Englund

Foreigners routinely misunderstand Sweden’s secret, a secret that, to some extent, they share with other Nordic countries, but which they embody to a unique degree, given that they are bigger than Denmark, less state-dominated than Norway and more Scandinavian than Finland.  A odd exemplar of “democratic socialism” that has about twice as many billionaires per capita as the US, that provides parents with school vouchers that they can “spend” in public or private schools, and that has a vibrant culture of share ownership, with 22% of Swedes owning shares directly, rather than through intermediaries. A succession of neoliberal governments re-engineered the model from top to bottom.  There are some flies in this ointment, of course: The economy has recently endured a bout of stagnation, unemployment is at an uncomfortably high 9.4% and Sweden has one of Europe’s highest rates of household debt. Polls suggest that a left-of-center coalition will replace the current right-of-cente...

Robin Wigglesworth: It takes skill to blend the sweep of history, the complex nuances of high finance, and the vignettes, characters and observations that make a narrative compelling — and Ahamed absolutely nails it. https://www.ft.com/content/93e4e3a9-197d-47bf-916c-6058e4b6c873 A central part of Ahamed’s argument is that the crash triggered a deflationary struggle as a result of a twist in the 19th-century monetary system. Deflation only ended with the discovery of new sources of gold in South Africa in 1886. On Wall Street today, the AI boom is sometimes compared to the 19th-century railway bonanza, in which an essential infrastructure was built out by adventurers, geniuses and speculators. The modern-day analogy would be a delay in the schedule of model-improvements and data centre build-outs by Anthropic and OpenAI. Many economists believe the 1929 crash — the subject of Ahamed’s previous book, Lords of Finance, winner of the 2009 FT Business Book of the Year Award — was made wors...

Japanese brewer’s Takeshi Minakata says alcohol ‘can be a good thing’ as it ‘helps make people happy’ Heineken chief Dolf van den Brink, who told the FT that beer’s qualities as a “social lubricant” should play an important role in the debate about alcohol.  “In this time of loneliness and a mental health epidemic”, beer’s role in bringing people together was “important to make part of the public debate”, he said. Financial Times 20 June 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/f97a3ea9-29c5-42bb-bf4e-d4f6929b40d1 Regeringen gav Folkhälsomyndigheten i uppdrag att lyfta ”existentiell hälsa”. Nu uttalar sig socialminister Jakob Forssmed (KD) efter Aftonbladets granskning. – Det här är grundläggande för att en människa ska fungera. Syftet var att se om vi kan inkorporera mer av arbetet för att ge utrymme för den här typen av frågor i folkhälsoarbetet, inte nödvändigtvis i sjukvården men i det breda folkhälsoarbetet. Enligt Aftonbladets uppgifter ska den tidigare generaldirektören Karin Tegmark...

 Myndigheterna varnar för temperaturer uppemot 40 grader. – Det kommer bli svåra dagar, sa Frankrikes president Emmanuel Macron inför värmeböljan och uppmanade franska medborgare till ”stor vaksamhet”. SvT 19 juni 2026 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/europa-hukar-sig-for-varmebolja-exceptionella-temperaturer Heat wave in France: 'This is an unprecedented event, with about a one-in-1,000 chance of occurring in a given year' This episode is striking due to its intensity (with temperatures above 35°C), its early arrival, its duration (about 10 days), and its regional reach, as it is affecting all of Western Europe, including the United Kingdom and Ireland.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/05/det-hettar-till.html

  Det är under närmast kuppartade former som Andy Burnham, borgmästare i Manchester, nu tar ytterligare ett steg mot att utmana Keir Starmer om premiärministerposten.  Vinsten innebär att han tar en plats i det brittiska parlamentet – något han som borgmästare inte haft men som i praktiken krävs för att bli partiledare och premiärminister. Den tidigare parlamentsledamoten från Makerfield lämnade för några veckor sedan sin post i syfte att kratta manegen för Burnham. SvD 19 juni 2026 https://www.svd.se/a/n14kkB/anyd-burnham-kan-utmana-starmer-sa-kan-han-ta-makten We shouldn’t overlook what the Makerfield by-election means for Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage.  The by-election result may be the moment that Reform UK's march to power is arrested, as the party failed to win despite leading every opinion poll since April 2025. If, as seems possible, this is the moment that the hard-right populist party’s march to power is arrested, that would ultimately be just as histori...

  Manchester-socialism, Andy Burnham https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/manchester-socialism-andy-burnham.html Burnham will break fiscal rules to borrow, banks warn. MMT. Överskottsmålet. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/burnham-will-break-fiscal-rules-to.html Hillary Rodham Clinton supports Trump’s Gaza plan https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/hillary-rodham-clinton-supports-trumps.html Credit ratings, Tett and Private Credit. 2008 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/credit-ratings-tett-and-private-credit.html Dagen innan https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/18-juni.html

Keir Starmer says Labour should "pull together" following Andy Burnham's win in the Makerfield by-election. In a call with Labour staff, the PM warns against "turning on each other and tearing apart our party and our movement" BBC 19 June 2026 https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c3928mlyle8t Allan Monks at JP Morgan said: “We see a high risk that he would consider a change to the fiscal rules, despite appearing to rule this out in recent weeks.” This would risk delaying interest rate cuts by the Bank of England, which it expects to resume next year. Telegraph 19 June 2026 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/19/pound-burnham-gilts-bond-markets-borrowing-costs-ftse-100/ MMT Statens underskott är ditt överskott https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/statens-underskott-ar-ditt-overskott.html Regeringen kritiseras av Riksrevisionen https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/01/regeringen-kritiseras-av-riksrevisionen.html

EU delays trade confrontation with China; “global macroeconomic imbalances” Leaders opt for dialogue with Beijing rather than immediate action over fears of retaliation. The EU has delayed a trade confrontation with China at a summit that exposed divisions within the bloc over how to deal with cheap imports from Beijing that have eroded European industrial output and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Despite combative rhetoric in the lead-up to the Brussels meeting, the 27 leaders opted for dialogue rather than immediate action to deal with what they called “global macroeconomic imbalances”.  Demanded the EU “stop naivety towards the long-term ambitions of China”.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told reporters when arriving at the summit that China is a “potential ally”. Financial Times 19 June 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/e220372c-b20e-418e-9f02-29a5aa269702?syn-25a6b1a6=1

  Erik Gordon, an American finance professor, posed a pointed question relating to Fool’s Gold, my book about the 2008 financial crisis : should we now feel some déjà vu?  Not because of what is happening with tech stocks nor with Wall Street demands for deregulation. Rather, the issue (once again) is credit ratings.  Before the 2008 crisis, there was a proliferation of financial products that could be used for regulatory arbitrage, playing with the Basel rules to enable banks to reduce the capital reserves they held against defaults.  Credit ratings were crucial to this. Gillian Tett Financial Times 19 June 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/bfcb04a7-8e13-480a-aa59-a13dee53c698?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Gillian Tett https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2020/07/gillian-tett-en-av-mina-gurus.html

The world may not like Trump’s Gaza plan — but there is no alternative. If even I, an implacable opponent of the president, can accept this as the best option, then surely others can too? There is no alternative framework waiting in the wings. No rival coalition is quietly preparing a more viable proposal.  The 20-point plan is not the one many of us would have drafted, but it remains the only framework backed by sufficient leverage, political engagement and potential resources to move the parties towards implementation.  It has been reinforced through a UN Security Council resolution and further advanced by the roadmap from Nickolay Mladenov and the Board of Peace (which seeks to link reconstruction and governance transition to the dismantling of Hamas’s military infrastructure and longer-term stabilisation in Gaza). Without such a plan, the crisis in Gaza will only deteriorate, with Hamas retaining both political and practical influence over a devastated population. Hillary ...

Analysts expect S&P 500 companies’ earnings growth to top 20% for a second consecutive quarter in the current period, in part because of soaring profits by semiconductor makers and other AI-infrastructure companies. This has lent crucial support to the booming stock market, helping keep valuation ratios in check. When Nvidia sells its chips, for instance, it books the revenue and earnings quickly.  But its end customers treat the purchases as capital assets, recognize them only gradually as depreciation on their income statements. So, while the outlays immediately hurt the customers’ free cash flow, they get to spread out the acquisition costs over many years. This is the normal way assets get booked and then gradually written down.  What stands out is the sheer size of the capex boom. Jonathan Weil Wall Street Journao June 18, 2026 https://www.wsj.com/finance/turbocharged-earnings-are-pushing-stocks-higher-theres-a-catch-100839c9 Sällan har investerare varit besatta av et...

Critics of JD Vance think that his key role in the Iran negotiations may end up being an albatross around his neck.  (“If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD,” President Trump said in France this week.) But in our conversation, the vice president seemed buoyant and eager to play the salesman, insisting that the deal is better than the pact President Barack Obama sealed in 2015. I asked him about his initial opposition to the war, his conflict with the pope and whether his political future is riding on the success of the Iran agreement. We also discussed Vance’s new book, “Communion,” Douthat: So let’s start with the most basic question. What is in this deal that is good for America and good for the world that we couldn’t have gotten without three months of military conflict? The Obama-Iran nuclear deal allowed them to generate a stockpile of enriched uranium. Our deal ensures that stockpile is destroyed and eliminated, so that’s a very, very big difference, a very important di...

  Regeringen gav Folkhälsomyndigheten i uppdrag att lyfta ”existentiell hälsa”. Nu uttalar sig socialminister Jakob Forssmed (KD) efter Aftonbladets granskning . – Det här är grundläggande för att en människa ska fungera. Syftet var att se om vi kan inkorporera mer av arbetet för att ge utrymme för den här typen av frågor i folkhälsoarbetet, inte nödvändigtvis i sjukvården men i det breda folkhälsoarbetet. Enligt Aftonbladets uppgifter ska den tidigare generaldirektören Karin Tegmark Wisell varit skeptisk till uppdraget – och kort därefter fått sparken. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/8pEeEA/forssmed-om-existentiell-halsa-viktig-dimension Tove Lifvendahl: Ulf Kristersson och Birgitta Ed  Aftonbladets reporter Lisa Röstlund har gjort en granskning som publicerats i flera delar av den stiftelseverksamhet som statsministerns hustru Birgitta Ed grundade ihop med vännen Göran Thorstenson 2024.  Verksamheten, som är inriktad på andliga retreats med kristna värderingar som...

  At the time of writing, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is America’s fifth-biggest company, its market cap of $2.75 trillion narrowly edging Amazon.com Inc. ($2.65 trillion) into sixth place.  It’s been trading for only three days, but will soon arrive in Nasdaq’s indexes. Even if we assume it’s sensibly valued (a heroic assumption), it poses critical problems for investors, and passive funds in particular. Investors move ever more in crowds, out of a basic instinct for self-preservation. Just like wildebeest on the savannah, there is more safety in the middle of the herd than as an outlier at the front or back, where they will be far more vulnerable to predators. That tendency toward herding gnaws away further at market efficiency.  John Authers Bloomberg June 17, 2026   https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2026-06-17/spacex-is-bad-gnus-for-passive-investing Passive investors have 'fundamentally broken' the market, David Einhorn says. Indexfonder är en fara för aktiem...

 Books of 2026: Economics Titles selected by me RE. Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto by Barry Eichengreen  The Doom Loop: Why the World Economic Order is Spiraling into Disorder by Eswar Prasad  Eswar Prasad argues that globalization and populism have entered a destructive feedback cycle https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/eswar-prasad-argues-that-globalization.html Keynes for Our Times by Robert Skidelsky Martin Wolf FT 17 June 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/96e24668-b203-4c78-92dd-99351fc04a09?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Options markets show optimism is giving way to euphoria It is not enough for investors merely to book tomorrow’s profits today. Share prices really come unstuck from reality only after a mania takes hold. Then comes the grim doggedness of revellers who know the next morning’s hangover will be dreadful and are determined to put it off for as long as possible. Then, when it no longer is, comes the crash. SpaceX... Options are often described as insurance contracts: a simple “put” option, for instance, confers the right but not the obligation to sell a stock for a set “strike” price on an expiry date. This allows an investor to own the stock while limiting losses should prices crash—in return for paying to buy the option in the first place. Today, however, much of the options market is better understood as a casino in which punters gamble on stock prices. Volumes recorded in 2025 were nearly double those in 2020, itself a blow-out year.  And trading in ultra-short contracts, which are...

Investors around the world are flocking back to the US dollar in a bet that the AI boom will help the world’s biggest economy to outshine its peers this year and force the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates high.  FT 17 June 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/c2369546-6857-47fe-84bb-30f4290c9bb5?syn-25a6b1a6=1 The end of US exceptionalism  oktober 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-end-of-us-exceptionalism.html

I maj steg villapriserna i riket med 1,2 procent medan bostadsrätterna ökade 0,3 procent, visar Svensk Mäklarstatistik.  Det senaste året är dock utvecklingen den omvända, med en prisökning på 4,4 procent för bostadsrätter och 2,2 procent för villor. Särskilt stark har utvecklingen varit i centrala Stockholm, med en prisuppgång på närmare 8 procent sedan maj förra året.  I maj var dock priserna i princip oförändrade jämfört med månaden innan. DN 2026-06-05 https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/fortsatt-stark-bostadsmarknad-stigande-villapriser-i-maj/

Längst ner i söder, där landhöjningen efter istiden är näst intill obefintlig, sker redan nu en allt dyrare kamp mot havet.  Sedan början av 1990-talet har havet redan stigit med omkring 5-10 centimeter längs med Skånes, Hallands och Blekinges kust, enligt SMHI:s mätningar. – Södra Skåne är absolut värst utsatt. Det sker nästan ingen landhöjning där och kusten består av lösa sediment som gör det väldigt utsatt för erosion. DN 17 juni 2026 https://www.dn.se/sverige/tusentals-svenska-hus-hotas-av-havet/ Havsnivåhöjning: Vad det är, varför det är viktigt och vad kan man göra? Två viktiga faktorer tros bidra specifikt till detta. För det första, när planetens temperatur stiger, börjar vattnet i våra hav att fysiskt expandera och därmed ta upp mer plats. Vattenexpansionen ansvarar för ungefär en tredjedel av förändringen i havsnivån. För det andra gör högre globala temperaturer också att olika inlandsisar smälter på olika platser. Denna smältning står för de återstående två tredjedelarn...

 De två utpekade läkarna i da Costa-fallet får två miljoner vardera i ersättning ex gratia (”av nåd”) från staten. – Det här på grund av det omfattande lidande som de har fått utstå, säger justitieminister Gunnar Strömmer (M). SvT 16 juni 2026 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/besked-om-ersattning-i-da-costa-fall Jan Guillou menar att det på redaktionerna i Stockholm härskade en tystnadskultur som försvårade all kritik.   Det gick en lynchvåg genom hela pressen. Nästan ingen vågade säga ifrån mot aktivisterna inne på redaktionerna som ropade: Korsfäst, korsfäst, korsfäst! Det var de etablerade medierna som, i samspel med de rättsvårdande myndigheterna, frammanade bilden av två monster. Men det dröjde mer än ett decennium innan det skedde, tack vare Per Lindebergs ”Döden är en man”. När boken publicerades 1999 betraktades den ännu som omstridd. Peter Wolodarski  DN 8 december 2024 Bokförlaget Fischer gav ut Mediemordet av Per Lindeberg, en bok som försvarade de utpekade l...

America’s net liabilities to the rest of the world have reached an extraordinary 90 per cent of GDP.  G7 has rightly taken notice.  President Emmanuel Macron has placed the restoration of balanced and sustainable growth at the heart of France’s G7 presidency; my colleagues and I have set out the diagnosis and the cure in a memo. Imbalance results from the dynamics of saving and investment.  Capital has poured into US equities, where the “Magnificent Seven” account for roughly 33 per cent of the S&P 500; valuations are stretched, risk premiums thinner than on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis and more credit f lows through opaque non-bank intermediaries.  US public debt, near 120 per cent of GDP, is rolled over in shorter maturities — and the buyer base is shifting in a worrying way as a growing share is absorbed by price-sensitive domestic investors and leveraged hedge funds, leaving the world’s most important safe-asset market more prone to sudden bouts of i...

Ny pyspunka på Stockholmsbörsen Stockholmsbörsen tappade återigen stora delar av uppgångarna från morgonens positiva öppning.  https://www.di.se/live/ny-pyspunka-pa-stockholmsborsen/ Positiva tongångar på Wall Street: ”Allt stiger i sommar” DI 16 juni 2026, 16:51 https://www.di.se/live/positiva-tongangar-pa-wall-street-allt-stiger-i-sommar/ ä Rotation från teknik tyngde Wall Street https://www.di.se/live/rotation-fran-teknik-tyngde-wall-street/ Bank Of Japan Raises Rate to 31-Year High; to 1%  Bloomberg 16 June 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/boj-hikes-rate-to-31-year-high-at-meeting-with-governor-absent US and Iran Prepare for Deal Signing With Both Claiming Victory https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/trumps-avtal-valjarna-och-irans.html Dagen innan https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/15-juni-avtal-oppnar-hormuz.html

Efter den stora börskraschen på Wall Street i oktober 1929 kastades den amerikanska ekonomin ned i en depression vars djup inte har skådats i mannaminne. Kongressen drev då igenom de ökända Smoot–Hawley-tullarna. Övriga industriländer, med Frankrike och Storbritannien i spetsen, följde efter USA och stängde in sina egna ekonomier bakom höga tullmurar.  Ett av de länder som drabbades hårt av det globala handelskriget var Japan, vars exportföretag dittills levt högt på export av varor till de europeiska kolonierna i Asien.  När dessa marknader krympte kraftigt för japanska varor blev följden depression och stigande arbetslöshet i Japan, vilket bidrog till att stärka militaristiska och ultranationalistiska strömningar i landet. I denna miljö av ekonomisk kris och växande militarism invaderade Japan Manchuriet i september 1931. Detta var åtta år före Hitlers invasion av Polen och drygt tio år före Pearl Harbor. Gunnar Örn Epoch Times 11 juni 2026 https://www.epochtimes.se/handelsk...

Många påpekar att avtalet, egentligen bara ett memorandum, är oklart och att man inte riktigt vet vart det bär. Det blev inte Unconditional surrender, som med Tyskland och Japan efter VK2. Då måste en överenskommelse vara sådan att båda sidor gentemot sina uppdragsgivare kan hävda att det är en framgång. Trump måste övertyga väljarna och media. Irans ledare, vilka de nu är, måste ävertyga det Revolutionära Gardet.  Väljarna i USA, liksom väljarna i Sverige, är bekymrade över bensinpriset. De islamistiska gardisterna slår vakt om islamismen som styrelseform. Kriget har  visat att Irans krigsmakt var betydligt starkare och mer välutrustad än vad många hade trott.  Men det visar väl att faran från Iran var större än vad många hade trott. US and Iran Prepare for Deal Signing With Both Claiming Victory Bloomberg 16 juni 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/us-and-iran-prepare-for-deal-signing-with-both-claiming-victory 15 juni. Avtal öppnar Hormuz. https://e...

For decades, the central bank believed talking openly made its policy work better. Its new chairman believes the opposite As a Fed governor through the 2008-09 crisis, Warsh had a front-row seat watching Ben Bernanke pioneer two of the central bank’s biggest innovations this century—a far larger holding of bonds and a more systematic practice of explaining its moves. Bernanke was extending a shift Alan Greenspan began in the 1990s, when the Fed first started announcing its rate decisions and signaling where they might head. Nick Timiraos Wall Street Journal June 14, 2026 https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/fed-warsh-chair-communication-d2f2d226 Ending forward guidance. Centralbanker skall INTE vara förutsägbara. Englund blogg mars 2014 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/05/ending-forward-guidance-centralbanker.html

  Actress Inde Navarrette carries a bag by Chanel, which has mounted a successful push to refresh its handbag lineup. Aeon/GC Images Status symbols are an odd thing. Some purchases, like a mansion, have never lost their power to flaunt wealth. Pineapples—which were once so rare and expensive that they became the 17th century’s equivalent of the Birkin—fell out of fashion as soon as rising supply meant the middle classes could afford them too. A question for luxury brands and their shareholders now is whether handbags are more like expensive property or pineapples.   Wall Street Journal 15 June 2026 https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/is-the-luxury-handbags-heyday-ending-ed1a589e The bursting of the Birkin bubble; What Hermes Can Learn From Rolex and Ferrari https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-bursting-of-birkin-bubble-what.html There’s an old Wall Street saying that “the stock market is not the economy.” https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/03/who-exactly...