“There is risky lending and underlying credit risk built up in private credit already,” said one banker close to data centre financing deals. “This creates a very interesting set-up for the next several years, as you have two material risks to the outlook becoming more intertwined.”

Remember when every leader wanted their picture taken with Greta? She is still that truth teller, they just can't face the truth of their crimes.

Yet more proofs that cops can’t read www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

So you can be arrested for supporting imprisoned peaceful protesters who may die on hunger strike. Interesting. The government makes itself worse and more cruel daily. Excellent of Greta Thunberg to do this to heighten concern for their plight.

Starmer & Reeves cave again. Government waters down inheritance tax plan for farms www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

‘AI-related borrowing now accounts for around 30 per cent of net investment grade issuance, according to Goldman Sachs, and is expected to grow in 2026, despite concerns over the level of debt being taken on by the AI “hyperscalers”.’

And now Greta Thunberg has been arrested in London by the geniuses of the Met. drive.proton.me/urls/1GP1402...

1/ Peter Thiel-who backs the "network state" movement & the construction of charter cities—wrote a preface for "The Sovereign Individual," a book that states in part as follows:

Habermas was at his best in the 1980s, with The Theory of Communicative Action, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity & his intervention in the Historikerstreit. Since then he has abandoned the radicalised Enlightenment for an apologia for actually existing liberalism .. 1/

Interesting piece that argues that Meloni, who has just helped to block the EU seizure of Russian assets, hasn’t mellowed, but remains rooted in the violent street-fighting fascism of the 1970s &, just like Trump, is working to undermine liberal institutions.

Ariel Dorfman on Chile. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/o...

How Trump’s ‘diplomacy’ with Iran facilitated the Israeli assault in June.

MPs laughed as a minister rejected request to meet with families of imprisoned Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers. Jeremy Corbyn said there were “deep concerns” about the wellbeing of the prisoners, during Justice Questions in Westminster on Tuesday. www.thenational.scot/news/2570167...

Useful background to the far-right victory in Chile. newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

‘In this time of great power competition, Trump’s odyssey has been eye-opening. He has revealed the potency of China’s stranglehold on the world’s most precious commodities. And he has told everyone else that they are on their own. “America first” works as an election slogan. In the real world, … 1/

My latest column, on being as radical as reality itself. socialistworker.co.uk/alex-callini...

The Australian socialist group Solidarity @solidarity-aus.bsky.social reacts to the Bondi massacre. solidarity.net.au/top/bondi-be...

I bet Miran (and Trump) think inflation is only ‘real’ when the Democrats are in the White House. www.ft.com/content/7d37... Fed decisions distorted by ‘phantom inflation’, says Stephen Miran

Good read about an important anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, anti-war activist and revolutionary socialist who contributed to building the International Socialist Tendency.

A celebration of Duncan Hallas for the centenary of his birth. socialistworker.co.uk/in-depth/dun...

The Today programme continues its decline - on the one hand normalising the far right (interview with ex-boss of Frontex, now Ralliment national MEP), on the other amplifying Netanyahu’s attempt to use the horrible antisemitic massacre in Sydney to shore up Israel.

‘The one constant trigger for a crash, going back to the railroad bubbles of the 19th century, has been rising interest rates and tightening financial conditions. So while we are clearly in a bubble, it could keep growing until the money inflating it starts drying up.’

A fine portrait of Trotsky in Coyoacán by one of his secretaries there, Raya Dunayevskaya (then Rae Spiegel). www.socialistworld.net/2025/12/14/t...

‘Dyuti Pandya, an analyst at the European Centre for International Political Economy specialising in the intersection of law and tech, said the EU had applied the mindset of the “internet age” to the much more fast-moving and volatile world of AI and quantum computing.’

Stanley Morison, who invented Times New Roman, ‘a life-long Marxist and pacifist, was a conscientious objector who turned down a knighthood. Not the likeliest of Maga allies.’ www.ft.com/content/f337... Rubio is not alone in going to war over fonts

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

The AI bubble is ‘best understood less as an investment in humanity, and more as an investment in corporate immortality.’ www.ft.com/content/1258... Could America win the AI race but lose the war?

Two good pieces this week by @edwardluce.bsky.social on the politics of Big Tech. www.ft.com/content/8a2c... Trump is choosing the broligarchs over his base

Comment le monde trumpiste applique à l’Europe sa propre obsession du déclin

Looks like @financialtimes.com is backing Wes Streeting to replace Starmer and reverse Brexit.

Asad Haider Obituary www.legacy.com/us/obituarie...

www.ft.com/content/507f... The Fed is stuck

So Trump’s NSS is really about defining how US imperialism can sustain itself when its hegemony is being challenged by rivals that sense its weakness. And it’s going to be much tougher for traditional US allies such as EU & JPN. Trump summed it up recently, “A lot of our allies aren’t our friends.”

My latest column, on Trump’s new National Security Strategy. socialistworker.co.uk/alex-callini...

An interesting straw in the wind … www.ft.com/content/3e2b... What would an Angela Rayner government look like?

A Palantir billionaire just called for public hangings. “It's time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable,” writes Joe Lonsdale. This is where Silicon Valley authoritarianism is heading: www.thenerdreich.com/joe-lonsdale...

‘There are thinkers like Hegel for whom history is essentially over, and others like Schopenhauer for whom it doesn’t matter much whether it is or not, given the immutable nature of human wretchedness.’ Terry Eagleton on Schopenhauer’s gloom: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

More evidence that Trump isn’t into confronting China. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Japan frustrated at Trump administration’s silence over row with China

‘The final postscript has to go to former Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes though, who in late 2010 shrugged off the success of a small but rising rival called Netflix, telling the NYT: “It’s a bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over the world? I don’t think so.”’

Interesting review of two new books on US foreign policy in the Middle East. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... The sorry history of US policy in the Middle East

Excellent deconstruction of that Sarah Hurwitz speech by Lorna Finlayson. newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

Our front page looks a little different this morning, and that’s because we have decided to publish a timeline of the so-called 'ceasefire' in Gaza, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s brutal apartheid regime continues to claim lives 👇

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... The US slowdown, and how it ends

‘Diplomats warned the sheer audacity was a sign that, among European capitals, the willingness to keep funding Kyiv from national coffers was waning after nearly four years of war and the alternative solutions were far from easy to identify.’

David Edgar on Tom Stoppard writersguild.org.uk/obituary-sir...

Important statement on worker solidarity with Palestine. prensaobrera.com/english/join...

The EU will never be a Great Power. on.ft.com/48oEq0k ECB refuses to provide backstop for €140bn Ukraine loan