Where finance and media interesects with reality.

Spotlight on Israel’s permanent state of exception

By Dario Garcia Giner To many in the West, Israel’s fierce military posture clashes jarringly with its image as a beacon of democracy and progress in the Middle East. How can a society known for its rule of law, cutting-edge innovation, and bustling nightlife in Tel Aviv also maintain a harsh grip over millions of […]

Spotlight on ‘Dam Diplomacy’

Damned dams: Why Egypt’s alliance with Somalia is underpinned by dam diplomacy By Dario Garcia Giner KEY POINTS: — Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile has escalated tensions with Egypt, which fears the dam could threaten its crucial water supply, leading to military alliances and proxy conflict in […]

Spotlight on the 3D industrial revolution that may already be here

By Dario Garcia Giner The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting is (or, was, until Charlie Munger’s death in late 2023) an event so widely reported that it practically transcends the financial sector. Though less anticipated than an Nvidia earnings release and delivered without any of the razzle-dazzle one experiences at an Apple launch event, for those […]

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 […]

Spotlight on the Libyan conflict: explaining the unexplainable

After 13 years of fighting, the Western hemisphere’s longest-running active conflict remains its most bizarre standoff. And yet, almost everything makes perfect sense. French and American interests supported the rise of a former CIA-asset-turned-warlord, Khalifa Haftar, who battled on the Libyan streets alongside Wagner militias and Emirati Mirage jets against a UN-recognised government backed by […]

Spotlight: What the great neo-medievalisation will look like

In the conduct of states, as in the conduct of individuals, appearances constantly shift while the fundamentals always remain unchanged. One of our recurring Blind Spot themes has been the neo-medievalisation of the world. Originally associated with Hedley Bull since the late 70s, the trend described the globalised world as analogous to high-medieval Europe. In […]

Spotlight on the pre-positioning revolution coming to finance

TLDR: Cbankers’ enthusiastic embrace of prepositioning points to growing acceptance of former BoE governor Lord Mervyn King’s ‘Pawnbroker For All Seasons” model. But some worry it might have grave consequences for free markets. There’s a quiet revolution happening at the heart of central banking, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. On the surface, the inconspicuous […]

Could Trump use forgotten Chinese debt to salvage the global economy?

As the United States confronts an impending government shutdown amid an unwelcome outbreak of bond vigilantism, an unexpected remedy to global financial implosion might just lie in a murky corner of long forgotten financial history. Dormant for decades, the Blind Spot understands the overlooked issue of defaulted Chinese imperial debt is quietly turning heads on […]

Europe’s wind sector is in a ‘severe crisis’ (POLITICO)

By Victor Jack, Abby Wallace · Aug 18, 2023 BRUSSELS — The U.K. and EU are likely to miss their 2030 wind energy installation targets as the sector runs into increasing difficulties, putting Europe’s green transition at risk. Surging inflation, supply chain bottlenecks, hold-ups in getting permits, problems with government-backed subsidy schemes and mounting competition […]