“The IMF’s maximum credit to Argentina… is projected to reach 1,352% of the country’s quota in 2026. This would be the Fund’s largest exposure in absolute terms in its history.” Before we get to the meat of this story, let’s begin with a wee refresher. On April 11, as readers may recall, Argentina’s faux libertarian […]

Yves here. Even though my rewritten headline to a VoxEU piece (originally Risks in the new international trade landscape) may seem surprising, you’ll see that its even its opening paragraph depicts risks that have long been underway as if they were relatively new developments. The reason for showcasing this article despite that is that it

Kamala Harris announced she will not be running for Governor of California in 2026, but she did drop a new memoir, keeping speculation about her 2028 Presidential aspirations alive. The NYT summarizes her activities since losing the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump: Ms. Harris has spent the months since November largely out of the

At 101 years old, last original client of Frank Lloyd Wright attributes good health to his Usonian home’s design Archinect 400-mile chain of ‘fossilized volcanoes’ found buried deep under South China Interesting Engineering This Millipede’s Secretions Could Help Target Brain Disorders, Scientists Say StudyFinds Climate/Environment Sea Level Mis-information from DOE Open Mind How the DOE

Even thought the Wall Street Journal has “oh so reasonable” quotes from McKinsey spokescritters as to how “The Firm” is adapting to AI, the headline suggests otherwise: AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’ The article has McKinsey officials make the key concession, that AI can replace a fair bit of

The US attempt to bring global ports under Western control in order to squeeze Beijing looks dead in the water. Despite Trump’s bluster, China quietly shut the scheme down. We’ll detail how they did so, but first the relevant background. Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings in March announced that it was selling all its overseas

Conor here: As the UK water companies jack up prices while also turning the country’s river and seas into sewage dumps, they are also rewarding their executives with evermore pay and bonuses. The following piece argues the only fix is nationalization, and an investigation published yesterday added more weight to this argument. The Guardian found

Your humble blogger has found M. K. Bhadrakumar to be a bit of a mixed bag as a geopolitical commentator. On the one hand, he’s written many extremely insightful columns at his website, Indian Punchline. But from time to time, he’s had some pieces that were eyebrow-raising, such as ones where he speculated on Russian

Your humble blogger has found M. K. Bhadrakumar to be a bit of a mixed bag as a geopolitical commentator. On the one hand, he’s written many extremely insightful columns at his website, Indian Punchline. But from time to time, he’s had some pieces that were eyebrow-raising, such as ones where he speculated on Russian

Maybe, maybe not. With the employment release of Friday, here’re the pictures, first of NBER’s BCDC key indicators, and second of alternative indicators (recalling all the most recent data will be revised): Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll from CES (bold blue), implied NFP Bloomberg consensus as of 7/1 (blue +), civilian employment with smoothed population controls