Worries about commercial real estate, killer fungus, Swiss machines & the rise of Texas
Great links, images and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze
Palm Trees, Antibes Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935) Kirkcaldy Galleries
The Scottish Colourists were a group of four painters, three from Edinburgh, whose Post-Impressionist work, though not universally recognised initially, came to have a formative influence on contemporary Scottish art and culture. The four artists, Francis Cadell, John Duncan Fergusson, Leslie Hunter and Samuel Peploe, were prolific painters spanning the turn of the twentieth century until the beginnings of World War II.
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Worries about Commercial Real Estate
Pockets of the commercial real estate market — which is worth around $20 trillion — are showing cracks. Odd Lots podcast zeroing in on a really worrying sector of the US economy.
Fancy buying a bank?
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John Authers at Bloomberg on finance after the Swiss avalancheJohn Authers at Bloomberg on finance after the Swiss avalanche
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The rise of Texas
Texas now has more than 30m people. Its gdp is $2trn—bigger than Canada’s. It would be the world’s ninth-biggest economy if it were independent (which it was for ten years in the 19th century). The state racked up $486bn in exports in 2022, almost a quarter of America’s total and more than Taiwan. And only about half of Texas’s exports are fossil fuels and chemicals; the state also makes parts for computers and aircraft and much else besides. Remarkable flows into US money market mutual funds of late suggest that funds have indeed been leaving deposits and heading for a place that’s easy to reach where they can earn a better return for a while.
Source: Economist
Still Life Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935) Source: Art Uk
How wages do and do not feed through to US inflation
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Esfandyar, who I normally recommend as a top follow on Iran’s political economy, is also on a roll regarding Alpine socio-technical systems.
Wind and solar overtook nuclear as sources of electricity in 2022.
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And the largest part of that is in China
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Deadly fungus has now spread across most of USA
A deadly drug-resistant fungus spreading across the US saw a dramatic uptick in cases during the Covid pandemic, with more than half of all states now reporting cases. Candida auris (C. auris) was first described in Japan in 2009, with the earliest known infections in the US dating back to 2013. Cases grew exponentially through the end of 2021, according to a paper published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which says it poses a serious global health threat — noted that a further 2,377 clinical diagnoses and 5,754 cases identified through screening were reported last year.
Source: Bloomberg
Aspidistra Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935)