DarkFi Projects Set to Challenge Crypto Regulation (POLITICO)
POLITICO, (Feb 3, 2023) – by Ben Schreckinger
Dark Kitchens Are Not the Dystopia You Think They Are
What’s scary about dark kitchens is not that they work badly, it’s that they work well. They are the path of least resistance in an economy whose workforce no longer has the time or inclination to cook.
The Great Kitchen Exodus: Why All the Fine Dining Staff Quit in 2022
By Robert Stevens, exclusively for The Blind Spot “Hell” – that’s how one Spanish chef described his time at one of London’s three-Michelin starred restaurants. The experience saw the junior chef squirt gelatins and primp vegetables with ungodly precision from six in the morning until well past midnight, five days a week, for a monthly […]
In Geneva, State Parties Are Calling for New Biological Weapon Verification Mechanisms
Between Kanye and Elon Musk breaking the internet, the SBF interviews and a right Royal drama unfolding at the palace, you’d be forgiven for not noticing that one of the more important gatherings of international experts and state signatories of the year has been taking place in Geneva, Switzerland under the auspices of the United […]
What the MrBeast Burgers Phenomenon Tells us About Our Low-Trust Economy
It’s easy to be condescending about a market dominated by shaking rears that can attract more media coverage than statements by political or religious elites. The rise of influencers has left many non-social-media natives confused about the seemingly trivial nature of their success. Trivial they may be. But you’d be wrong to dismiss their power. […]
Spotlight on the Mother of all Structural Short-Covering Rallies
What do ETFs, create-to-lend, dark shorts and fails-to-deliver have to do with this week’s mega short covering rally? Potentially everything, or nothing.
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 […]
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 […]
Why you’re doing your due diligence wrong; and some steps on how to do it right
By Dario Garcia Giner We used to live in a world underpinned by cheap trust where the need to do due diligence was rare. Your cousin visited Nigeria, he drank some beers with the right locals, and the two joined in business to make some money. Business used to be almost exclusively about the right signet […]
Spotlight on the bureaucratic state’s productivity problem
Productivity has been faltering in the UK since at least 2008. We know this because the UK’s Productivity Commission says so. That’s not to say the UK is alone here. Productivity rates have been falling all over the western world. It’s just the situation in the UK is particularly bad, for reasons not properly understood […]
