Inflation in the Baltic, Cambodian highways & the allure of Malaparte
Great links, reading and images from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
Source: PAMELA PHATSIMO SUNSTRUM BOGEYMAN, 2018 PENCIL AND ACRYLIC ON WOOD PANEL, 127 CM X 114 CM
Why have the Baltic states coped so well, so far, with inflation of 20% plus?
This is interesting by Richard Milne and Martin Arnold in the FT.
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Do price shocks matter to energy consumption?
You wouldn’t call it ironclad econometrics, on the other hand …
Source: Bloomberg
One Belt One Road is still bearing fruit
Our friends in Phnom Penh celebrated xmas on the beach courtesy of an exciting new tool road that cuts the journey time from 5 to 2 hours. Courtesy of … yup you guessed it!
After three years of Chinese-led construction work, Cambodia's very first toll expressway has opened for business, the project symbolizing the deepening economic ties between the Southeast Asian nation and Beijing. Costing roughly $2 billion to construct, the expressway stretches 190 kilometers between Phnom Penh, the capital, and the port city of Sihanoukville. CRBC was also responsible for the construction of the expressway. China and Cambodia first signed a deal for the road in 2018 under the build-operate-transfer model. Under the agreement, CRBC will collect tolls for five decades, before transferring ownership of the road to Cambodia. In return, Cambodia is believed to be responsible for virtually none of the costs. CRBC is headquartered in Beijing and has offices in about 60 countries and territories. Although CRBC's earnings are unclear, its parent entity, the China Communications Construction Group (CCCG), recorded 842.8 billion yuan ($119.9 billion) in group sales last year. CCCG is the third-ranked contractor in the world in terms of overseas revenue, according to Engineering News-Record, a U.S. construction industry publication. The group serves as one of the biggest players in the Belt and Road Initiative … Sihanoukville is home to the Ream Naval Base, which is undergoing a China-funded expansion and could be used by the Chinese military as it seeks to strengthen its military presence in the South China Sea. Chinese entities have also ramped up investment in hotels and casinos in Sihanoukville.
h/t Dana Conley Source: Asia Nikkei
How an energy market stops working
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Plastic trash in India
The amount of plastic trash coming into India in waste paper now is almost double the 264,000 metric tons that was legally imported in 2019 to the country before it imposed the ban on plastic imports in August of that year
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The oh so stylish, the oh so unscrupulous … Curzio Malaparte notorious author of Skin and Kaputt
John Ganz is in savage form reviewing a show of furniture designed for the fascist litterateur and adventurer’s legendary villa.
Gary Indiana on Malaparte in Book Forum is rather excellent too.
More on maximalism: the “audience must be given more sensory information than they break down at once.”
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MP4/4
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Shock of the old - Bullard on Ukraine by way of Edgerton
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Ani Liu, The Surrogacy (bodies are not factories) (detail), 2022, 3D-printed polymers, 6 × 12 × 5".
