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The French certainly have a way with words.  Many about food, fashion and art have made their way into English, naturally, but a surprising number of financial terms did too. Without them we’d have no arbitrage, entrepreneurs, tranches, financiers or even millionaires A former French finance minister /Former French finance minister (eventually president) Valéry Giscard d’Estaing/   about the benefit America reaps from having the world’s reserve currency.  “le privilège exorbitant”. For many Americans it’s an article of faith that the stock market eventually rises over time, that Uncle Sam’s liabilities are risk-free and that America’s armed forces will never lose a fight for lack of money. Now, federal borrowing is starting to feel unsustainable, U.S. stocks fetch twice the valuation of other developed markets and the Navy is struggling to protect vital sea lanes from a third-rate adversary.  Je ne sais quoi betyder ungefär ”det där lilla extra” – en särski...

  James David Vance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JD_Vance Trots att Vance länge varit skeptisk till USA:s inblandning i krig utomlands har han fått en framträdande roll i fredsförhandlingarna mellan länderna En överenskommelse skulle kräva att Iran faktiskt minskar sin kapacitet att anrika uran och inte bara lovar att göra det längre fram. ”Om ni inte vill ha kärnvapen, varför behöver ni då uran som är anrikat till 60 procent? Och om ni vill visa att ni verkligen inte tänker bygga kärnvapen, ska ni inte producera höganrikat uran. Det är en helt grundläggande fråga”. DI 7 oktober 2026 https://www.di.se/nyheter/usa-s-iranforvirring-vem-ar-det-som-kor-egentligen/ Attention; the world’s most valuable resource.  The notion now is that at every single moment when you are competing for someone’s attention, you are competing against literally every piece of content ever produced. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and before them, Joe Biden — before the changeover, they were just terrified o...

We’re still some distance from a repeat of the 2010-2012 euro zone crisis. But there is a reason why the European Union has for a decade lurched from one emergency to another, and why every moment of stress — the 2022 loss of Russian gas, the Iran war, France’s overspending — threatens to push it over the brink.  Italy, for one, has managed to cut its fiscal deficit, but its macroeconomic recovery is very sensitive to rising yields on its sovereign debt — and hence its borrowing costs. Italy is actually running a budget surplus and Giorgia Meloni’s government has stayed in power for nearly four years, giving the notoriously unstable republic an unprecedented spell of stability. But her government is still demanding that EU rules are bent to let it spend more. Spain is even more disheartening. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called fresh elections, although he’s trailing badly in the polls. Politicians are unable to tell electorates the truth about the necessary sacrifices, and vot...

Al-Houthi presides over a militant group that’s taken over swathes of Yemen, often brutally suppressing the people under its control.  The Houthis’ reach extends far beyond the country as they disrupt global trade, rattle energy markets and fire missiles at Saudi Arabia, whose allied forces on the ground are leading a coalition that vowed at the weekend to eliminate them. Bloomberg 7 October 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-07/reclusive-houthi-leader-wreaks-havoc-from-his-yemen-stronghold How the Houthis Triumphed on the Red Sea and Sparked a New War in Yemen In a single night, an Iran-allied militia trounced Saudi-backed forces to take control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast. No one was able, or willing, to stop them. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/10/06/world/middleeast/yemen-houthis-reconstruct.html Who are the Houthi rebels and why are they attacking Red Sea ships? BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67614911 The US and its allies have been try...

  France: between the bond market and the barricades https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/france-between-bond-market-and.html USA: handelsbalans augusti. Import 400 mrd, export 300 mrd, underskott 100 mrd.  Dollar. I augusti. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/usas-samlade-underskott-i.html Inga problem. Du skall göra som dom i New York. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/inga-problem-du-skall-gora-som-dom-i.html A Top-Heavy Stocks Rally. Förväntningar på extremt vinstrally för USA:s teknikjättar. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/a-top-heavy-stocks-rally.html Tea Party movement. Tea party-rörelsen förstår samhällsekonomi i termer av hushållsekonomi. Experterna skrattar åt denna naivitet. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/tea-party-movement.html JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Risks from AI “went up 10-fold after Mythos”. Anthropic PBC’s Mythos artificial-intelligence model has dramatically increased global cybersecurity risks. “I’m not going...

High debt levels become dangerous when rising interest rates push up borrowing costs and governments fail to respond.  With little political appetite to rein in its federal deficit and ballooning debt, the United States risks finding itself with few options when the next war, recession, or financial crisis arrives. Kenneth Rogoff Project Syndicate  Oct 1, 2026 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-cannot-keep-putting-off-addressing-its-fiscal-problems-by-kenneth-rogoff-2026-09 Beskyllningen mot Tea party-rörelsen är att den förstår samhällsekonomi i termer av hushållsekonomi.  Experterna skrattar åt denna naivitet.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/09/staten-kan-bara-ge-vad-den-tar-med.html Tea Party movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement Alltför många oroar sig för statsskulder och statsskuldräntor. Om man har en sedelpress går man inte i konkurs. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/08/alltfor-manga-oroar-sig-for.html Why the ho...

  USA:s samlade underskott i handelsbalansen uppgick till 105,6 miljarder dollar i augusti, jämfört med ett underskott på 88,6 miljarder dollar föregående månad. 6 oktober 20226 U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, August 2026 https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/us-international-trade-goods-and-services-august-2026 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-10-06-2026/card/one-great-chart-u-s-goods-deficit-surges-YfPPOG5YZoHvEgcDZ37W US Trade deficit September https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/09/3-september.html The Problem Trump Is Seeking to Tackle Is Very Real https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/07/us-trade-deficit.html

  France: between the bond market and the barricades https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/france-between-bond-mar¨¨ket-a nd.html The 10-year Treasury yield, the most important number in global finance,   has now broken through its high from 2007, when a bond sell-off triggered the Global Financial Crisis.  It’s now the highest since 2002. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/a-top-heavy-stocks-rally.html

Just nu överskuggas allt av förväntningarna på ännu ett extremt vinstrally för USA:s teknikjättar.  I längden är det inte rimligt att långräntor ger en avkastning på 5 procent, som i USA, samtidigt som börsen värderas till över p/e 20. Nvidia har exempelvis bara i augusti och september ökat sitt börsvärde med 12.000 miljarder kronor till närmare 60.000 miljarder kronor. Dragloket på Stockholmsbörsen är framför allt Atlas Copco som på tisdagen för första gången passerade 1.000 miljarder kronor i börsvärde. Ulf Petersson DI 6 oktober 2026 https://www.di.se/analys/kurschock-hotar-borsgiganterna/ The 10-year Treasury yield, the most important number in global finance, has now broken through its high from 2007, when a bond sell-off triggered the Global Financial Crisis.  It’s now the highest since 2002. The Nasdaq-100 also set a landmark Monday, rising 0.9% to top 31,000 for the first time. On the face of it, the big tech companies are proving immune to the rising cost of money. Th...

  The country is being hit by a pre-election debt sell-off. Many fear it could shake the Eurozone. France’s debt has reached €3.5tn, at nearly 120 per cent of GDP, far above the Eurozone average. Servicing costs the state’s single biggest expenditure ahead of education or defence. The additional interest rate that France pays to borrow over ultra-safe German debt has surged to around 1.4 percentage points on 10-year debt. In the worst-case scenario, some think the European Central Bank could be forced to come to the rescue. That could come at the cost of demanding structural reforms, such as slashing pension spending, which the French public has long rejected. Financial Times 6 October 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/9b252b46-a87c-45e7-a09a-45a39ce077b8?syn-25a6b1a6=1 In Europe, the shadows of the 2011-12 crisis are emerging again. Lorenzo Bini Smaghi Financial Times 5 October 2026 The writer is a former member of the executive board of the European Central Bank and former chair of...

Overall, as of the second quarter banks’ unrealized losses on securities stood at just under $330 billion, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Banks collectively have added capital in recent years.  As a percentage of banks’ so-called Tier 1 capital, those losses have gone from over 33% in the third quarter of 2022, to around 14% as of the second quarter this year, FDIC data show. Of course, bonds have experienced losses in value since the end of the second quarter as yields have risen.  Yet investors don’t seem reassured by that. The KBW Nasdaq Bank index has slumped almost 9% over the past month Wall Street Journal 5 October 2026 https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/bank-stocks-are-haunted-by-the-ghosts-of-2023-a2a64725

  Magdalena vill låta EU köra över oss om utrikespolitiken - QMV - Beslagta de ryska pengarna i Bryssel, inte bara spärra. Qualified majority voting, based on the double-majority rule, is the main method used by the Council of the European Union to adopt EU legislation. Vetorätten i EU håller på att bli historia. Frankrike och Tyskland har långtgående planer. Magdalena Andersson has big plans for Europe. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/magdalena-vill-lata-eu-kora-over-oss-om.html Teknikbolag drev upp USA-börserna Räntan på den amerikanska 10-åringen nådde sin högsta nivå sedan 2002 och handlades till 5,32 procent. Sportpriset på Brentoljan var ned 2,4 procent, men handlades fortsatt över 100 dollar per fat. Samtidigt klättrar aktiemarknaden vidare och skakar av sig oro för stigande räntor, dyrare energi och inflation. https://www.di.se/live/teknikbolag-drev-upp-usa-borserna-intel-mot-strommen/ Marknaden hoppas på svagare krona. Kronan gillar inte när det är höga räntor i ...

Magdalena Andersson has big plans for Europe  In an exclusive interview with POLITICO conducted on election day, the Social Democrat leader set out her mission to refocus Swedish foreign policy — and to give the EU more muscle.   Andersson wants to scrap the rule granting a veto right to every EU member country on foreign policy. “I think it should be qualified majority … on foreign policy,” she said,  One area where EU leaders tried — and famously failed — to get a unanimous agreement was on whether or not to use Russia’s financial assets, lying immobilized in a Brussels depository, to help fund Ukraine’s mounting costs of defending itself. Efforts to secure a deal foundered last year on legal concerns from Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. The debate was revived in recent weeks by a group of countries led by Germany. What does Andersson think should happen to the assets? “Take them, use them,” she said Politico September 23, 2026  https://www.politico.eu/articl...

  https://www.postfactum.co.uk/

  After a decade of political missteps and global cataclysms that made government spending his go-to solution, popular anger is rising, growth is sinking, debt is soaring and investors are dumping French assets in a global bond market rout that has made it the euro area’s weakest economic link. Bloomberg 4 October 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-04/how-macron-s-decade-in-power-left-france-europe-s-weakest-link Read more: Whispers of Contagion Risk Are Returning to Europe’s Bond Market https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-04/whispers-of-contagion-risk-are-returning-to-europe-s-bond-market You know it’s a European debt crisis when it has an acronym.  This time it’s not a group of countries in serious trouble, the famous PIIGS of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain.  Instead it’s France alone being singled out with FROGS, which stands for French Oversized Government and Social Security (blame Parisian research firm Rexecode for that one...

Trendbrott: Vinden vänder på börsen. ”Dags att hissa spinnakern och dra nytta av medvinden.” Tillväxten på Stockholmsbörsen har varit låg jämfört med många andra marknader det senaste året. Detta beror till stor del på att bolagen mött en kraftfull valutamotvind de senaste åren efter att den svenska kronan stärkts. 100 miljoner dollar i vinst är plötsligt mindre värd i rapporteringsvalutan svenska kronor. Baserat på den genomsnittliga valutakursen under kvartalet har den amerikanska dollarn stärkts med 1 procent mot kronan, medan euron är oförändrad. Ett positivt trendskifte, även om det inte är tal om någon massiv medvind. Den svagare kronan beror sannolikt främst på större ränteskillnader, efter att flera centralbanker har höjt sina räntor medan svenska Riksbanken hittills har legat stilla. Det medför vissa negativa konsekvenser. Det blir dyrare som svensk att åka på semester och bolagen som framförallt importerar produkter från utlandet för att sälja i Sverige, drabbas stenhårt. Rob...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs5fIopDHI8&list=PLaSguNBvHIto Why the household budget myth is dangerous economics Keynes vs MMT: which economic theory fits our world? https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/why-household-budget-myth-is-dangerous.htm Monetary Creation and Destruction - Att skapa och förinta pengar https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/monetary-creation-and-destruction-mcd.html

  Vänsterpartiets kopplingar till terrorklassade islamistiska nätverk blev nyckeln till deras valframgångar. I stället för att verka avskräckande har skandalerna kring partiföreträdare som öppet skyltat med Hamassympatier och deltagit i hyllningar av massakern på Novafestivalen 2023 lockat stora muslimska väljarskaror i utanförskapsområden.  Men dagens vänsterpartier har hittat en väg ut ur socialismens klasskampspolitik – ett arbetarparti utan arbetare har ju ändå ingen framtid.  I stället såg vänstern sin ljusnande framtid i grupper som bär tydliga likheter med palestinarörelsen i fråga om synen på judar. Socialismens djupa rötter i antisionismen, som även Karl Marx gav näring åt, trots att han var jude, kunde således vävas samman med Palestinaaktivismens antisemitiska slagord. Unni Drougge Epoch Times 2026-10-01 https://www.epochtimes.se/vanstern-gar-fran-klasskamp-till-klan Why Bowl Together When You Can Scroll Alone? Bowling was once popular as a family-friendly way ...

  By 1945 the British had painfully discovered that while Tommies and GIs were fighting side-by-side against the Germans and Japanese, back home the Roosevelt administration was striking some very harsh bargains with beleaguered Britain.  Churchill’s nation was obliged to sell its entire foreign assets to American corporations at fire-sale prices, to pay for arms.  Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, wrote in March 1941:  “I have never realized so strongly as now how entirely we are in the hands of American ‘friends’ over direct investments, and how much it looks as if, with kind words and feelings, they were going to extract these one after another.” Max Hastings October 4, 2026   https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-10-04/americans-have-always-been-hard-nosed-in-britain-and-europe Max Hastings is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. His histories include "Inferno: The World At War, 1939–1945," "Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945–1975" and "Ab...

  A British army encampment in Kandahar during the First Anglo-Afghan war (1839-42)  © Getty Images Which power will prevail? As in the 19th-century struggle between the UK and Russia, the answer may depend on forces beyond either’s control. The Thucydides Trap is a nice metaphor, it may not be the best practical historical analogy for what is happening between the US and China. it has much in common with the Great Game between Britain and Russia in the 1800s. For Britain it was about making sure that Russia did not acquire a route into India or make Afghanistan a Russian dependency.  Rana Foroohar Financial Times 3 October 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/8869caf9-3cd1-4300-aeb3-828a4d9da4f9?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Rana Foroohar is the FT’s global business columnist and associate editor. Her book ‘Sea Change: America’s New Great Game in the Arctic’     The Great Game again? https://www.internetional.se/greatgame2008.htm Pakistan and the new great game of Risk https:...

With the premium investors charge to hold French securities over equivalent German bunds hitting the highest since the European debt crisis, speculation is mounting on how far turmoil would need to intensify before ECB steps in with its as-yet-unused firefighting tool. That’s a situation the ECB wanted to avoid when it opted during an Italian bond blowout in 2022 to create the Transmission Protection Instrument, whose very existence was meant to keep financial ructions at bay. Bloomberg 2 October  2026 at 5:23 PM GMT+2 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-02/ecb-s-nightmare-scenario-gets-closer-as-french-bond-yields-surge Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI) https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/06/ecb-officials-see-no-cause-for-alarm.html France’s Crisis Is Deepening as Investors Head for the Exit A selloff in global debt has fueled a rout that’s hitting harder and faster in France than anyone expected, with nerves fraying about missed deficit targets and policy gr...