ElFrefro retweeted
Besides France, it’s “funny” that there are simultaneously organized protests in other parts of Europe, as far as Cyprus (which has a KGB-backed useful idiot).
Europe can self-destruct by itself without external help, but … someone is giving a gentle push
đź«Ş
🤖 Made with AI
ElFrefro retweeted
J’ai entendu dire que la France était finie, qu’il était trop tard pour la sauver.
Mais la France est toujours aussi belle, enviable même. Sa grandeur n’a pas disparu, elle ne demande qu’à renaître.
Nous avons surmonté en un an un problème cent fois plus grave, sans avoir les moyens dont dispose la France.
La France pourrait y arriver en une semaine.
ElFrefro retweeted
China’s debt interest costs are soaring above U.S. levels and growing faster than any other budget category as Beijing struggles to prop up growth.
19% of Beijing’s spending is earmarked for interest on debt. That’s more than the 14% of the U.S. federal budget that goes to interest costs, though less than Japan’s 25.6%.
fortune.com/2026/10/11/china…
ElFrefro retweeted
WSJ: "Last year, China’s credit to the nonfinancial sector—a broad measure of corporate, government and household borrowings—topped 300% of gross domestic product, 60 percentage points higher than at the end of 2019 and now far bigger than in the U.S.
As the article notes, this surge in debt is largely caused by Beijing's need to maintain investment at an extraordinarily high 40% of GDP if it is to achieve its politically-determined growth targets, even though a rising share of this investment is funding economically non-viable projects.
wsj.com/world/china/xis-supe…
ElFrefro retweeted
I am getting lots of incoming questions about the public execution of Nidal Hasan, mostly because I have been outspoken on wanting public executions for over a decade.
My position is simple: Executions should be public and brutal, not private and medicalized. They are the ultimate example of the state's monopoly on violence, and the only way to keep that from running out of control is to confront voters with the trade they have made every single time, that they might have appropiate confidence or revulsion in the institution.
This is not new thinking. George Washington thought the same. The way we have shifted from hanging to firing squads to doctors quietly injecting chemicals that send our worst gently off to sleep is awful and dystopian, a total short-circuiting of important feedback mechanisms. It makes needless executions more likely, not less so. People who demean this as barbaric or yucky miss the whole point. It doesn't somehow become torture or inhumane (as the UN is suddenly claiming) just because we decline to hide the act behind a curtain.
And then there are those who suggest any revel in the death of those who truly deserve it is an indicator of a broken or diseased mind. To the contrary. It is normal, good, and aligned with our natural and national order. That it has not been done here in 60 years is an indictment in and of itself.
And that is without even getting into the fact that men were not hung for stealing horse, but that horses may not be stolen.
"I would to God that one of the most attrocious in each State was hung in Gibbets, up on a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the Man, who can build his greatness upon his Country’s ruin."
- George Washington, 1778
ElFrefro retweeted
A very good article by Branko Marcetic @BMarchetich on how close we are getting to the outbreak of a world war.
"It’s a bitter vindication for antiwar voices who warned for years that NATO member states were sleepwalking into a wider, more dangerous confrontation with Russia. The question now is what can be done to forestall their darkest predictions."
jacobin.com/2026/10/russia-u…
ElFrefro retweeted
You know what, the Koala is feeling a little bored these days and needs some excitement in the eucalyptus tree
Let's follow along with a friend on a rates trade just to feel something
Long $RKT
Even if the USG actually does lose control of the back end, they'll surely try some serious YCC first before it's truly lost
ElFrefro retweeted
The AfD’s 44% in Saxony-Anhalt is not the cause of Europe’s political rupture. It is evidence of it, writes @TheMichaelEvery
The far right's win in Germany, France's unmanageable debt and weak growth, and problems in Spain all point in the same direction.
These should not be treated as isolated political curiosities.
Right and left populism are gaining because the old center has few convincing answers to debt, deindustrialization, war, energy insecurity and falling confidence in institutions.
Markets can ignore politics—until politics changes the rules markets depend on.
“The world as we knew it no longer exists” is becoming less a slogan than a market risk.
#Germany #Europe #Markets #Geopolitics #Debt #Energy #Populism
👇
media.rabobank.com/asset/70a…
ElFrefro retweeted
Good news you probably haven't heard:
The Great Barrier Reef's five best years of coral cover in the 40-year record are the five most recent.
After decades of predictions of its imminent demise, the reef stubbornly refuses to die.
My new @latimes op-ed:
latimes.com/opinion/story/20…
ElFrefro retweeted
Everybody is talking about the political earthquake in Germany' Sachsen Anhalt due to the election of AfD by 44,%, but why is nobody discussing how there are literally four left-leaning parties with some overt or not so overt Marxist ideological elements winning 31,7% altogether.
ElFrefro retweeted
Here we go again with bad geopolitics headlines.
Yes, the US “ideological loyalty test” below is impolitic, impolite, and will ruffle feathers to put it mildly. I’m not advocating for it here.
As Bloomberg puts it, “Linking America’s long-standing security commitments to such fealty would upend the post-World War II transatlantic relationship, which was built on US military guarantees that superseded many political disagreements.”
Yes - and no. NATO is not a book club, student union, or gym: its preamble in 1949 states it is “determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage, and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.”
Would NATO use that language again if recreated today?
It was also specifically created as an *ideological alliance*, which its own website states was to:
1) “Deter Soviet expansionism” - i.e., anti-communism. You couldn’t join NATO and lean Soviet or trade much with them. (But, yes, France and Italy had strong communist parties that their security services and the U.S. kept eyes on; and Europe tried for USSR trade regularly despite US naysaying.)
2) “Forbid the revival of nationalist militarism”- i.e., anti-Nazi.
3) “Encourage European political integration” - i.e., again ideological.
One can argue that NATO now needs to find a new ideology for itself at a time when the West is widely seen to be threatened far more broadly than by Russia.
We’ve seen vociferous disagreements in the past over other wars/actions, such as Vietnam and Iraq, but they were at a time that both U.S. and Western hegemony looked unrivalled: do they today?
Clearly, the U.S. can’t carry the same burden as before alone - yet its allies are making it abundantly clear that if they get the muscles to act independently, that’s what they want to then do. How does that build trust any more than what the U.S. is doing?
Those new muscles will also require the whole *West* to integrate to scale up vs a Chinese giant with a Leninist neomercantilist model that crushes industrial opposition. (That’s now an emerging Establishment view, years late to the party.)
Isn’t the U.S. then perhaps pushing for Europe (and Canada) to:
- look at threats *globally* while acting locally;
- forbid the return of “international pacifism” or defence “Build Back Better”; and
- integrate with it (on its terms)?
That doesn’t mean this U.S. approach is nice; or easy to swallow for the others; or that it will achieve its goals. You can make the argument it is nasty, and people will choke on it, and so it will do the exact opposite to what the White House wants.
Even so, distorting the past to mis-explain the present to avoid a future some don’t want is also not nice, hard to swallow, and unlikely to achieve any security goals in the long run.
ElFrefro retweeted
Is it popularly known that Japanese banks have seen very impressive growth in their offshore dollar-denominated loan books the past couple of years? And that these loans mainly service Asian markets that Chinese banks used to service?
The outcome: Japanese bank balance sheets are expanding just as Chinese ones are contracting.
Which is to say, as Chinese banks pull back from lending dollars to BRI markets in favor of RMB loans, Japanese banks are moving in to take advantage of that unserviced dollar loan demand.
This coincides with increasing Japanese bank profitability, and collapsing Chinese bank profitability.
One interpretation of the above is that the narrative around increasing RMB preference in the region is far from correct. It’s not that demand for dollar-denominated loans is falling in favour of RMB. It’s that Chinese banks can no longer lend dollars at a profitable rate in the region, and are thus trying to promote RMB loans instead (since they are cheaper to provide for them).
This is likely because China’s overall cost of capital is increasing as deflationary forces mount.
Japanese banks on the other hand stand on the opposite side of the cycle. They have very cheap capital costs in relative terms, including in USD. It thus makes sense for them to take advantage of the market opportunity that is presenting itself.
In fact the op may be so large that it’s prompting a rush into yen funded=> USD swapped loans, exacerbating the depreciation in the yen.
In that case, everyone may be missing that this isn’t an ordinary emerging-market style currency depreciation crisis. The cause has nothing to do with Japanese banks lacking sufficient dollars to cover their liabilities in a way that threatens their profitability. On the contrary the cause is likely a rush to acquire what dollars they can so as to better take advantage of the mega profit opportunity that might otherwise not be captured.
All in all, this is incentivising Japanese banks to sell dollars that they don’t yet have via swap markets (which is resulting in rapid yen depreciation) on the basis that the risk-adjusted profit of doing so is too attractive to ignore.
If I’m right this changes the calculus on what’s really going on with US yen intervention.
It’s not a bailout. It’s fuel to help Japanese banks keep stealing market share from Chinese banks in the region.
One last related note: Japanese banks have spent years diversifying their USD funding sources. Today they have very large and robust deposit franchises in the US and in dollar terms. This adds even more resilience.
All of which is a long way of saying: what we are seeing is a profit-motivated market mania not a crisis.
That, at least, is my hunch.
ElFrefro retweeted
Yes we should all agree on that. And recognize that China, with all its successes, is not fully a market economy, ( crucially) has a closed capital account, and manages its real exchange rate so as to achieve on the long run industrial and technological superiority.
ElFrefro retweeted
Beyond subsidies lies a structural gap Western firms cannot easily close on their own. A typical Western public company requires a 12-15% IRR to approve a major industrial investment, with payback periods of three to seven years. Chinese state-backed competitors operate at a 4% capital cost, with 15-20 year planning horizons and explicit tolerance for losses in pursuit of strategic position. These are not preferences but functions of ownership. Quarterly reporting, dispersed shareholding and activist investor pressure impose short horizons on Western firms; concentrated state ownership, policy-bank financing and political performance metrics impose long ones on Chinese ones. Calls for Western firms to “think long-term” repeatedly fail because the firms making them remain accountable to shareholders who think quarterly.
The hardest response – and the most important – goes against Western corporate instinct: explicitly adopting Chinese-style time horizons while keeping a Western-style operating model. In practice this means 15-20 year strategic plans rather than 3-5 year payback hurdles; acceptance of 8-10% IRR rather than 12-15%; patient family or sovereign-wealth ownership rather than quarterly-reporting public equity; a commitment to remaining in an industry as a core value rather than maximising current returns; and decisions made by people who will be there long enough to see them play out.
aperam.com/insights/competin…
ElFrefro retweeted
For those that want the economic road map. Watch Sec Bessent speech. It’s all there.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's America 250 Address: Economic Statecraft, Tariffs, and the Dollar - YouTube youtube.com/watch?v=9Oz6IyDs…
ElFrefro retweeted
Value Investing = Watching your value stocks do nothing during a massive bull market in ponzis, only to see those same value stocks go down in a correction the same as said ponzis 🥹
source: Shrubipedia
ElFrefro retweeted
Everyone is going insane. Employees are going insane. Executives are going insane. Investors are going insane. Politicians are going insane. Citizens are going insane
Collective AI psychosis
If you sit back and think about it for a even minute it’s completely surreal
ElFrefro retweeted
Take a deep breath. Really deep. Fill your lungs.
Now exhale.
Hold your breath until your lungs are reedy to explode.
Then repeat.
Now imagine that your lungs get 5% smaller each time you do this.
Now imagine you are standing in a stadium with 50,000 people watching you slowly die.
You are getting tired but refuse to succumb. Refuse to even kneel.
That’s how it feels to be a supporter of shipbuilding during this administration.
The thrill and excitement of walking into the stadium for the first time and your issue taking center stage.
Fits of joy at each major milestone. Then long periods of nothing.
You stand on the pitches mound waiting for the team to tun out from the dugout. You wait for the umpire to walk out with the game ball.
Waiting for the game to start.
It never happens.
Trump has done more for American shipbuilding than any President since Nixon. He uncovered the grounds. He turned on the lights. He set up the scoreboard. He paid the salaries. And he filled the stadium with fans eager to cheers.
The Maritime Executive Order
The White House Maritime Action Plan
The reintroduction of the SHIPs for America Act
Hegseth’s Arsenal of Freedom Tour
New energy at MARAD in DOT
Navy acquisition reform
OMB, Labor, Treasury, Energy and Commerce ready to pitch in
All the pieces of the puzzle are on the table ready to be assembled.
And yet nothing is getting built.
The problem is shipbuilding requires a monumental all of government approach.
It’s not a Mavy problem or a Merchant Marine problem or a USCG problem or a Steel, or UN, or alliances or whatever
It’s a truly all of government problem.
All the players are ready but we have no manager calling a huddle and walking everyone out to the field.
The outgoing secretary of the Navy John Phelan did a lot of good, but he never called that huddle.
Will Hung Cao?
He has the enthusiasm and passion and ability to lead the team.
Problem is he has an enormous Navy to run.
Hung Cao needs a manager, a pitching coach, a batting coach… a small cadre of guys who really understand shipbuilding. Not just Naval shipbuilding but the entire landscape of commercial, finance, trades, union, allies best practices, and all the levers of government available.
Now is the time.
It shouldn’t have to be the duty of @SECNAV to hold this much water but every other department tasked (except OMB) has stood their and watched as opportunity after opportunity sailed by.
There is still enough excitement for shipbuilding to start the game but the pitcher is quickly running out of breaths.
The game needs to start asap and @HungCao_VA has the last chance before the midterms to start the show.
ElFrefro retweeted
Food for thought.
Iran Is Not Winning. It Is Unraveling.
The prevailing narrative on Iran has it almost perfectly reversed. We are told that Tehran is winning a war of wills in the Gulf and that Donald Trump is gambling recklessly with the world’s most sensitive chokepoint. In reality, Iran is not consolidating strength; it is managing decline. And Trump’s play on the Strait of Hormuz has quietly forced energy markets to reprice security—tilting the balance decisively toward the Americas, and away from Europe, Asia and China.
The Islamic Republic no longer resembles a confident revolutionary project.
With the old clerical core leadership shattered, power has splintered between a camp that recognises a deal with the outside world as the only path to survival and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a class of military dictators with guns, patronage networks and a rational fear that any genuine settlement will ultimately throw them overboard. This is not a unified strategy at work; it’s infighting, paranoia, a fragmented system in late-stage decay, crumbling under pressure.
Into this fragmentation, the White House has introduced a form of calibrated coercion too often caricatured as impulsive.
Around the Strait of Hormuz, Washington has threatened disruption without fully triggering it, forcing shipowners, insurers and policymakers to absorb a hard truth: dependence on vulnerable, seaborne Middle Eastern barrels is not a passing inconvenience but a structural risk. Iran can harass tankers and jolt day-to-day sentiment; it cannot rebuild a broken economy on sporadic shocks to global shipping. And the world must deal with the end of Pax Americana!
The underlying playbook is anything but novel. Sun Tzu’s insistence that “all warfare is based on deception”, Machiavelli’s counsel that a ruler must manipulate appearances and exploit factionalism, and Alfred Thayer Mahan’s argument that sea power and control of chokepoints shape the fate of nations are not museum pieces. They are, in this case, the operating code. Trump’s opaque signalling, deliberate use of disinformation and visible but limited naval posture in and around Hormuz amount to a modern, Mahanian use of sea power as economic statecraft.
Energy markets are already adjusting. Tankers are head to the Gulf of America. In a world where a single strait can a risk to economies is Europe and Asia, without ever being fully closed, assets tied to secure basins and diversified export routes deserve a premium.
The Americas sit in an enviable position: vast, politically stable hydrocarbon resources, multiple pipelines and ports, and no dependence on a distant maritime chokepoint controlled by adversaries. By contrast, Europe, much of Asia and China find themselves downstream of vulnerabilities they do not control and regimes they cannot stabilise, exposed to shipping routes that can be threatened faster than alternative supply can be mobilised.
All of this plays out against a domestic backdrop in Iran that looks less like revolutionary vigour and more like fear. A state that cannot safely keep its internet on, that must rely on public brutality to deter dissent, is not projecting confidence. It is signalling weakness, to its own citizens as much as to its rivals.
Winston Churchill once remarked that “in war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, goodwill.” Iran’s leadership offers only defiance, without realistic prospects of victory or peace.
The uncomfortable conclusion for those still insisting that Tehran is “winning” is that what they are observing is not the rise of a regional hegemon, but the protracted, strategically exploited unwinding of a brittle regime at the centre of an overexposed energy system.
