The Euro is like a bad marriage. Many think it should end, but divorce is scary, especially when one side keeps threatening the apocalypse. The truth is that Europe would be stronger without the Euro and better able to confront myriad external threats... robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/…

When all this is over, we'll have to do some hard thinking what gold has become. Yesterday it sold off on the US bombing Iran. Today it's up on hopes of a peace deal. I don't need to hold gold to get that kind of price action. I can just hold S&P 500... robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/…

Six famous economists — @JosephEStiglitz , @PikettyWIL , @jasonhickel among them — published a manifesto in the @guardian last week: "growth is a doomed strategy." They say they've done the maths. I checked the maths. The claim that growth failed the poor is contradicted by the most uncontroversial dataset in economics: extreme poverty fell from 44% of humanity in 1981 to under 10% today — during the very decades they call a failure. China alone lifted 800 million people, not with a UN roadmap, but with growth. The "92% of excess emissions" statistic? It's one of the authors citing his own paper, without saying so — and it's not a measurement, it's a moral allocation dressed up as data. The policy toolkit — "public control of strategic assets," "credit guidance" — has a track record: Soviet collectivization, the Great Leap Forward, Venezuela, and Sri Lanka's 2021 fertilizer ban, which starved the poor it claimed to serve within eighteen months. What worries me most: degrowth is being marketed to young people who feel locked out — telling them their stagnation is virtue. It's a swindle. The young aren't victims of too much growth. They are the first victims of its absence. Growth is the only anti-poverty program that has ever worked.

A plausible and frightening vision of Europe's near future, ending in economic collapse and vassal status under the US or China. Enjoyed reading it, although I feel a little depressed now. europe2031.ai/

A big reason oil didn't go to $200 - and why it won't - is that US crude exports have boomed. Chart shows the massive rise in crude exports in April, which is NOT explained by the SPR release. US supply is a genuine force holding down global oil prices... robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/…

The world today is characterized by large-scale inequalities. And a climate crisis is looming over us. We urgently need a new vision for global progress in the 21st Century. One that grounds human development and equality in planetary habitability. What would it take to achieve high prosperity and equality while remaining within planetary boundaries? The World Inequality Lab is very excited to launch the #GlobalJusticeReport. [1/7]

I'm endlessly amazed by the group-think in global macro. There's endless coverage of the fiscal struggles of the UK and its "Liz Truss" bond market blow-up in 2022. But Japan is in exactly this kind of blow-up for 2 years now and you hear nothing about it. robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/…

There's a disconnect in markets at the moment. Oil prices have fallen substantially from their highs back in early April (lhs), but rates markets still price hikes from the Fed this year (rhs). That'll resolve in favor of cuts from the Fed and Dollar down. robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/…

The single best thing China can do for the world is to allow the massively undervalued RMB to rise, but it'll never do that. RMB is just a function of China's mercantilist growth model that takes growth for itself from everyone else. That'll never change. robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/…