An event at @bruegel.org this week in which my essay published in June (www.bruegel.org/blueprint/br...) was presented and discussed by the great Stefan Ingves

Imagine trying to explain this headline to someone ten years ago www.thebanker.com/content/dfa7...

Ukraine is considering a cocktail of ideas to keep its finances afloat while it waits for Brussels to greenlight new aid, and a big drop in foreign aid in 2026 looms. See my latest piece for the Kyiv Independent: kyivindependent.com/kyiv-plots-h...

come for the bank sandwiched between a junkyard and a funeral parlour, stay for gems like this: “Everyone wants to focus on money, money, money, but [our relationship with the Trump family] actually started with charity” 300 free clicks. Go: on.ft.com/43eocoS

Teen Vogue did some great journalism around immigration detention and enforcement. Sounds like corporate has now killed that off. The media landscape shrinks even further.

Anyway, we need some joy, so here's the Egyptian foreign minister being given a Lego Pyramid by the Danish foreign minister.

Luxury problem for liberal cosmopolitans, some will say -- but surely another indicator of decline: "America, which topped the index in 2014, has dropped out of the top ten for the first time since the ranking began in 2006. It now shares the 12th tier of passports with Malaysia..."

📈 Supranational supervision: unlocking European capital markets 📅 5 November 2025 13:00-14:00 CET What is the future of European capital markets supervision? w/@rebeccawire.bsky.social , Stefan Ingves & @veron.bsky.social 🔗Sign up: buff.ly/txuvR2b

They call themselves conservatives

Leavitt: At this moment in time, the ballroom is really the president's main priority.

Picture of the East Wing demolition of the White House taken on my flight out of DCA.

Old Soviet joke: Why do ICE agents travel in groups of three? One can read, one can write, and the third keeps an eye on the two intellectuals

Here who has signed the Pentagon's press policy: OAN Epoch Times Federalist Real America’s Voice Lindell TV Gateway Pundit Post Millennial Human Events National Pulse RedState TPUSA Timcast Washington Reporter Daily Signal Just the News & some Turkish media and freelancers

So much for relying on private data. Just as govt shutdown denies the Fed official jobs data, payroll processor ADP stops sharing its data with the Fed. via @wsj.com www.wsj.com/economy/cent...

It flies under the radar because it is overwhelmed by the sheer repulsiveness of the physical destruction of the east wing, but there is no way that a president should be allowed to use private money to change public property. It circumvents the power of the purse.

A few pictures I remember fondly from having a view that stared straight out at the east wing.

Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel.

Chinese exports to Russia 3Q2025 vs 3Q2024 Total -16% Chemicals and plastics +1% Textiles -5% Metals +5% Machinery -7% Electrical equipment -10% Vehicles -57% Others +18% Russia's "recycling fee" on imported cars really doing a number there on China's car exports...

”Brexit has permanently lowered UK output by 4%, according to the government’s official forecaster” 🇬🇧 This was self-evident to anyone with an IQ higher than her/his shoe size, but… www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

My favorite sign at the Montclair NJ No Kings today:

Obligatory photo of my comically large voting card for the Dutch elections. 25+ parties and nearly 1200 candidates competing for a parliament with 150 seats. We are rapidly converging on the point where there’s a party for every voter

It's true what they say: Wikipedia editors react quickly.

The Dutch intelligence services are already sharing less intelligence with the US than they used to, their directors confirm: "Though we do not take any political positions, we are very cognisant of the potential politicisation of how our intelligence gets used by others." nos.nl/artikel/2586...

Meanwhile Pete Hegseth's tie was very telling.

I’m beginning to suspect that Bessent wasn’t actually that involved in the Soros GBP trade

Wikipedia is seeing a significant decline in human traffic because more people are getting the information that’s on Wikipedia via generative AI chatbots that were trained on its articles and search engines that summarize them without actually clicking to the site www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...

J. D. VANCE: We need to end DEI. MONKEY’S PAW: (raises one finger)

EXCLUSIVE: Capitol Police are investigating a swastika found in GOP Rep. Dave Taylor’s office. “The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms," Taylor said in a statement.

Invest 30 seconds to be blown away by how the number of satellites orbiting our lovely planet increased in only the last few years. As weird as Elon is, this is partly his doing. Source: buff.ly/sIliMO0

Meeting Trump in Budapest is perfect. That's where we promised never to invade Ukraine in the first place.

The Trump Family has reportedly made over $1 Billion from crypto ventures

OTD in 2016 Gorbachev stated quite categorically that he never received a promise by NATO not to admit new members to the alliance. He said the idea that Russia was betrayed is a myth. Which triggers my trolls.

Almost like we founded the entire country on opposing this exact sentence.

Per capita GDP in 2025 purchasing-power USD (IMF) Australia 71430 Finland 66512 France 66061 Canada 65500 Cyprus 65304 Korea 65080 European Union 64870 United Kingdom 63759 Italy 63126 Czechia 59853

1995 zealots: the internet will revolutionize society and make everything great 1995 skeptics: the internet is crap and will change nothing Reality: the internet revolutionized society and made everything crap 2025 zealots: AI will revolutionize society and make everything great

Israel sent back Greta Thunberg’s luggage scrawled with “Whore Greta”, an Israeli flag, and a penis.

IMF: Nominal GDP 2025, $ bn 🇺🇸30616 🇪🇺21097 🇨🇳19399 🇩🇪5014 🇯🇵4280 🇮🇳4125 🇬🇧3959 🇫🇷3362 🇮🇹2544 🇷🇺2541 🇨🇦2284 🇧🇷2257 🇪🇸1891 🇲🇽1863 🇰🇷1859 🇦🇺1830 🇹🇷1565 🇮🇩1443 🇳🇱1321 🇸🇦1269 🇵🇱1040 🇨🇭1003

🙃

The face of Russia’s war — silence after destruction. A turret from a Russian T-72B3 lies in the mud, torn from its tank. What was once meant to bring death now looks back like a skull — hollow, empty, defeated.👇

Charles Lichfield and I explain our understanding of the reparations loan setup here. It’s a brilliant way to square the Russian assets circle.

Perhaps instead of Columbus Day we can celebrate Columbian Exchange Day where we celebrate the food pairings that had never been possible before, peppers and onions, chocolate and coffee, basil and tomatoes.

sector racked up losses of Rbs225bn ($2.8bn) in the first seven months of the year, according to Russia’s state statistics agency, double 2024’s total, when it was the country’s worst performing industry. In 2023, the sector generated profits of nearly Rbs375bn ($4.6bn). 🇷🇺 on.ft.com/4nTNGjM

Congratulations to everyone who survived WWIII

The issue in France and Italy in one graph.

I remember sitting in a room listening to Scholz advisor Wolfgang Schmidt blather that Germany couldn’t possibly send Ukraine tanks because there’d be German iron crosses painted on them and then Russia would say Germany was at war with Russia. We’ve come a long way. We can and must go further. 🇺🇦🇩🇪💪

Also rotating Lincoln Memorial www.yahoo.com/news/article...

I am not a #Merkel fan (as many of you know), but the headlines following her interview with Partizan are complete nonsense. She does not blame Poland or the Baltics at all.

Over the weekend, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller repeatedly attacked judges, calling them part of an "organized terrorist attack" on the US government.... On Saturday, the home of a judge who ruled against Trump, went up in flames time.com/7323442/sout...