Stanley Pignal

Can someone translate "force your insurer to pay for livesaving care" into European please? Why does one need to know industry secrets for this?

I think the real test is if you remain modest *after* winning the Nobel

Ah yes multi-speed integration. Around the corner just like the 28th regime, capital markets union, common consolidated corporate tax base and building a European Google. Can't wait

And here we go. I never wrote this article, and yet it is cited here.

www.liberalbriefs.com/geopolitics/...

And of course, it sounds so plausible, I seriously checked whether I had forgotten it, or the footnote was slightly wrong.

#AIisnotresearch

Betting markets see a 57% chance of Macron calling new legislative elections within a couple of weeks, and 73% chance by the end of the year.

They also have a 1/5 chance of Macron resigning this month, and 20% by next summer.

polymarket.com/event/french...
polymarket.com/event/macron...

Henceforth the red robes will only be worn as an away kit when the Canadian Supreme Court is playing the US one.

I see what you did there

Lecornu made a big song and dance about cutting benefits paid to politicians after they leave office.

But according to Le Monde, that only applies from 2026. So the ministers who were in office 14 hours are entitled to €28,000 after they leave office.

Not bad for a day's work.

Bruno Le Maire's LinkedIn profile is being updated more frequently than some newspaper websites

Centrists didn't need Le Pen to sabotage any deficit-cutting plans, if the roughly €1 trillion in extra debt incurred between 2017 and 2024 is anything to go by.

Tell you who else is being put in a tight spot by Macronism implosion

I am not a #Merkel fan (as many of you know), but the headlines following her interview with Partizan are complete nonsense.

She does not blame Poland or the Baltics at all.

Haddock : Quelle semaine, hein ? Tintin : Capitaine, on est lundi, il est 10h

And yet somehow Macron will still bounce from summit to summit doing his Stars In Their Eyes de Gaulle routine rather than looking like a blindfolded man in a room full of rakes

If Liz Truss was a lettuce, Sebastien Lecornu was, what, a gently simmering pint of unpasteurised milk?

Bloody hell. Lecornu out.

Why did the NYT not run this as a news story, with the usual sourcing and right-to-comment criteria? Here you end up with lines like "it’s not hard to wonder who might have been behind [a kidnapping]". You can't just... say that in a reported news article.

I honestly find this very confusing.

Opinion | Someone Tipped Me Off About a Crypto Story. What I Found Was Crazy.

Beyond the facts of this NYT piece on a Georgian crypto saga, I find it odd it is being run as an "Opinion" piece (ie outside the newsroom). Completely confusing for readers to read what is essentially a reported article but with a few opinion assertions thrown in

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/o...

no, I don't think one follows the other. If the top 1% of European PhDs are chasing American universities and gaining places that would otherwise go to middling American academics (say in the top 25% but no better), I don't see how you can infer a European degree is better.

We've all read the rather anecdotal stories of academics, the most left-leaning profession, wanting to leave America under Trump.

My point is that if you look at dynamism, America has attracted thousands of the best European academics, while basically zero top American academics are in Europe.

Are European professors leaving for other countries, you ask? It's an interesting question. Might be worth looking at, say, the number of Europeans in top US academia. Could surprise you.

Decent chance the new French government implodes within 24 hours of its major ministers named, amid coalition bickering. Even the Italians never managed this.

Scandinavia is mentioned specifically in the article as a place which has (pretty close to) hire and fire! And indeed it is among the most dynamic in Europe business-wise.
It's a good reminder you can have a vigorous welfare state without stultifying your labour markets.

The question is whether the farm keeps the rooster or if the farmer's wife decides to pack it in and become a nurse.

(Am I doing this right?)

European Macronisme translates roughly as American Marxism.

On that note, if Stephen Miller were a politician in Europe he would be categorised as more "extreme" than parties like the RN or Fratelli.

I think we are quite some time away from needing to care about MEPs think about the budget. They certainly matter at a later stage, but in the same way a bunch of national governments are screaming THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! we can probably wait until a bit later to be actually concerned.

I hate when papers compile a "the best 10 books" or "50 most notable films" and it's clear it's just the 10 books or films they happen to have come across.

If you're going to propose "10 best novels of 2025" I think you need to have considered the merits of, what, 100 books? So a 10% ratio?

John D. Rockefeller was the Sam Bankman-Fried of his era – driven by the make-money-to-give-money mantra that is now known as "effective altruism".

He certainly mastered the "effective" bit of making money.

(From Chernow's biography)

Germany has pensioners too!
But yes, that's a big part of it

A parable of European business: Nokia ad from 2005 where they release a flip-phone with no touch screen but brand it a "Smart Phone". That ought to do the trick.