The curious case of China’s not-at-all-diminishing energy stockpiles
And why warehouse receipts originated by foreign participants in China could be the latest incarnation of eurodollars.
It’s ransomware, Scott, but not as we know it
TLDR: Washington’s $55 billion IMF quota increase, criticised by the WSJ as a bad deal, is better understood as a strategic, one-off liquidity concession to China — wrapped in multilateral optics — to head off a destabilising dollar crunch and BRI unraveling. It also helps accelerate America’s pivot away from weakening multilateral influence toward more controllable bilateral dollar swap arrangements.
We urgently need to talk about swap lines
What looks like a desperate plea from a dollar-rich sovereign is in reality a sophisticated signal about how the plumbing of global finance actually works — and who still controls it in 2026.
Parlez-vous oil trader?
Everyone’s suddenly talking about backwardation, physical differentials and time-spreads. But what do any of these terms really mean? And why do they matter?
A Q&A about the ‘petrodollar’
From oil power to security power.
The reports of the dollar’s death are greatly exaggerated
Being an extortionist’s preferred currency does not a reserve currency make.
A compendium of counternarratives
Because that’s what the Blind Spot was made for. Today we assess the emerging anti ‘energy lockdown’ narrative and the Trumpian market manipulation grift that may just be a cover for dual-use finance.
LONG READ: Steelmanning Trump’s war strategy (as an intellectual exercise)
In an information war that’s gone kinetic, the first casualty is still the truth.
Did you hear the one about China’s ‘M&A Guidance Fund’?
Of course not. All attention has been on Iran. But it’s important, because it’s a mirror of the West’s private credit crisis.
Poland’s epic gold-buying spree may have had a secret wartime agenda all along
After the president unveiled a rival rearmament plan to be financed by the central bank that amassed the bullion, speculation is growing that Poland’s vast gold reserves could play a pivotal role.