Gregor Stuart Hunter

So maybe life's alright for the U.K. and the eurozone too?

What's also interesting in looking at the Debt Service Ratio, alongside the more positive take on the U.S. deficit, is that Germany and the U.K. are in even better health. Data here: www.bis.org/publ/work123...

(A good example might be Tesla, which perhaps not coincidentally is getting out of the latter and into the former, thanks to xAI).

And while that might be counterintuitive, the biggest winners in the U.S. economy, outside of the AI boom, are arguably those industries supported by government largesse.

This is a pretty critical point for thinking about the debasement trade. The fiscal deficit shows up as a surplus for the private sector. In effect, the U.S. government is subsidising corporate America.

Squad, are we cooked?

Spicy take: The best dollar debasement trade is to do nothing
www.reuters.com/commentary/b...

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Just made espresso in the microwave

Microsoft Copilot can't even provide basic tech support on *other Microsoft products* without hallucinating false advice. And yet I'm expected to believe that this slop machine is some enormous productivity boost for the global economy?

Stop this trolling @financialtimes.com

Lived in the United Arab Emirates the last time that Britain was officially over AMA

Personally if I were the CEO of Intel and had staked the company's future on a new chip, when the time came to give it a catchy name I might go with something other than "Panther Lake" www.theverge.com/report/79714...

Especially now we have the tools to instantly visualise said water feature

NEW: Mongolia's sovereign wealth fund is preparing to appoint independent board members, hire external advisers and adopt a transparent investment strategy, its CEO told me on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore.
www.reuters.com/markets/asia...

Okay

China opened its stock option market to selected foreign investors on Tuesday. The Shanghai bourse said qualified foreign institutional investors will be allowed to trade options for hedging purposes, and can submit applications immediately. www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Is this the top for gold, or is there farther to go?

Shares in China's Zijin Gold rise 66% in Hong Kong trading debut Shares of China's Zijin Gold International rose as much as 66% in their Hong Kong trading debut on Tuesday after the company raised $3.2 billion in an initial public offering (IPO), the largest in the city for four years.

Shares in China's Zijin Gold rise 66% in Hong Kong trading debut reut.rs/3KsXpP0

Absolutely not investment advice! This is a prohibited political opinion

America has so much to learn about state capitalism. Comrades, there is a reason that you buy the bonds not the equity

But but but: The British fleet stands before him!

America’s Butter Glut Is Driving Prices to Three-Year Lows As America’s appetite for butter grew over the past few years, the dairy industry turned to cows that produce fattier milk and expanded facilities to meet the demand. They might have gone too far.

🎸White light, aww tickle me down to three-year lows
White heat, I tell you now goodness knows
Hmm hmm, White heat
Aww global butter everybody gonna go kill their mother 🎶
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The big boat actually got stuck before the Bluesky summoning circle, but it hit the timeline afterwards, which I think is correct.
www.jalopnik.com/1966095/big-...

Somebody get poor Arthur Laffer a new napkin, he’s been using that one for more than half a century

The crumbling seaside palaces at the centre of Britain’s asylum crisis How one hotelier built an empire from beloved community assets — and a government struggling to cope with a surge in migration

You will learn more about the ongoing furore over asylum seekers in hotels from this incredible piece by @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social than from a hundred front page headlines.

It’s instructive to compare Asian media covering intl news with the US, I give Taiwan as an example, where it’s apparent that there is absolutely zero confusion about whether this story has anything in common with George Floyd or Black Lives Matter and quite a lot of anger about that specific point

👀

The preliminary benchmark revision of -911K amounts to -0.6% to March 2025 payroll employment. Combined with 2-month revisions, recent total revisions are big but hardly unprecedented, & smoothed over the business cycle the payroll survey has gotten more accurate over time.

The freelance rates that Gregory Peck gets from his editor in Roman Holiday are extremely accurate. The trouble is that movie was shot in 1953

The Ukrainian pilots hunting Russian drones with a shotgun in a Yak-52 www.wsj.com/world/ukrain...