Euroscopic podcast brief: What's on the menu
Lunar crashes, gas crunches, BRICS lurches, and Europe's "sick man": All this and more on the Euroscopic menu this week.
This week’s Euroscopic podcast brief will be out soon. For those already hungry for it (or actually like to read), here’s what’s on the menu:
Amuse-bouche
Forget about the in-flight meal, if you print the wrong Ryanair ticket it is do not pass go, they collect (not quite) $200. But it could be worse: The elderly British couple charged for doing check-in wrong could have been on Russia’s flight to the moon, which smashed right into it.
Starter
Saudi Arabia is the foe everyone hates to admit is a friend. From jets to oil to killings, the Kingdom can do no wrong — even as it engages in many wrongs. That makes it a fine candidate for BRICS, which is discussing expansion during its summit in South Africa this week. If that were to happen, whether sooner or later, count one more country that is too West-curious for China’s tastes, and too out for itself for the American-dominated kitchen.
Primo
That is all a way of saying, what exactly is BRICS? It’s not an alliance, nor a bloc, nor a partnership. What it definitely is, you could say, is what it is definitely not: the West. The irony is that the grouping of (take your pick) emerging markets/interests-driven fence-sitters/geopolitical hedgers/Global South champions is that it was born out of the profit-seeking imagination of the U.S.-dominated global finance it is trying to escape or, at least, “rebalance.” And remains constrained by it.
For all the talk about non-dollar trade, the BICS can’t with their R without risking getting caught in the dragnet of U.S. sanctions. No one said escaping the Matrix is easy.
Secondo
Immer wieder Deutschland. Some economists are worried about some of the economic data coming out of the world’s fourth-largest economy, by GDP, and Europe’s largest. A fine opportunity for the Economist — that is, the paternalistic British magazine whom no one informed the Empire is over — to reboot the 1990s-era “sick man of Europe” trope.
They may have a point. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are right. It also doesn’t mean that all is fine in Germany. After all, it doesn’t take much to turn a wonk’s chart and a couple misleading headlines into a far-right party’s campaign ad. Matters of economy and financial well-being are as much about sentiment as they are about hard data.
Nachtisch
Italy’s prime minister knows that all-too well. She is happy to thwack her country’s banks with a massive windfall tax. It’s a trick as old as Roman bread-and-circuses, but it gets the electorate to cheer every time.
Doggy bag
William makes insurance sound almost sexy. Almost.
Still hungry?
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