Eurozone pancake landing, the rise of Saudi oil power, unsticking Sri Lanka's debt impasse & Marcher Lords
Great links, images and reading from Chartbook Newlsetter by Adam Tooze
Thank you for reading Chartbook.
Yuan Yunsheng, Self Portrait, 1980
On Yuan Yunscheng’s momentous career, see the discussion from Emily Weimeng Zhou for the Central Academny of Fine Arts in Beijing — hard to pull a quote from it because the whole piece sits together as a tour through his changing work, it is worth a read!
This is the free version of Top Links. To get the full Top Links feed with lots more material and analysis, please click here:
Eurozone pancake landing
The eurozone economy was stagnant in the final three months of last year, held back by shrinking German output and stalled French growth that offset a stronger than expected rebound in Spain and Italy. The flat performance of the 20 economies that share the euro was better than the 0.1 per cent contraction forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. It followed a 0.1 per cent decline in the previous quarter and meant the eurozone grew 0.5 per cent last year, the EU’s statistics office said on Tuesday. That left the bloc trailing the US, which last week established itself as the world’s fastest-growing advanced economy in 2023 with annual growth of 3.1 per cent. China’s government recently estimated its economy grew 5.2 per cent last year.
Source: FT
The rise of Saudi Arabia as an oil superpower
As expansion plans at Saudi Aramco are abruptly abandoned it seems that 10 million barrels per day may be the historic ceiling.
Source: FT
Sri Lanka’s debt woes
Subscribers only.
Important news on efforts in New York and in London to allow smoother debt restructuring
Subscribers only.
Dear Reader,
Glad you are enjoying this Top Links. Chartbook Newsletter is fun to write. And I’m delighted it goes out for free to readers around the world. But it takes a lot of work! What sustains that effort are voluntary subscriptions from paying supporters. As a thank you, several times per week, paying supporters of Chartbook Newsletter receive an email like this, jam-packed with fascinating images, links and reading, as well as longer analytical essays. This free email is just some of that content. If you would like to receive the full Top Links in future, click here to join the supporters’ club:
Yuan Yunscheng, Self-Portrait, 1980s
The economic logic of Biden’s controversial oil and gas policy
Republicans trumpet expanded drilling and more permits for liquified natural gas (LNG) as policies to ignore climate change and bring down domestic energy prices — but they may only achieve the former. Biden’s LNG freeze targets exports. Expanding LNG exports from the US should ultimately merge the national and global market, raising US prices to the benefit of producers and at the expense of consumers:
“The most elemental economic analysis will tell you that if you’re exporting a lot of something, the prices are going to go up for people back home,” said Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, a climate campaign group, who was one of the most vocal advocates of the freeze. “Very few Americans are eager to have their country fracked in order to sell cheap gas to China.”
As such, green opposition to LNG exports and American economic nationalism come together to provide the rationale for Biden’s licensing stop on LNG export terminals. The recent Ukraine war spike shows how US gas markets react to global shocks. But it is worth remembering that on the overall level of prices, the surge in fracking production swamps any effect from exports.
Source: FT
Who’s doing care work?
Source: Foundation for European Progressive Studies
Dodging answers - what a great way to describe the working of ideology
Subscribers only.
Yuan Yunscheng, Facing the Wall, 1987
A Greek world
Subscribers only.
Marcher lords
Subscribers only.
Yuan Yunscheng, Eye (In Memory of Lin Lin), 1991
Please consider supporting my work and receiving the full version: