"You can't change history - unless you're a historian." So said Mario Draghi yday in his final @ecb press conference. Except some (not him) have been attempting to re-write history recently, suggesting that the handling of the euro crisis was a triumph, not a disaster
For some, the fact that the eurozone made it through the crisis should be viewed as proof of the single currency's invincibility. It was tested and for all the scepticism, it survived. But this isn't right. The euro really did come dangerously close to collapse
I remember on the very day, at the very conference where Draghi pledged to do "whatever it takes" to save the €, being told by another v v senior European policymaker that some of the bigger € members were facing financial chaos that might force them out of the currency
The reality is the euro was saved through a combination of economic pain (Greece et al) and monetary anaesthetics, delivered by Draghi. Not fundamental reforms that addressed the deeper problems with the currency area. Those are still IN NO WAY resolved
The absence of a fiscal union, the lack of a properly funded banking union with joint deposit insurance, the inability to issue eurobonds. These were and still are the issues that mean in practice the euro is not irreversible
Why, you might ask, is even lifelong eurosceptic Matteo Salvini now saying the euro is irreversible? In large part because of charts like this. Since Brexit € popularity has soared to all time highs. One product of #EUref was to unite the rest of Europe as never before
Political and popular support is important, but it won't prevent another crisis. And the evidence is far from narrowing the economic and cultural divergences within the EU and eurozone are widening rather than narrowing. Eg see brookings.edu/wp-content/upl…
None of this means euro will inevitably collapse in the next crisis. But unless it introduces some form of fiscal transfers to share the burden and redistribute from rich to poor areas, it won't be safe. One chink of light: German enthusiasm for tight fiscal policy is diminishing
Brexit may change things. Macron hopes once UK leaves balance of power shifts and door opens to deeper integration. But while Europeans love the euro it's not clear they love sharing national wealth with poorer members. More in today's @thetimes column thetimes.co.uk/article/the-eu…
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🧵Here’s the extraordinary story of a Frenchman who came up with an invention that changed the world, before events took a twist.
It’s a rollercoaster story that just might help us solve one of the biggest challenges facing humanity.
Sounds far-fetched, I know, but read on…
The man in question was Nicolas Leblanc.
Born in 1742, he trained as a doctor but was always short of cash. He became the physician to Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans - a minor French royal. Like many enlightened intellectuals, his hobby was scientific experimentation.
And when he heard about a scientific competition, launched by the French Academy of Sciences and backed by none other than King Louis XVI, he jumped at the chance. The prize of 2,400 livres (quite a lot - a few years of earnings) would go to whoever could turn salt into soda ash
🧵Want to understand why weaning ourselves off fossil fuels like oil is such a tricky challenge?
Best place to start is with this ubiquitous toy👇
This is a thread about what I call the LEGO conundrum.
It begins when you ponder what a LEGO brick is actually made of...
Standard Lego bricks are made of something called Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene.
ABS is a tough thermoplastic you often find in the handles of scissors or the frames of hard carry-on baggage cases.
But Lego bricks are prob the most iconic application. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonit…
It's worth saying btw not all Lego pieces are made out of ABS.
Baseplates are moulded from high impact polystyrene. Gearwheels are polyamide.
The small, flexible green pieces that look like plant stalks or flags are polyethylene, and so on and so on. lego.com/en-us/sustaina…
🧵
It might look like something from space, but some folks think lumps of rock like this could help us solve one of the biggest problems facing the planet.
Others fear they could trigger ecological catastrophe.
Presenting the weird, unsettling story of polymetallic nodules
These potato-sized mineral lumps form over millions of yrs on the ocean floor as metals accrete around organic fragments.
Up until 150 years ago no-one knew polymetallic nodules even existed. Today they're a very big deal.
So. Here are the 2 main things you need to know abt them
1. These nodules contain ASTOUNDING concentrations of certain metals - esp nickel, manganese, cobalt and copper. The grades of metals are multiples better than anything you can find on land (esp now we've mined out most of the easy stuff).
🧵
80 years ago today, newspapers in Europe carried news of the unexpected death of a very important man, in a hotel miles from the nearest city.
A man who, said some, was helping the Allies win the war.
But there was a twist to the tale. The man in question wasn't actually dead
That man was John Maynard Keynes. The 61 year old economist was at the Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire for what became known as the Bretton Woods conference. And the day earlier he had indeed collapsed, following a heart attack. It was a moment of high drama.
The conference had already overrun.
It was supposed to be done in two weeks and there was talk that the delegates would soon be kicked out of the hotel. This was, to put it lightly, a problem.
After all, in the absence of an agreement there was a chance of yet another world war
It says something about how confusing Labour's green investment policies are that seemingly even the Treasury has misunderstood them.
Contrary to what the picture in this press release👇 suggests, the National Wealth Fund has nothing to do with wind power or indeed green energy
Instead it's very specifically designed to focus on all the low or zero carbon technologies that AREN'T really to do with generating power.
- Green steel
- Hydrogen
- Clusters
- Gigafactories
Here's the sectors the institution will focus on 👇
Simple way to think abt this:
Pretty much ALL heavy industry today emits carbon, directly or indirectly. The techniques we use to make stuff mostly date back to the industrial revolution. Getting to net zero involves redoing the industrial revolution! edconway.substack.com/p/yet-another-…
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How did Keir Starmer manage to win a landslide majority even though fewer people voted for him than for Jeremy Corbyn in either of his election bids?
A quick thread looking beneath the numbers.
Let’s start with swing…
Election nerds like to focus on two-party swing - essentially showing how voters shifted between the main parties.
And on this metric, Labour enjoyed a MASSIVE swing. 11%. Slightly more than Blair in 1997.
But there’s more to this chart than meets the eye…
Let’s take the same data, two-party swing, & break it down. Red bits of bars show change in Labour vote, blue bits show Tory change.
Now look again at that 2024 bar (on the far right).
The vast, vast majority of swing to Labour is in fact swing AWAY from the Conservatives.