Zynternet is a portmanteau made up of Zyn and internet. If you’re reading this internet is self-explanatory, the Zyn in question is tabacco-free Skoal bandit type nicotine pouches. Zyn comes in a tin and has various flavours.
According to journalist Max Read, the Zynternet is a kind of 90s to early 2000s sports obsessed ‘lad’ type culture; but in the 2020s. There are shades of ‘white van man’ in there as well.
a broad community of fratty, horndog, boorishly provocative 20- and sometimes (embarrassingly) 30-somethings–mostly but by no means entirely male–has emerged to form a newly prominent online subculture.
Despite Read’s definition defining it as a 20 to 30-something thing, the subculture seems to bleed into 40-something Dads and draws on creators like Barstool Sports. They’re less extreme than the Andrew Tate acolytes. They care more about sports and professional golf than they do about current affairs and politics. But they’ll be voting Republican. They like college sports, sports betting, light beers and Zyn nicotine pouches.
The culture has grown prominent on the laissez-faire Musk era Twitter.
Zynternet stretch
It would be very easy to point to the Zynternet audience and draw parallels to the ‘proles’ of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. And then go down a dystopian k-hole.
I’ll leave the last words to David Ogilvy for those despairing about the Zynternet:
You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. Three million consumers get married every year. The advertisement which sold a refrigerator to those who got married last year will probably be just as successful with those who’ll get married next year. An advertisement is just like a radar sweep, constantly hunting new prospects as they come into the market. Get a good radar and keep it sweeping.
David Ogilvy
TL;DR if you’re not reaching the zynternet, you’re probably not doing political marketing properly. More related content here.
Content or couture? Balenciaga’s 30-minute dress becomes the flashpoint of the season | Vogue Business – “It feels a little like a fast fashion iteration of haute couture,” says Victoria Moss, fashion director of The Standard, of the swirling mass of black nylon. “This feels at odds with what fashion at this level should be, which is exquisitely made pieces that somewhat justify their extreme pricing.” She adds that many invest in couture to have garments perfectly fitted to their bodies — and made to last for years.
“Is it beautiful? That’s debatable. Is it impressive? Not really. Is it brazen? Absolutely. Is it a meditation on the creative process? Maybe. Are we bored of these kinds of gimmicks at Balenciaga? Clearly not, as Demna’s work continues to be both a lightning rod and a conversation starter. “Call it ‘pret-a-polarize’,” says fashion journalist and ‘Newfash’ podcast host Mosha Lundström. “To my eye and understanding, I see this look as content rather than couture.”
Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks | Reuters – yes stories like this are funny because ‘modern’ Japan with its flip phones, fax machines and floppy discs are an anachronism. But there’s a few other things to consider. There might be issues in terms of investment a la the NHS and critical systems that for whatever reason can’t be ported on to modern systems (like the problems had with security based on ActiveX).
Dumb systems also have security benefits, you can’t steal nearly as much data on even a compressed floppy disk as you can on a USB stick.
Interesting use cases for generative AI in China which sounds like a plot line from Ghost In The Shell.
Baidu – World No. 1? – Radio Free Mobile – is Baidu ERNIE really the number one generative AI service? It depends on if the numbers are true. 14 million developers, 950,000 models within the eco-system
China plays down importance of lithography tools in semiconductor challenges – Interesting report from Taiwan’s DigiTimes semiconductor trade magazine: China seems to be deliberately playing down the importance of lithography tools as it identifies the challenges for the development of its semiconductor industry in a recently published dossier.
The Threat of Decivilisation | Quillette – President Macron when having a Chatham House type discussion with sociology experts used the phrase processus de décivilisation – as a descriptor for the widespread civil and political unrest that has rocked France.
Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron
On the face of it, decivilisation is an appropriate term if Macron believed that there was something rotten at the centre of French society. But the phrase decivilisation is problematic and Macron has been capitalised by French on the political left.
Renaud Camus
The crux of the left’s criticism is a work by the author Renaud Camus. Camus became famous writing a book called Tricks about a series of up to 45 stories (depending which edition you read) about one-night stands he had travelling around the world as a gay man in the late 1970s. Decades later Camus became more famous for his contributions to ideas of the far right, notably the great replacement concept in reaction to increased immigration in France from former French colonies. While these works were published in French they were summarised for English readers in his book You Will Not Replace Us!
In his works he describes the gradual takeover of France as decivilisation.
The left
The left drew a line between Camus work and Macron’s phrase and assumed that it was a way to build a bridge to the resurgent far right in France.
The reality is more complex. The degree of change in French society has driven backlashes in French society, in a similar way that Brexit and small boat immigration did in the UK. The problem for the left is that these reactionaries would have been natural constituents of the left. The left, like in many countries, instead has pivoted to degree educated urban dwellers, abandoning the workers to the far right.
Is French society really breaking down?
It’s hard to tell whether ‘decivilisation’ is really happening. Civil disturbances tend to happen during times of economic unrest and in the past has been a reset. There is a body of opinion who believe that social media has its thumb on the scales, driving things harder and faster without a countervailing force to help balance things out over time, like happened in previous decades.
Japan Rail Companies Limit Train Passes Due to Chip Shortage – these stored value cards also allow consumers to buy things in combinis as well as travel. They are similar to Hong Kong’s Octopus cards. What’s happening to the chips through? Japanese YouTubers have published advisory videos around the debacle for tourists to Japan. It seems to be a drive towards registration as much as anything else
Cigars are still a thing. This looks like a feature length video produced in conjunction between the YouTuber and a cigar manufacturer.
Marketing
Multi-factored reasons in nature why campaigns seem to be working less well. We know that as campaigns have become more digital, campaigns have been less effective and marketers being less confident in their campaigns. Interesting the way brand building on digital is danced around. The channels often dont work and measures are BS only a technologist would love.
NTC Volcano or NTC Vulkan in westernised Russian is an information security firm (think Crowdstrike, HackerOne, Mandiant or the part of BAE Systems formerly known as Detica). Information leaked from the company show that NTC Volcano has played a major role in Russian state sponsored cyber attacks.
NTC Volcano also work on protecting large corporates and include Sberbank and Aeroflot. NTC Volcano has partnered with IBM up to last year.
Like the Panama Papers before it, it looks as if there is going to be a succession of NTC Volcano related stories over the next few weeks coming out by the participating media outlets collaborating on the reporting.
Alibaba Reorg – by Kevin Xu – Interconnected – so many motivations wrapped up in this from conglomerate discount to dissipating market power that made them such a high profile target for Chinese government attention
Current state of US-China relationship. This doesn’t take into account the dumpster fire of China’s relationships with the likes of the European Union.
How China’s Spies Fooled an America That Wanted to be Fooled – Lawfare – Rather than untangle the ways in which the MSS seeks to gather U.S. government or corporate secrets, Joske argues that the MSS’s greatest intelligence strength is its massively successful influence operation against U.S. political and business elites – reinforces a lot of the findings in The Hidden Hand by Hamilton & Ohlberg.
The lengths some companies will go… the amount of money, time and effort they will spend… just to avoid paying women of color.
Jodi-Ann Burey
The reality its that AI-generated models aren’t about systemic racism; but the creative class equivalent of John Henry vs. the steam drill, or the Luddites against textile manufacturing machinery. At a systemic view: when capital and labour come into conflict, capital wins.
The only stakeholder group actually being considered is the company’s shareholders. They are usually put in place for efficiency gains that are traded off against ‘just good enough effectiveness’. The need has probably been accelerated by the inflation in influencers prices and the need for a faster turnaround time.
Finally you don’t have to worry about breach of good behaviour clauses which might occur with working models or photographers. It started with virtual influencers pioneered in Japan notably Imma who first appeared in 2018.
How the security strategy of European countries has changed in recent years. TL;DR – the peace dividend is over.
Software
How to Save Android | Digits to Dollars – Android is not in good shape. After 16 years on the market, Android remains heavily fragmented. This requires developers to build hundreds (thousands?) of versions of their app, and consumers face a bewildering array of user interfaces. Developers are deeply frustrated by this. We know many software developers who insist on using an Android phone out of principal, but their green message bubbles stand out as exceptions. Consumers, especially young consumers (aka customers of the future) prefer iOS by wide margins – the problem is testing rather than developing lots of versions
Beyoncé and Adidas mutually agree to call it quits – A Wall Street Journal report states that this development comes a couple of months after Ivy Park witnessed a 50 per cent decline in sales. The label pooled USD 40 million in 2022, however, the news outlet showed a projection of USD 250 million. This is a massive shrink from USD 93 million in sales in 2021. – the latest collection looked more like high vis workwear than stylish activewear.
Is nepotism really that bad? | LinkedIn – Jed Hallam wrote an essay on nepotism and the effects that he perceives it as having on inequality. Jed tries to steer a line on nepotism somewhere between recognising that the people may have an interest and talent, whilst pointing out inequality related issues derived from nepotism. Nepotism itself is widespread, whether its impact is small or large.
Jed is concerned that nepotism can actively remove opportunities for less conventional candidates that may do better if assessed solely in merit.
Social, cultural and economic barriers
Even if nepotism disappeared, our unconscious desire to hire people more like us, can mean that candidates face challenges in social, cultural and economic realms. I don’t drink, don’t have an interest in rugby union or football. I knew no one down here and sold my car to pay my first month’s rent when I moved to London. The analogy of a viking burning his boat behind him would be apt. I didn’t, and couldn’t if I wanted to, move to London earlier than my late 20s. I had to put myself through university and build up a modest amount of money to back myself as my parents didn’t have any.
One aspect of Jed’s essay on nepotism particularly surprised me:
“the proportion of people from working-class backgrounds operating in the creative industries has more than halved since the 1970s–falling from 16.4 percent to just 7.9 percent”
The problem with nepotism is that its hard to define and work out the difference between good and bad nepotism. For instance:
I line managed some one who had gone to Harrow and had found it harder to get into a creative agency because he was considered to be too posh by interviewees. He since went on to work successfully for other agencies, inhouse at a well loved brand and now runs his own shop
Would someone following on into the family profession be a case of nepotism? A classic example from the creative industry would be Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk, whose father is disco producer ‘Daniel Vangarde’ aka Daniel Bangalter. One could imagine how being exposed to music and a studio environment from an early age made Thomas the kind of producer he was.
Or the Arnault children taking roles in LVMH? European business often rely on intergenerational family ownership and management
Nepotism is more obvious when you have events like the recent US college scandal. The problem with debate about any hot subject like nepotism is the lack of room for nuance and good judgement. A second aspect to it is making people feel like victims of nepotism and inequality, rather than encouraging striving. Admittedly that is even made harder to do when inequality that underpins nepotism has become much more extreme.
People look for easy solves and clear lines for issues like nepotism, when what we really need are better decision making and good judgement.
Nepotism unresolved
There will always be people who feel hard done by, it wasn’t them it was X external factor. Sometimes it isn’t your time, or you didn’t make clear how good you were. Equal opportunity doesn’t equate to equal outcomes, the case in point that nepotism can learn from is currently going through the US Supreme Court. In an age of algorithmically filtered CVs I can see nepotism become attenuated rather than resolved.
V Shanshan, “Why are you Forcing me to Embrace Solidarity?” – Reading the China Dream – Weibo post from someone whose uncle had died from complications from covid the previous day, writing to express his anger and bitterness at the hectoring calls in China’s official media to “come together” and “look to the future” as China decides to live—and die—with covid. That such calls ring hollow for many Chinese makes perfect sense, since China’s mighty messaging machine seems to have turned on a dime, suddenly arguing that Omicron is no big deal and that “everyone is responsible for their own health” after insisting for years that the virus is deadly and that collective behavior was the only way to control it
A Place for Fire – The Paris Review – the primal draw of fire in the home. This reminded me of the central role of the turf and wood fuelled range in the Irish farmhouse where I spent a good deal of my childhood
Project MUSE – The Surge of Nationalist Sentiment among Chinese Youth during the COVID-19 Pandemic – Since 2012, Beijing has been promoting a strain of populist nationalism which underscores both the institutional superiority of the ruling party and the cultural superiority of being Chinese. At the international level, however, the image of both the regime and the Chinese has been marred due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan (December 2019–January 2020). This study examines the extent and the form that the surge in nationalist sentiment of Chinese young people has taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a questionnaire survey of 1,200 students from a sample of 20 colleges/universities in China (June–July 2020), this study shows that the respondents express high satisfaction with the state’s performance in tackling the pandemic, and that there is a substantial surge of nationalist sentiment with a high level of hostility towards other nations (e.g. the United States). Such nationalist sentiment, however, is found to express a bifurcated pattern in that young Chinese also tend to embrace the opportunity to work and study in the Western societies they ostensibly dislike – yeah, is it smart to let them in though, given Chinese laws obligating them to cooperate with the MSS if requested?
Project MUSE – Living with the State-Led Order: Practical Acceptance and Unawareness of the Chinese Middle Class – China’s expanding middle class is often found to support the regime and lack democratic aspirations. We find that one section of the middle class depends upon the state for jobs and other material benefits, and the other works for the private and foreign sectors of the country’s economy. Once separated as such, we found that the non-state middle class clearly shows lower support for the regime. Furthermore, unlike the state middle class, which registers lower democratic support, the non-state middle class shows a similar level of democratic support as other social classes. In general, however, while only pragmatically accepting the current order, both middle class groups nonetheless appear lacking practical knowledge and understanding of liberal democratic institutions such as free media and multiparty elections. The unforthcoming attitudes toward democracy might also derive from a general sense of fearing the loss of order and the other related uncertainties
Economics
The true priorities of the global elite – by Judd Legum – The New York Times’ Peter Goodman, author of “Davos Man” — a blistering criticism of the WEF and its neoliberal ideology — recently offered this brief description: The World Economic Forum is not a secret government or organized conspiracy. It is a giant business meeting, a chance for the heads of multinational oil giants to sit opposite Persian Gulf potentates — fronted by the performance art of earnest panel discussions aimed at solving the problems of the day. More than anything, Davos is a prophylactic against change, an elaborate reinforcement of the status quo served up as the pursuit of human progress. Tuesday’s WEF program included a panel with Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV). The pair shared an on-stage high-five in celebration of the filibuster, which has been used to block increases in the minimum wage, protections for voting rights, and efforts to maintain access to reproductive health care.
German tank manufacturer’s warning puts pressure on Ukraine’s allies | Ukraine | The Guardian – Battle tanks from German industrial reserves wanted by Ukraine will not be ready to be delivered until 2024, the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has warned, increasing pressure on Nato allies to support Ukraine with armoured vehicles in active service instead, ahead of a key meeting this week.“Even if the decision to send our Leopard tanks to Kyiv came tomorrow, the delivery would take until the start of next year,” Rheinmetall’s chief executive, Armin Papperger, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. Rheinmetall, which manufactures the battle vehicle’s gun, has 22 Leopard 2 and 88 older Leopard 1 tanks in its stocks. Getting the Leopard tanks ready for battle, however, would take several months and cost hundreds of millions of euros the company could not put up until the order was confirmed
Macau gaming: Chau’s jail term warns punters and investors alike | Financial Times – It is worthwhile considering this in part of the wider picture of how China is trying deal with capital flight. It also chimes with efforts to move Hong Kong from being about ‘wealth management’ i.e. schemes to allow capital flight out of the mainland to the west to trying to pull in western money to invest in Chinese businesses. Macau was part of that process too.
Expect a clampdown on insurance policy sales people. At the moment a lot of them sell these things via WeChat with a view to providing financial services to mainlanders in a similar way to what daigou do with luxury goods from abroad. I know work at home mums that do this for Prudential as a side hustle
Auction houses have expanded like crazy in Hong Kong during the pandemic and I would expect the authorities to look at how they can shut this off or use to only import items into China rather than having them leave again. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are strongly encouraged to shutdown in Hong Kong and up up in Sanya on Hainan island instead so they stay inside the yuan firewall
Expect pressure on foreign banks on wealth management / capital flight vehicles. There maybe some latitude through mainland banks where the government can monitor the flow through back-end access into their systems
Ultimately, Singapore will be the new Hong Kong – which is happening already due to ‘run culture’ and a plethora of wealth management and family office services being provided.
Hong Kong’s financial hub is at a crossroads | Financial Times – Look for a senior job in Hong Kong these days on LinkedIn and you’re unlikely to find any openings unless you’re a speaker of Cantonese or Mandarin, or both. “That’s a big change,” confides a longtime British expat in the territory. “It’s understandable. But it’s a big change.” The evolving jobs market is just one of the visible signs of the tilt to mainland China that promises to redefine Hong Kong’s role as a global financial centre. Beijing’s growing influence on the former British colony — evident in four years of security crackdowns and tough Covid lockdowns — has raised existential questions about the sustainability of the territory’s role as Asia’s unparalleled bridgehead to global finance – yeah soon even the finance bros will go
Japan was the future but it’s stuck in the past – BBC News – Japan had emerged from the destruction of World War Two and conquered global manufacturing. The money poured back into the country, driving a property boom where people bought anything they could get their hands on, even chunks of forest. By the mid-1980s, the joke was that the grounds of the imperial palace in Tokyo were worth the same as all of California. The Japanese call it the “Baburu Jidai” or the bubble era. Then in 1991 the bubble burst. The Tokyo stock market collapsed. Property prices fell off a cliff. They are yet to recover. A friend was recently negotiating to buy several hectares of forest. The owner wanted $20 per square metre. “I told him forest land is only worth $2 a square metre,” my friend said. “But he insisted he needed $20 a square metre, because that’s what he’d paid for it in the 1970s.” Think of Japan’s sleek bullet trains, or Toyota’s “just-in-time” marvel of assembly-line manufacturing – and you could be forgiven for thinking Japan is a poster child for efficiency. It is not. Rather the bureaucracy can be terrifying, while huge amounts of public money are spent on activities of dubious utility – this says more about the persons values than about Japan. Also coming from Britain’s public broadcast service, it is ironic that Japan is at the centre of many critical global supply chains and Britain is being stripped out of them. A bit of introspection is required
Luxury Brands Beware: Angered Chinese Tourists Are Avoiding Japan And South Korea | Jing Daily – South Korea issued yellow tags for China’s inbound travelers to wear at its airports, and Japan followed suit, giving red tags to passengers coming from the country. The initiative has elicited outrage online. On Weibo, the hashtag “Japan issues red tags to mark Chinese travelers” has gathered 200 million views, becoming the fourth most trending topic at one point. Many Chinese travelers complained that they not only had to pay for COVID tests and potential quarantines in subpar conditions upon entering South Korea but also had to wear a yellow tag on their necks to identify themselves as coming from China for special inspection at airports. The tags, along with South Korean reporters snapping photos at them, made them feel like they were criminals being transferred
Good to see that we’re finally beyond the 3D printing hype bubble and its true benefits can be appreciated. This article is a good run down of the pros and cons of 3D printing in an industrial setting. In some ways it reminds me of the ‘manufacturing cells’ concept were a computer controlled machine tool with switchable tool faces would do multiple jobs and process multiple types of products in small batches.
Not all manufacturing is true Fordian production lines. Just in the same way that digital printing has been good for small run books and catalogues or printing on demand; yet ‘traditional printing’ is still used for bigger print runs – additive manufacturing will be alongside traditional manufacturing processes.
Chinese Celebrities’ Political Signalling on Sina Weibo | The China Quarterly | Cambridge Core – Recent studies have revealed how the state disciplines and co-opts celebrities to promote patriotism, foster traditional values and spread political propaganda. However, how do celebrities adapt to the changing political environment? Focusing on political signalling on the social media platform Sina Weibo, we analyse a novel dataset and find that the vast majority of top celebrities repost from official accounts of government agencies and state media outlets, though there are variations. Younger celebrities with more followers tend to repost from official accounts more often. Celebrities from Taiwan tend to repost less than those from the mainland and Hong Kong, despite being subject to the same rules. However, the frequent political signalling by the most influential celebrities among younger generations suggests that the state has co-opted celebrity influence on social media to broadly promote its political objectives
Macs In the Enterprise: A Cisco Case Study – Creative Strategies – Despite extremely high desire from employees to use Macs (66% according to a study we did last year), most IT organizations keep the Mac users in their organization at arm’s length. Offering true platform of choice matters when it comes to employee experience and employee satisfaction with their workplace, tools, and IT departments. This is exactly what Cisco found when they studied internal employees. A Cisco report on IT satisfaction of employees found satisfaction to be significantly lower when employees were not offered their platform of choice in a laptop – this bullshit has been going on my entire career, HR departments are a major issue as well
I subscribe to all kinds of weird and wonderful newsletters to get content for these posts, the idea of a Ukraine beta test was inspired by this post on SOFREP: Combat Sandbox: Ukraine’s ‘MacGyver Army’Tests Western Weaponry | SOFREP. SOFREP is written a self-described team of a team of former military, intelligence and special operations professionals. While some of their stories are repeats of tabloid fantasies: UK Apache helicopter gunships for Ukraine, they also provide some smart editorial thinking.
Western military ideas were designed to run against Russian and Chinese campaigns. The Ukraine beta test seems to have failed for Russia’s hybrid warfare concept, when it was executed on a large scale basis. Russia were trying to execute on an idea first outlined by an American theorist Frank Hoffman in his work Conflict in the 21st century: the rise of hybrid wars for a think tank. The Russians themselves call it ‘non-linear warfare‘. After careful preparation, Russia used non-linear warfare to capture Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. On the surface of it, a successful Ukraine beta test for Russia. Yet 7 years later on a larger scale approach Russia failed and is having to go back to older ways of doing things.
Part of the Ukraine beta test works because of the Ukrainians and everything that they have on the line. Part of it was down to better tactics by Ukraine compared to Russia and at least some of which was down to the use of western weapons systems used in an innovative way.
There has since been a Ukraine beta test of western military ideas:
Delta is a system for collecting, processing and displaying information about enemy forces, coordinating defense forces, and providing situational awareness according to NATO standards, developed by the Center for Innovation and Development of Defense Technologies of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, founded in 2021 at the base of the A2724 military unit, which, in turn, was created in 2015 from the volunteer group Aerorozvidka.
Delta is used for planning operations and combat missions, coordination with other units, secure exchange of information on the location of enemy forces, etc. In particular, Delta has integrated chatbots developed by the Ministry of Digital Affairs – “eVorog” and the Security Service of Ukraine – “STOP Russian War”.
The system is equipped with modern means of monitoring suspicious activity. From 2021, allied cyber units are constantly scanning the system for vulnerabilities, intrusion attempts, data leaks, and more.
According to the developers, Delta provides a comprehensive understanding of the battle space in real time, integrates information about the enemy from various sensors and sources, including – intelligence, on a digital map, does not require additional settings, and can work on any device – laptop, tablet or even on a mobile phone. Roughly speaking, Delta is such a modern real-time command map and troop control center
It has taken years for western powers to build comparable systems. Delta is powered by a mix of human intelligence, Ukrainian open source intelligence and also includes NATO electronic intelligence and satellite imagery. Integration of NATO for Delta is a Ukraine beta test in itself. NATO will learn from the successes and challenges of Delta. At a tactical level the idea of a Ukraine beta test shows how well weapons systems work under real-world ‘near peer’ war conditions, giving them valuable understanding of what systems are most effective against Russian systems.
The Ukraine beta test shows where the gaps are in NATO systems. For instance the Gepard tank is a short range anti-aircraft system phased out by Germany a decade ago, that has shown the value of similar gun based systems against drones and low flying aircraft as a cost effective method to engage.
All of which makes me wonder why the arms industry aren’t taking the obvious step and ‘donating’ trial systems to the Ukrainian military for a Ukraine beta test to show their mettle and value to western clients? The closest that we’ve seen to this is the GLSDB. The GLSDB is an existing Boeing bomb mated to recycled rocket motors. But the arms industry could do so much more as part of a Ukraine beta test.
China
The politics of China’s Belt and Road workers in Africa – Asia Times – strong empirical evidence that democracies host significantly fewer Chinese workers than autocracies, all other things being equal. The results hold up using a variety of different statistical modeling techniques. In Ghana, a vibrant democracy, we found that both the country’s main political parties faced pressure to ensure that Chinese-built projects delivered local jobs. For example, in the construction of the Bui Dam, the agreement between Sinohydro, the Chinese state-owned behemoth contracted to complete the project, and the Ghanaian government stipulated that a certain proportion of the workforce would be local. In Algeria, on the other hand, Chinese labor has been used to quickly complete projects seen as politically expedient. Algeria is a “hybrid” regime that was ruled by a single man, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, from 1999 to 2019. Even when domestic discontent over Chinese workers prompted measures to limit their presence, the measures were not implemented. Our findings have several important implications. First, host country agency is important. Host governments have the ability to ensure Chinese companies hire locally. Second, projects that hire locally may bring more long-term economic benefits to host countries. This can happen both directly through the jobs that they create, and via knowledge and technology transfers into the wider economy. Our analysis, therefore, suggests that the wider developmental benefits of Chinese-built infrastructure may actually be stronger in democracies than in autocracies
China is flashing red on the skewed consensus indicator | Financial Times – The only strong standout finding is on China, around which a strength of current optimism has no offset. Morgan Stanley didn’t think to even offer one. It’s a Goldilocks scenario with no bears – this doesn’t make sense. Wall Street seems to have an irrational belief in China as a market. For example: China moves to take ‘golden shares’ in Alibaba and Tencent units | Financial Times – expect this is to be about more than censorship. More like military – civil fusion – also likely to have big implications for media engagement on social platforms
Ryanair unsure if softening in UK demand here to stay – “There’s no doubt that the UK economy by any stretch of the imagination, in terms of going into recession or whatever, is different than the other European economies,” – interesting that they are concerned about travel overall rather than thinking about a pivot to them from BA etc
Is this the end of the bachelor pad? – The Face – the bachelor pad has been gobbled up by the economy. Nearly a third of 20 – 34-year-olds in the UK are living at home with their parents. I did feel a bit triggered by the author’s dismissal of stainless steel as a material and good quality furniture like an Eames lounge chair as being emblematic of toxic masculinity. But the economic points are very valid
Mainland rush to return to Hong Kong, Macau post zero-Covid nears 1 million | South China Morning Post – travel demand has been growing since China relaxed its border restrictions in December, with around 998,000 mainland residents applying for travel documents to Hong Kong or Macau, and 353,000 people applying for a new passport – expect Hong Kong fatalities to surge. Hong Kong has an even older population than mainland China. There is a corresponding low vaccination rate amongst them, partly down to vaccine distrust due to often Chinese orchestrated misinformation
Wokeness as prairie fire – by Noah Smith – Noahpinion – Anyway, with all that said, the point of this post is that wokeness’ role in American society is evolving as we move into the early 2020s. In particular, I see three simultaneous trends:
An increasing anti-woke pushback from conservatives
Increasing entrenchment of woke ideas and practices within liberal institutions
A general exhaustion with wokeness among thought leaders and young people
Who Are You Calling a Great Power? – Lawfare – trying to define great power status is difficult in ways that are evident from the mismatched assortment of candidates that emerge in the recent literature. Power varies across issues and domains in ways that are glossed over when international politics is reduced to great power competition. It can be a convenient shorthand, but policymakers should not lose track of the nuances: Who counts as a great power may vary from issue to issue
Saudi Aramco bets on being the last oil major standing | Financial Times – What is often forgotten is how oil is also needed as a feedstock for materials. You want electric batteries they need a plastic based insulator and cables need plastic insulation. Mercedes et al tried soy plastic based cable insulation in the late 1990s and the wiring looms of these cars have had to be remade. All of which will be needed if you want a LiON or hydrogen economy. Then there are seals, bushings, coatings, medicines etc all of which rely on hydrocarbon feedstocks. Oil isn’t just about carbon emissions. Aramco is being prescient about this, Companies like Shell etc are increasingly looking at plastics manufacturing for exactly the same reasons
Lidl, Zara’s owner, H&M and Next ‘paid Bangladesh suppliers less than production cost’ | Retail industry | The Guardian – Lidl, Zara’s owner Inditex, H&M and Next have been accused of paying garment suppliers in Bangladesh during the pandemic less than the cost of production, leaving factories struggling to pay the country’s legal minimum wage. In a survey of 1,000 factories in the country producing clothes for UK retailers, 19% of Lidl’s suppliers made the claim, as did 11% of Inditex’s, 9% of H&M’s and 8% of Next’s. A majority of suppliers of those four brands, and also of Tesco and Aldi, told researchers that almost two years after Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic they were still being paid at the same rate – despite soaring raw material and production costs in the interim
EU draws up plans to stockpile scarce medicines | Financial Times – “a systemic challenge with numerous vulnerabilities”, including overreliance on a few countries for certain products, and the way drugs are regulated and bought. The EU’s Health Emergency and Response Authority (Hera), established in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, could organise joint procurements for several countries to improve supply. Health commissioner Stella Kyriakides outlined the plan in a reply to Greek health minister Thanos Plevris, who had demanded action in a letter to her last week. “There is a shortage in certain branded drugs containing paracetamol, antibiotics and inhalers . . . particularly for children,” Plevris said at a news conference last week where he announced a series of measures that would tackle the shortages. – because China
UK supermarket uses facial recognition tech to track shoppers – Coda Story – In July, civil liberties group Big Brother Watch filed a complaint to the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office against Southern Co-op and Facewatch — the company providing the surveillance system. Joshua Shadbolt, a duty manager at the Copnor Road supermarket, told me that high levels of theft have forced him and his colleagues to hide, for instance, all the cleaning products behind the till. Without the technology, he fears customers would be given free range to steal. Since Covid restrictions were lifted in the U.K. in early 2021 following a third national lockdown, shoplifting has been on the rise. This is likely to have been compounded by a cost-of-living crisis. Still, even if theft has not reached pre-pandemic levels, for Shadbolt, the biometric camera has been an effective and necessary tool in tackling crime. For Big Brother Watch, the camera is a breach of data rights and individual privacy. Every time a customer walks into a shop or business that uses Facewatch’s system, a biometric profile is created. If staff have reasonable grounds to suspect a customer of committing a crime, whether it’s shoplifting or disorderly conduct, they can add the customer to a Facewatch list of “subjects of interest.” Facewatch’s policy notice says that the police also have the power to upload images and data to Facewatch’s system. Anyone uploading the data, which includes a picture of the suspected person’s face, their name and a short summary of what happened, must confirm that they either witnessed the incident or have CCTV footage of it. But the policy does not indicate what the bar for “reasonably suspecting” someone is.
