Stagflation is back War in Iran threatens to hit growth and confidence, deepen governments’ unpopularity and hurt public finances

The arc of capitalist development is long, but it bends toward stagflation

FT comment: I was so happy I lived in the UK knowing I was a safe distance from the imploding US. But no. Now they export their toxic horror to us all.

*Living in post-Brexit Britain* "I'm so glad I've been able to avoid living on a sinking ship for the past decade"

Ships in Gulf declare themselves Chinese to dodge attack At least 10 vessels have changed transponder messages in apparent attempt to avoid becoming targets

www.ft.com/content/eaec...

FT comment: "We are all Chinese now"

Memes are beginning to prefigure reality

Starting the first 0 follower gimmick account, "Hinged FT Comments"

RETVRN, PLEASE GOD RETVRN

JD Vance takes low profile on Iran after resisting foreign wars Frontrunner to succeed Donald Trump has been opposed to foreign military entanglements

www.ft.com/content/d0b9...

FT comment: Vance is not a combat veteran in the Marines like say my old workmate Ron on concrete labouring gang was a veteran in the SAS and went through the Iranian Embassy window on a rope. JD was a reporter of events for a military grouping in a war zone - though I commend him for completing USM basic training. Then he spent a time forging 'Mithril' with that great wizard Peter Thiel - whom we all love and admire don't we?

Like say my old workmate Ron on concrete laboring gang was a veteran in the SAS and went through the Iranian Embassy on a rope.

FT comment: I will say this: "Pravda" is translated in Truth. Pravda of course is a soviet era "newspaper" which services to this day as our Putin propaganda media outlet. How perfectly appropriate that Trump makes his "policy" announcements on "Pravda Social" . I mean is this good or what?

Real eyes real lies real
realize real lies
lies real realize real lies
real ize

Why are fertility rates collapsing? Gender roles A big part of female graduates’ decision to have children depends on how they expect their husbands to behave

www.ft.com/content/e1a7...

FT comment: Isn't this author to old to credibly pretend to be a fertility expert?

Mom, can you come pick me up? The guys are implying Martin Wolf has defective sperm

How Donald Trump could take control of Greenland US president wants to take the vast Arctic territory from Denmark. What could he really do?

www.ft.com/content/2f06...

FT comment: Hilarious. Just show him the real size and he may lose interest… “his eye as a former real estate mogul has been caught by the vastness of Greenland, artificially enlarged on many maps because of cartographic distortions when a globe is visualised on a flat surface”

Am I ruining the fun if I point out to all those dunking on Trump that Greenland is, in fact, very large

When business and democracy don’t mix Liberals were wrong to assume the two ideas are natural twins

www.ft.com/content/36c2...

FT comment: Did you ever read the Dune novels? The last few get very bizarre, including a self sufficient Jewish spaceship. In the book, they found roaming thru space endlessly was the safest place for Jewish people. So according to Frank Herbert, Jews will be around for far longer than 5,000 years, as long as they just build a spaceship. The scariest thing is that he might be right.

This is actually where I post from

FT comment: Excellent and analytical Howard ... So the ANSWER is 6, 7. Doh

First Gen Alpha FT user?

"Irish man who supports the New England Patriots NFL Team" might be the best username I've ever seen on here

Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani set for Oval Office face-off Meeting marks the first in-person meeting between the US president and New York City’s mayor-elect

www.ft.com/content/53f8...

FT comment: These two have at least 10 things in common: 1. Both love scapegoating and belittling small groups of people. 2. Both love making spectacular promises that no smart voter would believe, yet sadly the use of brains are in the minority these days. 3. Both love to win by fueling anger and divison, 4. Both are kids of rich parents. 5. Both spew selective outrage about the oppressed, ignoring others. 6. Both come from outside real New York: DON THE CON from Queens, Mamdani from Uganda and South Africa. 7. Both pretend to be 'of the people'. 8. Both use religion to divide. 9. Both wear masks: Mamdani has an eternal grin and DON THE CON lots of orange makeup and Stormy-yellow-bleached hair. 10. Both love raising money, mostly from poorer people too stupid to know better. Oh, and both love Middle East Money, even though neither are from there. FT reply: But none of them a cut and paste champion .

I feel like I'm having a fucking stroke

FT comment: The number of stories readers can comment on is diminishing by the day. FT policy is slow strangulation and then a sudden withdrawal of comments altogether

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains

Recession indicator: I've been enjoying looking at the FT comment section less recently because it has been getting a lot more bloodthirsty

FT comment: Japan has already given away far too much of its own culture. They let Chinese immigrants impose their writing system on the country and let Korean immigrants import a foreign religion - one that originated in India! This has got to stop. One of the few places where original Japanese culture is still safe is Hokkaido. Let’s hope the real Japanese Jomon heritage can stay intact. Reply: for goodness sake Japan's dna is largely Korean as for culture, nothing much was 'given away' but a lot was certainly imported (China and latterly the West)

Plato and Aristotle debating in the Renaissance painting "The School of Athens"

Learning a lot about, cultures,

France in fresh political and market turmoil after prime minister resigns Sébastien Lecornu, who quit on Monday, is asked by Emmanuel Macron to quickly negotiate a stability plan

www.ft.com/content/d2d7...

FT comment: The state of a nations capital city is often a reflection of where society is. Visiting Paris not long ago, I witnessed huge societal decline. Once beautiful buildings, covered in graffiti, street vendors selling knock off Eiffel towers, aggressive harassment of tourists into buying junk. Litter strewn streets and an epidemic of bedbugs. It was like something out of the medieval dark ages. And the French population? Tired. Angry. Rude. A shadow of their former selves. One only had to walk around the military museums to see this was a great power, all be it, it must be said they did lose to Britain, but credit where it is due they were powerful. They gave their country away to woke. Now? now we see the fruits of such a failed political ideology and it is the next generation of French who will suffer as the country falls further and further from grace

Woke has ruined France. Street vendors sell knock off Eiffel towers. Back when De Gaulle was in charge they would try to sell you the *real* Eiffel Tower.

Have we passed peak social media? As platforms degrade into outrage and slop, users are turning away

www.ft.com/content/a072...

FT comment: Is screen time going down by a corresponding amount? If not would be interesting to see where the time is being shift to. Ai apps perhaps? Reply: Or, the FT comments section.

Sorry, my inclusion in this study has been skewing the data

The good news is that people are coming up with solutions to this problem (taken from @piperformissouri.bsky.social)

FT comment: City boys FT. Not only is yer photo corn, but the old man is merely getting on (or off) his vintage tractor. Three city slicker errors at least! Can't you correct the photo? Or the caption? Or is telling falsehoods about farmers just fine in London, New York, and Tokyo? You want to know why the middle of the USA voted the urban coasts out of power? Look in the d@mn mirror. "It's just a photo..." may satisfy your conscience. But Middle Americans see disrespect like this and take deep offense. Another - "deplorables" comment by the ignorant press. Ignorant of farms. Ignorant of rural peoples concerns or feelings. I hope ignorant - one would not want these offensive lapses to be intensional?

FT article with a picture of an old man on a tractor surrounded by crops

No I think he was on to something with the last sentence, the FT's editor definitely used a photo of a corn farmer as a middle finger to people working in the soy industry

FT comment: Better for me to inherit a filet mignon than for 1,000 people to get a single cracker with the same proceeds, especially if my dad owned the cow. Reply: After they steals your family’s cow, how many more will you raise? Where will tomorrow’s crackers come from? If all the annual income of America’s billionaires were seized it wouldn’t cover one year’s deficit spending. If all of their wealth were seized it would cover only 25 percent of the outstanding debt. Then what?

Showed up today at the forced metaphor factory and someone tortured the foreman to death in his office

FT comment: "Kudos to him. There are many coffee influencers in this space. Nice to see a Brit make it to the FT. Watch his review of Aldi coffee maker. The intro must be one of the best roasting on a machine I have ever seen"

"Nice to see a Brit make it to the FT."
IT'S AN ENGLISH PUBLICATION