somehow stopped being a venue for capital formation and instead became (largely) a pricing service for Russian and other oligarchs who wanted to monetise their paper wealth while retaining absolute corporate control. (Alternatively, private equity firms found they could use the LSE simply for profit crystalisation purposes.)” – IK

Crypto Matters:

Digitalisation:

  • Time to update ALL your Apple devices as the iPhone maker discovers a critical exploit.
  • Canada to launch a public consultation for the use of a digital ID framework for federal public services.
  • A scientific paper proposes to build AI not based on human brain design, but rather on human brain evolution. Theoretically, the paper states this could lead to the emergence of a working Artificial General Intelligence model.

Geopolitical Pivots:

Covid’s Not Over:

Unidentified Submerged Objects:

From the “Fake News-o-Sphere”:

The Daily Blind Spot newsletter

Latest blog posts

If viewing on a mobile simply tap the QR code

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *