Englund

 Google Translate: Hur fentanyl blev en del av tullekvationen beror på produktion och smuggling av en opioid som har orsakat hundratusentals amerikaners dödsfall i överdoser. USA har länge pressat Mexiko, den överlägset största källan till fentanyl, att göra mer för att stoppa drogens produktion och export och de penningtvättsaktiviteter som är avgörande för droghandeln. Kanada kom in i bilden på grund av den växande närvaron av mexikanska karteller där. How fentanyl became part of the tariff equation comes down to the production and smuggling of an opioid that has caused the overdose deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.  The U.S. has long pressured Mexico, by far the main source of fentanyl, to do more to halt the drug’s production and export, and the money-laundering activities that are vital to the drug trade. Canada entered the picture because of the growing presence of Mexican cartels there. Wall Street Journal 4 February 2025 https://www.wsj.com/politics/how-fen...

  While Tuesday’s figures don’t include the social security system or local government finances, they indicate some positive momentum in efforts to slow the rise in France’s debt burden. The new prime minister, Francois Bayrou, will face a similar ballot on Wednesday after also using a constitutional tool on Monday to bypass a vote on a new finance bill. Bloomberg 4 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-04/france-s-smaller-state-deficit-gives-some-respite-in-budget-woes Bayrou said over the weekend that he would use a constitutional provision — called Article 49.3 — that allows him to skip a vote in the National Assembly and force legislation through.  Use of this mechanism allows members of parliament to call a no-confidence vote, and far-left lawmakers have already said they would table such a motion. Bloomberg 3 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-03/france-s-premier-risks-turmoil-in-budget-showdown-what-to-watch Tillbaka ti...

  Kina svarar nu på USA:s tullar  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/kina-svarar-nu-pa-usas-tullar.html Trump och Fentanyl  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/trump-och-fentanyl.html Mercedes-Benz Formula One Race Car Sells for $53 Million https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/mercedes-benz-formula-one-race-car.html French government faces no-confidence vote on Wednesday https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/french-government-faces-no-confidence.html By 2028, US will need to boost annual electricity generation by as much as 26 per cent https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/by-2028-us-will-need-to-boost-annual.html USA-börserna vände upp  Spotify upp över 13 procent.  Börsvärde 1.380 miljarder kronor. https://www.di.se/live/usa-borserna-vande-upp-spotify-rusade-tvasiffrigt/ Efter en svag inledning på tisdagshandeln hade Stockholmsbörsen  lagom till stängning klättrat hela vägen upp till positivt territorium. https://www.di.se/live/b...

  The 1954 Streamliner The second-highest sum paid at auction for a car, following the world-record $142 million spent on a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé in 2022.  The Uhlenhaut car had crushed the previous record of $48.4 million paid for a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO in 2018.  Having been driven by two of racing’s most decorated drivers, Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss; Fangio drove it to victory at an exhibition-style Formula race in Buenos Aires in 1955. The Streamliner is one of four like it; the Uhlenhaut is one of two. Bloomberg 1 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-01/-53-million-mercedes-benz-streamliner-formula-one-car-sells-in-germany Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 4 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-4-februari-2025.html

  med att införa egna handelstullar på 10 procent på amerikanska varor.  På kol och naturgas höjs tullen till 15 procent.  SvD/TT 4 februari 2025 https://www.svd.se/a/RzXaR2/usa-s-tullar-mot-kina-har-tratt-i-kraft Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 4 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-4-februari-2025.html

  from 2023 levels to meet demand, far higher than any supply growth the US has achieved in the past two decades Nearly 45 per cent of this demand growth is being driven by the construction of power-hungry data centres required to support the rollout of AI technologies.     Financial Times 4 February 2025 https://www.ft.com/content/47dbfee3-5517-43c6-85ab-dfe86d2d4085 Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 4 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-4-februari-2025.html

Den amerikanska fondjätten Vanguard gör stora fondavgiftssänkningar.  Det får i sin tur världens största fondbolag Blackrocks aktie att falla brant på måndagens börs då Vanguard är en av Blackrocks största konkurrenter. Efter sänkningen är Vanguards genomsnittsavgift 0,07 procent, att jämföra med 0,44 procent för hela fondbranschen. Dagens industri 3 februari 2025 https://www.di.se/live/chockvag-hotar-fondbranschen-efter-kapade-avgifter/ Fjolåret blev strålande för flera av de största fondbolagen https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/07/fjolaret-blev-stralande-for-flera-av-de.html Frida Bratt konstaterar att det är väldigt svårt att tajma börsen Den totala fondförmögenheten är nu 8,2 biljoner kronor Maria Landeborn råder hushållen att behålla sina Sverige-fonder. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/01/frida-bratt-konstaterar-att-det-ar.html Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 3 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-3-februari-2025.html

Det pågår en global renässans för kärnkraften. Bakom den står inte främst EU och USA.  I stället drivs den av de två länder som pekas ut som de stora hoten mot den rådande världsordningen: Ryssland och Kina.  Av de 52 reaktorer som börjat byggas sedan 2017 har 25 kinesisk design och 23 rysk design, konstaterade IEA   Kontrasten mot väst är tydlig.  Här pratar politiker om att de vill bygga många nya reaktorer och det folkliga stödet ökar. Men när det sker, som i Storbritannien, Frankrike eller Finland, går det långsamt och blir väldigt dyrt. Diktaturernas försprång beror förstås delvis på att de ofta kan bortse från sånt som miljöhänsyn, mänskliga rättigheter, folkliga protester, konkurrensregler eller frågor om slutförvar (den sistnämnda frågan tycks för övrigt ha dött även i den svenska debatten). Diktaturerna bygger många reaktorer. Därför är de bra på att bygga reaktorer.  I väst bygger vi få reaktorer – och är, av resultaten att döma, dåliga på det. Oc...

  Governments and banks will struggle to cope with the soaring costs of natural catastrophes such as floods and wildfires More households will be unable to insure their homes  and  the mounting losses from natural disasters could destabilise banks,  Petra Hielkema, chair of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, told the Financial Times. Financial Times 3 February 2025 https://www.ft.com/content/32b588a7-b470-4012-8bc2-f9eea3f17902

  Consumer prices advanced 2.5% from a year ago Core inflation, which strips out volatile components, stayed higher than anticipated at 2.7% unchanged inflation in Germany and France, and accelerations in Italy and Spain. Bloomberg 3 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-03/euro-zone-inflation-unexpectedly-quickens-backing-ecb-caution

   Nivån är inte helt rimlig, enligt Robert Bergqvist som hänvisar till en modell som räknar ut valutors fundamentala värdering.  Den visar att kronan handlas till nivåer som är cirka 30 procent för svagt. Dagens industri 3 februari 2025 https://www.di.se/nyheter/dollarn-starks-efter-tullbeskedet-en-huvudvark-for-riksbanken/ Det är dollarn bakom allt - Monetary Creation and Destruction del 5 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/det-ar-dollarn-bakom-allt-monetary.html Chockvåg hotar fondbranschen efter kapade avgifter https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/chockvag-hotar-fondbranschen-efter.html Samtidigt som osäkerheten ökat är grundförutsättningarna för börsen. enligt Maria Landeborn, senior strateg på Danske Bank, fortfarande goda.  ”I grund och botten så har vi fortfarande samma förutsättningar som tidigare: en väldigt stark amerikansk ekonomi med låg arbetslöshet, en rätt stabil rapportsäsong och centralbanker som har börjat sänka räntorna tack vare att i...

 ”Jag har propagerat länge för att det behövs en stor satsning, inte tio små”, säger professorn och Silo-grundaren Peter Sarlin som ska leda EU-forskarna. EU-kommissionens satsning ”Euro HPC” – kort för ”high performance computing”. Donald Trump presenterade nyligen projektet Stargate – ett samarbete mellan investerare, AI-experter och molnjättar som tillsammans säger sig villiga att lägga över 500 miljarder dollar över fyra år på amerikansk AI-utveckling, inte minst genom att bygga datacenter och infrastruktur. EU-kommissionens initiala bidrag till Open Euro är 54 miljoner euro, motsvarande 620 miljoner kronor. Det inkluderar dock inte kostnaderna för att träna de kommande AI-modellerna. ”Det är huvudsakligen för löner”, förklarar Peter Sarlin Peter Sarlin blir i egenskap av professor och grundare av finländska Silo – som jobbar nära Wallenbergs Combient-nätverk DI 3 februari 2025 https://www.di.se/digital/de-bygger-europas-deepseek-ai-profilen-ska-leda-forskarna/ EuroHPC JU is a ...

  The rally in the German capital comes in the wake of the conservative CDU/CSU leaning on the support of the far-right AfD in parliament to push through a migration bill.  Protesters chanted "Shame on you CDU." Deutsche Welle 2 februari 2025 https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-160000-protest-against-cdu-afd-collaboration/a-71487600 The German parliament has rejected Friedrich Merz's immigration bill https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-german-parliament-has-rejected.html Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 3 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-3-februari-2025.html

  DN 3 februari 2025 https://www.dn.se/varlden/bill-gates-i-dag-hade-jag-fatt-diagnosen-autism/

Markets didn’t want to believe that Trump really meant broad tariffs, because they’re such a plainly bad idea. At the time of writing, dramatic moves in all three affected currencies make clear that doubt persisted even after President Donald Trump’s verbal announcement Friday Trump himself suggested to reporters Friday that the levies weren’t meant as fentanyl or border bargaining tools, but were rooted in large trade deficits That’s an argument for sustained tariffs, which would have sustained effects.  If that’s right, the longer-term consequences for the global order are profound… John Authers Bloomberg 3 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-03/how-stupid-is-this-trade-war-let-me-count-the-ways The FT View The absurdity of Donald Trump’s trade war Donald Trump has fired the first shots in what threatens to become a devastating trade war. He made use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, yet that law has not previously been used to enact...

We got a problem... Varför gör Trump som  han gör? En av förklaringarna är att USA - och därmed hela världen - har ett problem. - It is our currency, but is your problem. Dollarkursen ger USA sämsta  konkurrenskraften på 40 år https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/01/dollarkursen-ger-usa-samsta.html Flexible exchange rates, fear of floating & the reality of the global exchange rate system; Adam Tooze Nivån är inte helt rimlig, enligt Robert Bergqvist som hänvisar till en modell som räknar ut valutors fundamentala värdering.  Den visar att kronan handlas till nivåer som är cirka 30 procent för svagt. Dagens industri 3 februari 2025 https://www.di.se/nyheter/dollarn-starks-efter-tullbeskedet-en-huvudvark-for-riksbanken/ USA:s handelsunderskott var under november månad 78 miljarder dollar https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/01/usas-handelsunderskott-okade-i-november.html U.S. trade deficit in August $94 billion.  11.300 miljarder SEK på årsbasis. U.S. trade defi...

He is a conservative — absolutely not the MAGA kind — who has advised government officials and gets read by lots of important people. He is now a doomsayer. “We have to be able to consider,” “that literally anything can happen to us.”  he writes in a new book entitled  Waste Land: A World In Permanent Crisis Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis: Kaplan, Robert D.: 9780593730324: Amazon.com: Books Kaplan’s message is that our only hope as human beings in a chaotic and dangerous world moving at breathtaking speed is to act with moderation and restraint. Max Hastings Bloomberg 2 februari 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-02/the-us-must-avoid-isolationism-a-path-to-nowhere Trump, US decline, and global chaos - Robert D Kaplan interview | US politics | The New Statesman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wad8J2hRdpo&t https://robertdkaplan.com/robert_d_kaplan_bio.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Kaplan Konservatismer och Carl-Oskar Bohlin https:...

  SvD 1 Februari 2025 https://www.svd.se/a/KMXrR7/borstapp-att-vanta-efter-trumps-tullar Det är dollarn bakom allt -  Monetary Creation and Destruction del 5 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/det-ar-dollarn-bakom-allt-monetary.html Konservatismer och Carl-Oskar Bohlin https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/konservatismer-och-carl-oskar-bohlin.html Robert Kaplan - He is a conservative — absolutely not the MAGA kind —  who has advised government officials and gets read by lots of important people Robert Kaplan - you don’t read first thing in the morning if you want to enjoy the rest of the day The blogger who helped spark Nvidia’s $600 billion collapse  and a panic in Silicon Valley  “It took Deepseek about 12 seconds.” Alibaba’s Qwen team released a new family of AI models, Qwen2.5-VL Dagen innan  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/01/rolfs-lanktips-31-januari-2025.html Mest lästa inlägg    The German parliament has rejected Friedric...

...  that can perform a number of text and image analysis tasks. The models can parse files, understand videos, and count objects in images, as well as control a PC — similar to the model powering OpenAI’s recently launched Operator. Per the Qwen team’s benchmarking, the best Qwen2.5-VL model beats OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash  on a range of video understanding, math, document analysis, and question-answering evaluations. https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/27/alibabas-qwen-team-releases-ai-models-that-can-control-pcs-and-phones/ DeepSeek Just Lost to Alibaba’s New AI! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GQe7FUkZBA&t Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 1-2 Februari 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/02/rolfs-lanktips-1-2-februari-2025.html

France’s 2025 public deficit will represent 5.4% of its gross domestic product  Bayrou also said the European Central Bank should be cutting interest rates. “Otherwise, we won’t be on the same footing against Chinese and US competition,”  The ECB has made five cuts to 2.75% since June amid stalling growth in the region. Bloomberg 2 February 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-02/french-government-to-seek-budget-adoption-monday-premier-says

  Konservatismer redigerad av Hugo Fiévet och Tony Gunnarsson visar att konservatismen har många perspektiv att bidra med. Visst var det ett ideologiskt tal som ministern för civilt försvar, Carl-Oskar Bohlin (M), höll på Folks och försvars rikskonferens i Sälen häromveckan. https://www.regeringen.se/tal/2025/01/tal-av-minister-for-civilt-forsvar-carl-oskar-bohlin-pa-folk-och-forsvars-rikskonferens-2025/ Inte bara det. Talet hade en tydlig konservativ prägel. Bohlin hade blickat ut genom sitt köksfönster på gården i Dalarna och reflekterade över de människor som före honom suttit på samma plats och tittat ut genom samma fönster. Sydöstrans politiska chefredaktör Stig-Björn Ljunggren, som doktorerat på moderaternas idéhistoria, gav anförandet det passande namnet ”Köksfönstertalet”. https://www.sydostran.se/2025-01-13/koksfonstertalet/ Catarina Starfelt (före detta Kärkkäinen) skriver i sitt kapitel förtjänstfullt om den "omöjliga" legeringen liberalkonservatism, en idétraditio...

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader, who is tipped to be Germany's next chancellor,  had tried to rely on support from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party for the second time in a week - but the bill was defeated by 350 votes to 338. The strategy was widely condemned, including by Merz's predecessor as CDU leader and former chancellor Angela Merkel,  who accused him of turning his back on a previous pledge not to work with AfD in the Bundestag. Merz defended his actions as "necessary" and said he had not sought the party's support. "A right decision doesn't become wrong just because the wrong people agree to it," he said. The CDU leader had been hoping that a tougher stance on migration would win over supporters of the AfD - but his reliance on that party for this vote risks losing more moderate voters. BBC 31 January 2025 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyegkpkg31o Germany's Friedrich Merz calls for permanent border controls He said e...

  The blogger who helped spark Nvidia’s $600 billion stock collapse and a panic in Silicon Valley  Jeffrey Emanuel says Wall Street banks that are bullish on Nvidia ‘have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about’ Last Friday afternoon, Jeffrey Emanuel sat down in his Brooklyn apartment and started writing a blog post. For hours, he pounded away on his keyboard while his wife kept their young children occupied and brought him food.  Emanuel worked late into the night, and by early Saturday morning he had written nearly 12,000 words. Emanuel’s manifesto made the case for shorting the hottest company in the stock market. MarketWatch 1 February 2025 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-blogger-who-helped-spark-nvidias-600-billion-stock-collapse-and-a-panic-in-silicon-valley-52aba340 Whatever AI’s “Sputnik moment” ultimately means for stocks, the boost to labor productivity may come sooner than expected. In a post on Substack on Monday, Stony Brook University Professor o...

“There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen,” says a quote from Vladimir Lenin, who may have copied it from someone else.  US companies like Nvidia (NVDA) would profit from making those chips, which other US companies would buy and use to develop AI applications in vast new US data centers.  The main worry was getting enough electricity to power it all. China, it was thought, would be hobbled for lack of the necessary chips, and thus present little competition. DeepSeek just poked a massive hole in that happy narrative.  When the topic involves China and technology, one of my go-to sources is Gavekal Research.  They know how the Chinese economy works and are really good at explaining it in ways Westerners can understand. Louis Gave knew DeepSeek was a gamechanger as soon as he saw it. He posted a report calling this Another Sputnik Moment. Gavekal’s Beijing-based tech analyst Tilly Zhang followed up with a deeper explanation. This is a good...

  Pessimism prevails on the continent as businesses turn their eyes to Trump’s America.   No single, acute crisis explains the pessimism; it’s a complex of pathologies.   Almost everything has gone wrong for Europe in the past few years. It has struggled with Covid, a spike in the cost of energy and the rise of far-right parties who despise the European project.  China threatens its markets, Russia threatens its territory, and Trump threatens both. Seven U.S. stocks are worth more than the stock markets of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland, combined. Greg Ip Wall Street Journal 31 January 2025 https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/the-darkening-skies-over-europes-economy-76e51f90?mod=panda_wsj_digest

  Freeland, who is running to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister, called for a swift, punitive reaction by Ottawa  if the US president follows through on his threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting this weekend. Financial Times 31 January 2025      https://www.ft.com/content/f177fcbe-d632-4685-8541-ac537ba227f6

Europe’s perfect storm Discussions of competitiveness are front and centre in Europe right now. European Commission’s new Competitiveness Compass, its answer to the Draghi report, calls for the EU to build its own artificial intelligence infrastructure I lived and worked in Europe for 10 years, just when the single currency was introduced. It was an optimistic time.  But since then Europe has lagged the US on pretty much every economic metric, from growth and per capita income to the size of capital markets and the number of high-value technology companies. But they also reminded me of the conversation Europe has been having for two decades about capital market integration, deepening cross-border ties in the services industries and creating a true fiscal union.  So far, so 2005.    Rana Foroohar Financial Times 2 February 2025 https://www.ft.com/content/7e37b937-9ccd-44fd-bcbf-156b27fa90ec We need faster economic growth and higher productivity to protect the quality ...

  US President Donald Trump has threatened BRICS nations with 100% tariffs if they replace the US dollar as reserve currency. The BRICS group consists primarily of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.  In the last few years, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran and Indonesia have also joined the group, bringing the number of members to eleven.  Deutsche Welle 31 January 2025 https://www.dw.com/en/trump-threatens-brics-with-tariffs-if-they-replace-us-dollar/a-71464802

Förra gången, typ 2008, trodde alla att fastigheter bara kunde gå upp.  Nu tror alla att dollarn, upptrissad av alla som vill investera i USA , bara kan gå upp. Frågan om det blir en sjunkande dollar som utlöser nästa stora grej, eller om det blir sjunkande kurser på Wall Street som utlöser dollarfallet. Det blir i vart fall en intressant tid när både dollarn och Wall Street sjunker samtidigt. Om denna spådom infrias kommer jag att påminna om detta inlägg. Annars får det försjunka i mediabrusets brunn. 31 januari 2025 Rolfs länktips 31 januari 2025