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  Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Apollo Global Management  had been working tirelessly for months to draw up debt deals  that would help developers of artificial intelligence systems pay for chips from Nvidia Corp. With slow progress on the complex deals, Nvidia’s chief executive officer, Jensen Huang, decided to change tack. He went public this week with the effort, saying the group is aiming to collectively finance AI computing deals totaling $500 billion — a round figure with no obvious provenance. Bloomberg 14 August 2026  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-14/nvidia-s-500-billion-plan-envelops-wall-street-in-its-ai-frenzy

S&P 500 companies reported $2.64 trillion of combined net income over the last four quarters. However, a big chunk of the earnings consisted of paper gains from marking up equity investments in other companies. Last quarter, “other income” at Amazon and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, totaled roughly $121 billion combined after taxes, almost all of it from investment gains. Street earnings are whatever earnings metric a majority of analysts covering a company adopt, whether non-GAAP or GAAP. These in turn make their way into the most widely collected earnings data for the S&P 500 and other indexes.  Jonathan Weil Wall Street Journal Aug. 14, 2026 https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-121-billion-in-one-time-gains-boosting-big-techs-profits-5d2201da Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gaap.asp

  https://www.ft.com/content/5ca83d6d-2c13-4d5e-b564-881f89189b3e?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Corporate profits are soaring, but they aren’t all created equal.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/08/corporate-profits-are-soaring-but-they.html Rwanda just became the first country to start EU talks on hosting refugee return hubs alongside Uganda. It was confirmed on 6 August, but Kigali’s track record makes a mockery of  European claims that migrants’ rights will be respected in third countries. “Return hubs in third countries and other innovative solutions outside Europe must be implemented,” Frederiksen and Meloni added, in a joint post on social media on Monday (10 August). euobserver 12 August 2026 https://euobserver.com/232169/rwanda-revealed-as-eus-first-migrant-return-hub-but-whats-in-it-for-kigali/ Folkmordet i Rwanda https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkmordet_i_Rwanda Rwanda https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda Trots att oljepriset under veckan har stigit från 81 dollar till ...

  In the last few decades of the 20th century, the go-to geopolitical board game for many teenagers was Risk . It is like playing the Great Game, as the 19th-century contest for Central Asia was known. The Great Game was a rivalry between the 19th-century British and Russian empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Game It is time for an update. Why does the game not include nuclear-armed Pakistan? The case for Pakistan’s elevation to the Risk board has no moral dimension. Its semi-feudal military-led political class has misruled for much of the country’s existence. The wildly popular opposition leader, Imran Khan is in prison. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/08/10-juli-iran-has-demanded-us-30y-japan.html The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, as the new pact is known, is the latest in a diplomatic pas de deux by Pakistan’s de facto leader, Field Marshal Asim Munir, https://englundmacro.blogspo...

Thirty-four years ago, a brilliant young hedge-fund manager helped engineer a $1 billion payday for his employer by betting a major currency would be devalued. He made a similar killing two decades later. When Bessent helped George Soros break the pound on “Black Wednesday” in 1992, he reckoned that the country’s floating-rate mortgages made it politically painful for Britain to raise interest rates to prop it up. Too painful, it turned out. Japan’s recent intervention to strengthen the yen without raising its own rates got a very rare assist from America. That’s what friends are for, said President Trump. “They wanted a little bit of help. And we’re always there for Japan. Japan’s been very good to us, with the exception, of course, of Pearl Harbor.” Spencer Jakab Wall Street Journal Aug. 13, 2026 https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/japanese-drama-is-no-sideshow-for-u-s-markets-b92be149

Sverigedemokraterna poserar gärna med folköl framför röda stugor med vita knutar. De saknar det levande folkhemmet där allt var gemytligt och trevligt. Till och med typsnittet i deras valkampanj andas svenskt 80-tal.  Sedan följer resonemangen om att något gått förlorat. Sverige är otryggt och elever tar ledigt för att fira eid. Enligt Åkesson beror detta främst på ansvarslös migration. Det vill säga invandrarna.  I själva verket pekar mycket på att det är medelklassen som har sprungit iväg med Sverigedemokraternas dröm. Ibland när jag är i Lund tänker jag på det gamla Sverige. Ett homogent trevligt folk där till och med de hemlösa är etniska svenskar och hälsar på en. Längs kullerstensgatorna finns butiker med bemannad personal och på morgonen cyklar folk till jobbet förbi anrika byggnader.  I jämförelse med Malmö verkar tiden ha stått still. Problemet är att merparten av SD-väljarna inte har råd att flytta dit, mycket beroende på att de ofta har lägre utbildningsnivå. ...

Det svenska bolaget Legora är på jakt efter nya pengar. I diskussioner med investerare uppges AI-juristen vilja ha en värdering på närmare 100 miljarder kronor. Legora, med Max Junestrand som vd och medgrundare, är Sveriges näst högst värderade AI-bolag efter Lovable.  På onsdagen stod det klart att Lovable tar in 3,8 miljarder färska kronor till en värdering på motsvarande 127 miljarder kronor. DI 13 augusti 2026 https://www.di.se/live/uppgifter-svenskt-ai-bolag-vill-varderas-till-nastan-100-miljarder/   Legora https://legora.com/   Lovable  https://lovable.dev/

Extremely high temperatures of over 35 C  forecast for France, Spain and Italy. Millions of people across Europe on Wednesday were set for more extreme heat, as yet another heat wave descends on the world's fastest-warming continent. In France, Italy and Spain, some 92 million people are expected to swelter in temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday. Some 300 million people — more than half Europe's population — will see temperatures pass 30 C. The German Weather Service has forecast highs on Wednesday of 34 C.  Temperatures are set to climb to 37 C on Thursday and as high as 39 C by Friday for much of western and southern Germany. Deutsche Welle 12 August 2026  https://www.dw.com/en/europe-braces-for-next-heat-wave/a-78334723 Warning for extreme heat will come into effect across a large swathe of the UK on Thursday, with temperatures set to soar as high as 38C  BBC 13 August 2026 https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/ce85pj0e20p...

How to stop global warming. The answer is obvious.  Two words, the first one starts with N. That’s right. Net zero.  Scientists have understood for years that net zero is the point at which global warming stops, meaning temperatures cease rising.   If you don’t get to net zero, the world will continue warming, and all the things we’re seeing at the moment will get more intense  For the record, the chances of reaching net zero soon are remote. The longer we wait to reach net zero, the higher the eventual peak temperature will be, and the worse the associated damage.  And please don’t say your country’s net zero efforts are pointless when it only accounts for a few per cent of global emissions. This buck-passing claim is made in dozens of countries, even though their combined emissions exceed China’s. The cost of climate action cannot be ignored, but nor can the cost of inaction. Pilita Clark Financial Times 12 August 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/e16ec916-...

Washington gick häromdagen in och stödköpte yen för att bromsa valutans fall efter att den nått sin svagaste nivå mot dollarn på omkring 40 år. ”Även om en förstärkning av yenen skulle minska värdet av utländska vinster, är det osannolikt att de senaste interventionerna för att stärka valutan kommer att försämra exportföretagens vinstutsikter för helåret i någon större utsträckning” säger Harumi Taguchi, chefsekonom för Japan vid S&P Global Market Intelligence i Tokyo. DI 11 augusti 2026 https://www.di.se/nyheter/vinstfest-i-japan-jattarna-star-emot-i-oron/ For the U.S., a weak yen is a potential problem because Japan is the world’s biggest single holder of U.S. Treasurys. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/08/4-augusti-last-chance-for-iran.html

Milwaukee County executive David Crowley narrowly RPT  narrowly  defeated a democratic socialist leftwing candidate Francesca Hong. The result is a boost to the Democratic establishment, which had been skittish that Hong’s positions — including abolishing the police and getting rid of prisons — were too far left and would alienate the general electorate.  Financial Times 11 August 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/565bd314-0803-40a2-88b3-9070f574d933?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Hong, who once called for the cancellation of Thanksgiving, worried establishment Democrats. The 37-year-old state representative and part-time bartender backs legalizing marijuana to fund high-speed broadband. She also supports a state-run development bank, taxpayer-subsidized child care, government-run grocery stores, the elimination of all college debt, Medicare for All, a 32-hour workweek with no pay cut, abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, restoring voting rights to felons and th...

  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-looked-into-buying-a-house-in-singapore-as-an-investment-heres-why-i-didnt-despite-the-2-mortgage-rate-50c79bcf Grevgatan 26 18 500 000 kr https://www.hemnet.se/bostad/lagenhet-4rum-ostermalm-stockholms-kommun-grevgatan-26-21710945 60 miljoner kr för en villa på Bragevägen, Lidingö Singapore is positioning itself to be a major AI hub  © Lauryn Ishak/Bloomberg Singapore shrugs off Iran war https://www.ft.com/content/7c738ae1-39e5-4094-b224-605dcddaa4e0?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Deng visited Singapore in November 1978.  Lee Kuan Yew told him that if Singapore Chinese who were the descendants of poorly-educated coolies could make good, how much better mainland China could be if the right policies were adopted. Besöket skulle i grunden rita om världsekonomin. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/06/deng-xiaoping-ran-china-despite-having.html

Mercedes sold only 1,153 units in China in the first half, a fraction of the more than 80,000 similarly priced SU7 sedans Xiaomi Corp. delivered in the period.  The performance echoes the challenges BMW, Volkswagen and Porsche face in China, where they all reported second-quarter sales declines of at least 30%, worse than the overall market’s drop.  Meanwhile, the likes of Xiaomi and BYD. are taking customers from them, depriving the Germans of a key growth and profit driver.  So far, none of them has found a way to arrest the downward spiral. Bloomberg 11 August 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-08-11/mercedes-bmw-vw-struggle-in-china-with-new-evs-selling-poorly https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/10/make-mercedes-and-volkswagen-great-again.html Xiaomi SU7 https://mistore.se/pages/xiaomi-su7 Xiaomi https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/07/xiaomi.html

  Tehran’s demands for a full reopening of Hormuz include the US lifting its naval blockade on Iranian ports, the release of frozen assets and compensation for war damages. It has also called for a permanent end to attacks on groups it backs in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. “I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts,” Trump wrote on social media.  “Additionally, compensation should be paid to the families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protestors that Iran has killed over the last 50 years.” Shortly after his post, Trump added that Iran should also be held responsible for deaths and damage from conflicts in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Gaza, where Tehran-backed militant groups operate. Bloomberg 11 August 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-11/trump-hardens-stance-iran-clouding-hopes-hormuz-deal Stockholmsbörsen går mot en avvaktande öppni...

On paper, according to the official numbers, Malta plays a remarkable role in the world economy. It’s a huge investment destination: There are only a bit over 500,000 people on the island. But it has attracted more than $500 billion in foreign direct investment.  At the same time, Maltese companies have invested about the same amount overseas. That’s about a million dollars per man, woman, and child in each direction. Of course, it’s all fake. What we’re actually seeing is a proliferation of shell companies that are used by companies elsewhere as ways to launder, transfer their profits so that they pop up in Malta, which has a basically zero tax rate on corporate profits. This is a combination of tax avoidance and tax evasion. Avoidance is when it’slegal, although it probably shouldn’t be. Evasion is when it isn’t. There’s some of both going on in Malta.  There’s quitea lot of actual money laundering and sheer criminal activity. Famously, an investigative journalist from the i...