Trillion-dollar wealth effects, EM-EM trade, "if the world were a democracy" & the Valeriepieris circle

Great links, reading and images from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

Christian Schad Operation (Appendectomy in Geneva) (1929), Lenbachhaus, Munich

Wealth effects

household net worth—including cash assets, housing, equities, and bonds—was inflated dramatically by monetary and fiscal stimulus during the pandemic. A combination of cash handouts and asset price appreciation pushed household net worth way above trend relative to current consumption (see How Much Longer For The US Asset Bubble?). The “everything bubble” has since deflated, but asset values are still above trend (see  chart below). This points to a diminished—but still positive—wealth effect.^[

Source: Gavekal

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Provincializing the West, or how global trade grew in the 21st century

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African globalization

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The power of the trend.

If you project Germany’s growth rate between 1901 and 1913 down to the end of the twentieth century, you exactly predict where a reunified Germany - after WWI, Weimar crises, WWII, division after 1945 - actually ended up by the 1990s.

This is the extension of a famous graph first drawn by Knut Borchardt by Albrecht Ritschl.

Knut Borchardt (2 June 1929 – 5 February 2023) was the foremost economic historian of the Federal Republic of Germany. Formerly a student of Bertolt Brecht, his training in Marxism served as a foil to his entire work. Encountering him in person was one of the most surprising pleasures of my scholarly life. Albrecht Ritschl’s obituary is wonderful. We should really get it translated.

Photography plus dynamite: John Heartfield

Christian Schad, SONJA (MAX HERRMANN-NEISSE IM HINTERGRUND), 1928

Source: Nationalgalerie

More people live inside this circle than outside it.

Valerie Pieris’ famous map: via Noah Smith

In 2015, the circle was tested by Danny Quah, who verified the claim but moved the circle slightly to exclude most of Japan, and used a globe model rather than a map projection as well as more specific calculations. He calculated that, as of 2015, half of the world's population lived within a 3,300-kilometer (2,050 mi) radius of the city of Mong Khet in Myanmar.

And Quah did not shrink from the political implication.

China’s topology

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Portrait of Dr. Haustein, Christian Schad, 1928 Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid