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Heatwaves expose the great human gift for ignoring catastrophe. Super El Niño Is Turbocharging Weather Disasters.

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Even now, when weather records are being broken, when climate change is demonstrably here, not in the future, we seem frozen.  We still go about our carbon-greedy lives: snapping up the last air-conditioning unit, booking another flight, seeking solace in the pathetic fallacy of recycling things we maybe didn’t need at all. It’s not that we don’t care. Multiple studies across the world find the majority of people now take climate change very seriously. But the scale of the thing can mire us in apathy. Shouting “fire” doesn’t work. I’ve learnt from experience that doom-mongering leads people either to turn away or become overwhelmed by the scale of the problem. Camilla Cavendish Financial Times 15 August 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/63a28eea-9d73-487b-bb46-34530e215fce?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Climate action does not seem to be a priority for the German government — despite record temperatures, heat-related deaths and drought. Why aren't more people taking to the streets in protest? https:...
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The ingredients are coming together for a US financial crisis.

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A dangerous view is creeping into the markets that the US has already gone so far down the path of a debt compound trap that it dare not raise interest rates to control inflation. The US treasury has to roll over $6tn of debt every three months in an increasingly sceptical market, as well as issuing $2tn of new debt annually to cover the worst structural deficit in US peacetime history. The critical point is that the whole US financial and fiscal system has never been so sensitive to short-term interest rates. Kevin Warsh, the untested new Fed chairman, faces an invidious choice. Warsh struggled to articulate a coherent intellectual argument after the most recent policy meeting for why he was not raising rates.  He could not explain how he intends to bring stubborn US inflation back towards the 2pc target when it is clearly going the other way. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 11 August 2026 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/08/11/ingredients-coming-together-us-fiscal-fina...
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Paniken sprider sig lätt när tillgångar som ansågs vara riskfria (USD) inte längre är det.

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Att USA säljer euro för att stötta den japanska yenen riktar fokus mot landets egna förment riskfria obligationer. USA:s och Japans gemensamma insats för att skicka upp värdet på den japanska yenen.  1985 Plaza Accord. Detta avtal undertecknades på Plaza Hotel i New York efter att USA drivit på för att försvaga dollarn genom att hota med kraftiga importtullar efter att bytesbalansen hade blivit kraftigt negativ och den amerikanska globala konkurrenskraften försvagats. USA fick då igenom en kraftig revalvering av framför allt den japanska yenen och den västtyska D-marken.  På tre år sjönk den amerikanska dollarn med nästan 50 procent mot en handelsvägs korg av andra valutor. RE: När dollarn försvagas går kronan upp. Dollarn kostade drygt fem kronor 1992. Men den kursen skulle försvaras, ansåg Carl Bildt som ville avskaffa kronan och ansluta oss till euron.  Något har hänt med de amerikanska statsobligationerna. Räntan har stadigt tickat uppåt relativt inflationen under lån...
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Nvidia finance AI deals totaling $500 billion

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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
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Corporate profits are soaring, but they aren’t all created equal

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
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14 augusti. Pakistan. Anthropic. GAAP. Rwanda. Åttonde nedgångsdagen i rad. Nvidia $500 billion. USA-börserna stänger på rött.

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  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 ...
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Pakistan and the new great game of Risk

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  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...
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Japan No Sideshow for U.S. Markets

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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
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Lund. Ett gated community utan murar och med öppna värderingar

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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. ...
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Legora 100 miljarder kronor. Lovable 127 miljarder kronor.

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/
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13 augusti. Över 35 C i UK, France, Spain and Italy. What will we use AI to create? Lund ett gated community. Svenska räntor lägre än Euro-räntor.

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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...
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12 augusti. How to stop global warming - The answer is obvious. Samt Ebba Busch, som vill göra sänkt eller slopad skatt på bostadsvinster till en valfråga.

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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-...
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USA stödköper japanska Yen

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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
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Ny serie: Hysteriska kvinnor Francesca Hong

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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...
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The median price of a condo in Singapore was about $1.47 million in the U.S. (14 mkr)

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  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
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Even Mercedes Can’t Stop the Decline of German Cars in China

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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
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11 augusti. Iran och Trump ställer krav. Vietnam 68 privat high-speed rail line. Resolution 68 Hö Hö Hö. Singapore. Homeros ”The Odyssey” .

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  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...
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