The billionaire rally. NYC's taxi-insurance Ponzi scheme. Obvious bollocks about sterling assets & monster wolves in Japan.
Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
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Magnus Zeller (German, 1888-1972). “The Total State (Hitler’s State)” (1938). Source: Tumblr
2024: The Billionaire Rally
The world’s 500 richest people got vastly richer in 2024, with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang leading the group of billionaires to a new milestone: A combined $10 trillion net worth. An indomitable rally in US technology stocks played a key role in turbocharging the trio’s wealth, as well as the fortunes of Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The eight tech titans alone gained more than $600 billion this year, 43% of the $1.5 trillion increase among the 500 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Source: By Dylan Sloan and Jack Witzig in Bloomberg
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At least in some of China’s cities, real estate prices are turning.
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Turns out … two-thirds of NYC taxis and ride-share vehicles are insured by an insolvent insurance ponzi scheme.
Now, under Harris’s supervision, the DFS is scrambling to find a solution without shutting down ATIC’s operations, a scenario that would prevent 75,000 vehicles from being able to operate legally. After ordering ATIC to explore a sale in September, the regulator is weighing asking property and casualty insurers to cover its claims. ATIC, meanwhile, is warning cab drivers — many already buffeted by shrinking margins — that premiums have to jump by at least 10%.
Source: Bloomberg
“Obvious bollocks” about sterling and gilt yields
In some corners, there have been comparisons btw the UK’s current financial situation and the events of autumn 2022, and a suggestion that Reeves may be having a Liz Truss / Kwasi Kwarteng moment. This is obviously bollocks, but how obviously bollocks? To show how obviously bollocks, we’ve recreated the Deutsche chart above, extending it to cover every day for which Bloomberg holds data going back to the start of 2016. Note that we’ve swapped the direction of the X-axis, so the pound down / gilt yields up days are towards the bottom left instead. You can use the drop-down or click on the legend to filter through chancellors:
Source: FT
How weak is sterling? This lovely graph maps sterling v. dollar and euro. Moves along the lines are depreciation/appreciations. Lateral moves are movements in euro-dollar rates.
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Magnus Zeller (German, 1888-1972). “Gewitter” (1920). Source: MutualArt
Ecuador’s hydro crisis
Just a decade ago, the small, resource-rich nation of Ecuador was embarking on a bold transition to hydroelectric power. It was one of many South American countries betting that their abundant rivers, harnessed by dams, could satisfy growing energy needs — and help drive economic expansion, lifting millions from poverty and leading the way into a new era of prosperity. Today, those grand designs are colliding with a warming climate. Ecuador has been pummeled by an extraordinary drought, exacerbated by global warming, that has engulfed much of South America, drying rivers and reservoirs and putting the country’s power grid on the brink of collapse. Since September, daily energy cuts have lasted as long as 14 hours. Highways have turned an inky black; entire neighborhoods have lost running water, even internet and cell service. One industry group says the nation is losing $12 million in productivity and sales for every hour power is out.
Source: Geopolitical Futures
But Ecuador is not alone. In recent years, abnormally dry weather in places around the globe has sent rivers to extreme lows, draining hydropower resources in places like Norway, Canada, Turkey and even lush Costa Rica. Zambia, highly dependent on hydropower, faced daily power cuts of up to 21 hours this year. Parts of China, also reliant on water for energy, suffered lengthy outages starting in 2022. In all, more than one billion people live in countries where more than 50 percent of their energy comes from hydroelectric plants, according to Ember, a global energy research institute. Yet, as the climate warms and extreme weather events like drought become more common — and more severe — many scientists expect hydropower to become a less reliable energy source.
Source: Julie Turkewitz and José María León Cabrera in NYT
Death by Policy
THE MODI GOVERNMENT’S “POLICIDE” has jeopardised global efforts to eradicate tuberculosis, which, according to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, has a deadline of 2030. Research published in The Lancet noted that, while the WHO’s “End TB” strategy aims for a ninety-percent reduction in the incidence rate of tuberculosis between 2015 and 2030, the rate in India fell by only 0.5 percent in the first five years of that period. The lack of progress has also brought the country’s response to HIV, which was already tottering, to its knees.
Tuberculosis and HIV—two of the deadliest killers known to humanity, having killed more people than the two World Wars put together—are an efficient tag team. At the height of the AIDS epidemic during the 1990s, they came to be known as the “cursed duet,” as patients with HIV began dying of tuberculosis. If you are infected by HIV, you do not die of HIV. By switching off the body’s immune system, the virus creates an opportunity for other diseases to plunder the body through “opportunistic infections.” Tuberculosis is the leading opportunistic infection among HIV patients. People living with HIV are around twenty times as likely as others to contract tuberculosis.
Both HIV and Mycobacterium tuberculosis are master mutators. They have lengthy periods of latency, during which they lie low and wait for immunity to be depleted. Neither pathogen kills its host immediately, which is a huge evolutionary advantage that allows the disease to spread. This makes disease surveillance, forecasting patients’ medical needs and establishing trust among the community critical.
In 2022, the HIV-positive community faced stockouts similar to the ones tuberculosis patients are currently experiencing, with at least half a million people reportedly struggling to access antiretroviral drugs. Patients protested for over three weeks in front of the health ministry, which denied the shortage. Sujatha Rao, a former health secretary who set up India’s HIV programme during the 1990s, told me that the stockouts took place because “the government messed up the procurement cycle.” Rao recalled being told that a bureaucrat in the ministry “sat over” the tendering process, causing delays. “It is important to do the boring stuff well, like inventory and forecasting,” she said. “I used to constantly monitor it and maintain a three-month stock. These are not paracetamol tablets that you can buy in a pinch from the market when you run out.”
Rao added that the tuberculosis stockouts had similar causes. “TB patients are so upset,” she said. “During COVID, the government diverted every resource from TB, and we are now seeing the impact. These disruptions are not acceptable at all. I am sad every time I look at India’s disease burden data—so much malnourishment—all of it is interlinked.”
The HIV programme was one of India’s more successful public-health interventions, halting the progress of an epidemic that was devastating the developing world. The secret to the success was prevention. Advertisements promoting safe sex were common on television, celebrities such as Shabana Azmi attempted to destigmatise the infection and sex workers collaborated with the health ministry to advocate for condom use.
Since Modi came to power, the entire approach to infectious diseases has radically changed. In June 2014, the health minister at the time, Harsh Vardhan, controversially argued that fidelity in marriage was more important than condom use in preventing AIDS and proposed a ban on sex education in schools. “There is a conservative attitude, and the systems that were laid down are not being used,” Rao said. “Advertisements promoting condom use, safe sex, et cetera, have completely disappeared from public discourse. Everything is about Ayushman Bharat and insurance coverage. Insuring people is not adequate for public health.” Around 2.4 million Indians now live with HIV. In 2022, there were around sixty thousand new cases and over forty thousand deaths—most of them from tuberculosis.
Source: Vidya Krishnan in Caravan Magazine
Monster wolves
The "Monster Wolf," a robot developed at a small factory in Naie on Japan's northernmost main island, Hokkaido, is raising hopes -- and drawing a few double-takes -- in farming communities troubled by unwanted visits from wildlife. In Japan, bear sightings and attacks have been on the rise. Enter the Monster Wolf, which is designed to help create a buffer zone between wildlife and people. One of the robots guards a cherry orchard in Takikawa, about an hour's train ride north of Sapporo. It detects animals with an infrared sensor as they approach, and emits loud noises -- gunshots, barking dogs, human voices -- to frighten them away. It turns its head menacingly from side to side, red LED eyes flashing and blue ones doing the same on its rump. The Takikawa city office installed the robot four years ago at the orchard, which is located between nearby mountains and residential areas. Ohta Seiki, the company behind the Monster Wolf, is in the machining business. In 2008, it branched out into the LEDs, developing the robot to stand out from rivals. Yuji Ohta, the company's president, came up with the idea after reading about farmers' crops being ravaged by hungry deer. Ohta Seiki built the frame of the robot from strong pipe, allowing it to withstand Hokkaido's temperature swings. The first iteration of the robot emitted only sounds and light; the wolf-like appearance was added later to make it more intimidating. To prevent deer and bears from getting used to it, the robot emits a variety of sounds at random from its repertoire of more than 60 noises. The volume is set at 90 decibels, equivalent to a car horn.
Source: Kotose Hamano in Nikkei Asia
Magnus Zeller (German, 1888-1972). “Hexenmeister” (1924). Source: Artnet
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