Englund

Cognitive blind spots are undermining our ability to see the world as it is, rather than as we would like it to be. At the start of the 21st century, western elites generally assumed that globalisation, democracy and the free market were self-evidently good, and would keep spreading, creating peace. N o longer.  FIS, Swiss Federal Intelligence Service, has published a manual about cognitive blind spots. 18 different cognitive biases that hamper our thinking, such as “group think” (adhering to the cosy assumptions of our tribe), “anchoring” (relying exclusively on whatever information we see first, say on social media),  “confirmation bias” (only seeing data that reinforces pre-existing views),  “mirror imaging” (assuming others think like us),  “absence of evidence” bias (failing to think about the data we lack)  and “survivorship bias” (judging data only with success stories, not failures). Gillian Tett Financial Times 2 January 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/...

  €726,000 (typ 8 mkr) in 2024, according to the FT’s calculations https://www.ft.com/content/c7cd22f0-efe5-40de-a448-fa9075926a6a

If a durable change in the relationship between Japanese and foreign interest rates prompts portfolio reallocations by Japanese investors, brace for a major rebalancing of the global financial system. The policy rate, at 0.75%, remains negative in inflation-adjusted terms (prices are rising around 3% annually), but less deeply negative than before.  Meanwhile, the world’s other major central banks—and especially the U.S. Federal Reserve—are cutting their policy rates, narrowing the gap with Japan. Such movements tend to trigger large and unpredictable shifts in Japanese overseas investment.   This isn’t a small matter. Japan’s total foreign portfolio investment amounted to around $4.5 trillion at the end of 2024.  Some portion of this is the so-called carry trade—leveraged, short-term, highly mobile Japanese investments abroad seeking to profit from low domestic rates.  That’s estimated at anywhere between $160 billion and $500 billion and has been sufficient in...

Europe must complete its common institutions. That project requires a distinctly European form of nationalism. For all its flaws, Trump’s critique points to a fundamental truth: a viable state requires a political community.  Without a collective “we,” taxation feels like extortion, laws are perceived as an imposition by outsiders, and military service becomes difficult to justify. Why contribute, comply, or sacrifice if the beneficiaries are not “us”? As Benedict Anderson famously argued, https://www.versobooks.com/products/1126-imagined-communities nation-states are socially constructed “imagined communities”: large enough that most members will never meet, yet real enough to sustain mutual obligations.  This sense of “us” is not a rhetorical flourish; it is the intangible social scaffolding that supports collective action. Any political project – liberal or illiberal, democratic or authoritarian – depends on it. Ricardo Hausmann Project Syndicate Dec 31, 2025 https://www.pr...

US President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategyd  argument rests on a fundamental misreading of Europe’s current predicament.  While the European Union does face an existential threat, it has little to do with immigration or cultural politics. The real threat facing Europe lies in its own economic and technological backwardness. Whether the US or China currently leads the industries of the future remains open to debate. Beyond that, innovation is concentrated in countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, India, and Israel. As Ernest Hemingway famously observed, bankruptcy happens “gradually and then suddenly.”  So far, Europe’s technological decline has been gradual. But if it fails to confront its structural weaknesses, today’s slow erosion could give way to a sudden and irreversible loss of economic relevance. Nouriel Roubini Project Syndicate Dec 30, 2025 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/europe-most-serious-problem-not-immigration-but-technologic...

On Jan 1, Bulgaria became the 21st member of the euro.  Its government has just fallen, there are public protests over corruption, and ordinary Bulgarians, who inevitably were not asked for their views in a referendum, appear very lukewarm about the whole project.  Bulgaria ranks among the poorest countries in the EU, with a GDP per capita of $17,600  compared to $56,000 in Germany and $46,000 in France in 2024.  Still, never mind. The country will be hustled into a monetary union with Germany and France all the same. After all, what could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot, as it happens. On almost any criterion you might care to choose, it would be hard to come up with a much worse candidate for a monetary union with Germany or the Netherlands. Matthew Lynn Telegraph 1 January 2026 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/01/brussels-is-welcoming-the-eus-next-crisis-with-open-arms/