Swedes are voting in a closely fought general election that could see the far-right Sweden Democrats enter government for the first time. With immigration, crime and the economy dominating the campaign, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson are locked in a neck-and-neck race.
US President Donald Trump says Ukraine should stop striking Russian diesel supplies as the impact is harming the global economy. Trump's comments come as he continued his two-day visit to Ireland which blend a bit of high-level meetings with personal leisure.
Gaynor Parkin and Dave Winsborough | This intimacy economy is tapping into the deepest parts of our intimate psychological infrastructureThe modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their workMichael* is an engineer whose company embraced the AI wave. He enjoys testing ideas with chatbots. However, recently his manager became worried about his judgement and reliance on the tech. “He literally cannot make any decision without running it past AI. He’s developed a very off-script interpretation of our business goals, and he’s losing his team. If we can’t get him back on track I think we’ll end up parting company”.The original attention economy developed by tech firms was designed to capture human time and monetise your focus. It was designed to increase views, scroll time, and ad impressions. Algorithms optimised getting you hooked in.Contingent responsiveness – replying instantly and tuning to your emotional state.Unconditional positive regard – always validating, never distracted.Memory and continuity – remembering your stories, preferences, anxieties.Linguistic identification – producing verbal caring without any lived caring.Narcissistic empathy – validating your self-image without question. Continue reading...
Economist Jeffrey Sachs said stronger India-China cooperation could help create a multipolar world, with the two countries potentially becoming the world’s largest economies. He called their relationship crucial for trade, investment, technology and global supply chains.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed at the BRICS summit in New Delhi that Russia’s economy expanded 10.3% from 2023 to 2025, outpacing global benchmarks despite 30,000 sanctions, while alleging an 8% drop in EU industrial output. IMF data shows global economic growth reached 10.7% over the same timeframe, while Eurostat records an EU industrial decline of just 0.6%.
Genta Koja was projected to become the Japanese archipelago’s next governor, a win for the country’s hawkish prime minister as she works to accelerate a military buildup.
Senior economic and financial officials warned at the YES 2026 conference in Kyiv that Ukraine’s state budget faces a “very difficult winter” driven by escalating war costs and systematic Russian strikes on commercial, logistics, and port infrastructure. Economy Minister Oleksandr Kravchenko estimated annual damage to infrastructure and fixed assets at roughly $10 billion, warning state compensation tools cannot meet business needs. Parliament Budget Committee Chair Roksolana Pidlasa reported that defense expenditures have surged to $190 million per day, totaling nearly $42 billion over eight months against $39 billion in domestic revenue.
China will take the lead to help foster artificial-intelligence collaboration and development among developing-economy countries, President Xi Jinping said.
Americans are facing a rising tab as a multi-decade borrowing binge collides with a spike in energy prices caused by the Iran war.The big picture: Long-term interest rates are surging, as are consumer prices.It's a toxic mix of near-term inflation pressures and years of fiscal imbalance.Driving the news: The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose to 4.97% Friday, up a full percentage point since the end of February, and only a hair below its high since 2007.The rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has risen in lockstep, reaching 7.08% Friday, per Mortgage News Daily — the highest in more than a year.State of play: The immediate catalyst Friday was an inflation report that showed consumer prices surging higher in August, with gasoline prices accounting for more than a third of the gain. Gasoline is now at a national average of $4.29 a gallon, while the price of diesel has climbed to over $6 a gallon.All this means that the Federal Reserve is now expected to raise its target interest rate this week.But longer-term borrowing rates are set in global markets — and determined by bigger forces.The U.S. government is spending about $2 trillion a year more than it raises in taxes at a time the cumulative debt is already roughly 100% of a year's GDP.Long-term bond yields have been rising worldwide, reflecting both high government borrowing and demand for capital from the AI buildout.The intrigue: The recent spikes have taken place in spite of interventions by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to try to smooth turbulent bond markets — efforts that haven't succeeded in making borrowing cheaper.And rather than focus on the deficit reduction the bond market wants, President Trump has floated the notion of $5,000 payments to all U.S. adult citizens if Republicans win midterm elections.The U.S. government is already spending around $1 trillion a year in interest on the debt, on track to rise to $2 trillion over the next decade, a new high as a share of the economy. If the recent surge in rates is sustained, those numbers will grow even higher.The bottom line: The combination of near-term energy-driven inflation and the long-term debt trajectory means that it will cost more to borrow money for the foreseeable future.
Technology is going to drastically reshape the economy, and it’s within our power to decide what that looks likeThe idea that autonomous, thinking machines may one day destroy property, hierarchy and inequality is as old as western political thought. In Aristotle’s Politics, the philosopher cites a fantasy from the Iliad, in which machines begin to act independently of human direction, concluding: “If every tool could perform its own work when ordered, or by seeing what to do in advance … if thus shuttles wove and quills played harps of themselves, master-craftsmen would have no need of assistants and masters no need of slaves.”The dream that automation could inaugurate a classless society is also present in the writings of Karl Marx. In 1858 he imagined the replacement of intellectual property with “socialised knowledge”, which would merge into a “general intellect”, blowing the foundations of capitalism sky high. Continue reading...
Russian forces launched approximately 2,100 strike drones, 78 missiles, and 1,700 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine over the past week, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Sunday, Sept. 13. Zelensky highlighted that a substantial share consisted of jet-powered Shahed drones designed to batter Ukraine’s economy and life-support networks, citing Sunday strikes on energy, railway, and residential infrastructure across Odesa, Ternopil, and Konotop, as well as an attack near the Polish border in Volyn.
Ex-Tory chancellor says economy has ‘fallen off a cliff’ since Brexit but rejoining union could be ‘quite simple’Former chancellor George Osborne said Britain’s economy has “fallen off a cliff” since Brexit and that rejoining the European Union’s customs union would be the fastest route to recovery.Osborne, who resigned as chancellor after being part of David Cameron’s cabinet at the time of the referendum, said it was important to rebuild links with the EU. Continue reading...
Gun violence, asylum policy and welfare reform dominate Sweden's election as Ulf Kristersson's coalition battles Magdalena Andersson's Social Democrats.
Pilot project in Preston comes with apprenticeship offer for Neets at end of three-week courseIn a youth centre opposite Preston bus station, the UK government is trying to address two of the greatest challenges facing the national economy: AI and youth unemployment.The hope is that one will solve – rather than cause – the other. In a room at the recently opened Vault, a community hub in the Lancashire city, an “AI bootcamp” is under way – part of a trial in the north-west to give 16- to 24-year-olds AI training. Continue reading...
The nominee to head the Ministry of Finance and Economy expressed his intention on Sunday to implement the cryptocurrency tax next January as scheduled, despite pushback from both industry players and opposition lawmakers. In written materials submitted to the National Assembly ahead of a confirmation hearing slated for Tuesday, Lee Hyoung-il, who currently serves as first vice finance minister, noted that specific tax rules would be finalized through a National Tax Service public notice by year-end, ensuring taxpayers face no confusion when filing. He also defended classifying crypto asset income as miscellaneous income under the current tax framework, calling it an “appropriate” approach to applying taxpayer-friendly measures, such as a basic deduction and a single tax rate. “Given that stock trades involving major shareholders, foreign equities and unlisted shares, along with transaction taxes, are already subject to taxation, extending tax rules to crypto assets is essential for tax fairness,” he said. The crypto tax regime treats profits from transferring or lending digital
ATHENS — As China embraced capitalism, its leading universities adopted mainstream Western textbooks to mold their students’ thinking about the economy. “Most of my colleagues pay only lip service to Marxism,” an economics professor in one of China’s top economics departments confessed to me. “Only a tiny minority take Marx seriously.” That was two years ago. Today, the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is giving Chinese Marxist economics a mighty boost. Chinese Marxists have long feared that the country’s capitalist turn would lead it into the “rent trap” familiar from the North Atlantic economies: a period of asset-price inflation, a rapid slowdown, stagnation, deindustrialization, and social discord. When competition in the productive sectors drives profit rates down, rent-yielding property becomes more attractive to investors seeking the greatest risk-weighted return. The more wealth chases rents, the higher asset prices rise, and the faster wealth moves from industry to the rentier sector. Rent traps hollow out industry and turn once-proud industrial power
Zelenskyy says ‘Russia wants to kill the Ukrainian economy’ as Moscow steps up attacks on infrastructure. What we know on day 1,663Russian airstrikes killed nine people, injured dozens and damaged buildings and infrastructure across Ukraine on Saturday, as Kyiv braces for a “very difficult” winter amid intensified attacks on the country. The civilian death toll has risen sharply in Ukraine over the past two months as Russia steps up attacks on power plants and other infrastructure. Ukraine has hit energy facilities and warehouses in distant parts of Russia, and both sides have targeted each other’s shipping.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, writing on Telegram, said Russia had deployed nearly 500 drones against Ukrainian targets since early morning. “Basically, the Russians have expanded the war away from the front, where they have no success, into the economy, and their tactics are as basic as it gets: destroying every site that could help people cope with the conditions of war,” he wrote. “Russia wants to kill the Ukrainian economy and break our resistance.”The city council in Kramatorsk, one of Ukraine’s frontline “fortress cities” that Russia wants to capture, said Russian forces attacked private cars, killing three people in three incidents over a 90-minute period. Four people were injured. “These are not military targets,” the council said. “They are ordinary civilian cars. People were going about their business.”The governor of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, Vitaliy Bunechko, said a Russian strike on a grocery store killed two people in the town of Zviahel, west of Kyiv. Bunechko said two petrol stations also came under attack.Earlier, Zelenskyy reported attacks on the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia and Kryvyi Rih, his home town. The governor of Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said two people were killed and 11 injured in assaults on Zaporizhzhia and other localities.In Odesa region, governor Oleh Kiper said 37 people, including an infant, were injured in a series of overnight attacks, while two people were missing. Russia’s defence ministry said Russian forces have maintained their strikes on Ukrainian ports, hitting a cargo ship in Odesa that it said was carrying goods for military use.Ukrainian officials said the country was bracing for a brutal winter as intensified Russian attacks on infrastructure and key export industries compound a deepening budget crisis. The economy minister, Oleksandr Kravchenko, said damage to infrastructure and fixed assets from Russian airstrikes was estimated at close to $10bn this year, while the broader economic costs of the attacks and the de facto blockage of its ports had cut 1.5 percentage points of GDP. “We anticipate a very difficult winter in terms of both critical infrastructure, which is being destroyed every day by Russian attacks, but also in terms of overall economic conditions in the country,” he said.With fighting on the frontline largely stalled, Russia and Ukraine have increasingly targeted logistics networks and other economic assets in an effort to undermine each other’s war effort. For more than two weeks, Russia has carried out near constant attacks on Kyiv using faster jet-powered drones, disrupting life, business and government operations. Moscow has also effectively blocked Ukraine’s Black Sea ports by intensifying its air attacks on the country’s southern regions. Ukraine’s main exports – agricultural products and iron and steel – are shipped via these ports.In Moldova on Ukraine’s western border, authorities closed national airspace for nearly an hour after a drone was detected near the border. Seven border crossings were temporarily closed.Zelenskyy said he would be willing to meet Putin at the G20 summit in Miami for talks on ending the war, in a media interview released Saturday, but the Kremlin immediately ruled it out. “It is impossible,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told AFP in New Delhi on Saturday, repeating Moscow’s demand that a meeting can only take place in the Russian capital. The gathering of world leaders takes place on 14-15 December and there has been no confirmation yet as to whether Putin would attend. Putin has repeatedly rejected offers for a face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy. Continue reading...
Bill Kelty, a mastermind of reforms that set up Australia’s modern economy, has delivered a stinging critique of the economic record of Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers.
ANZ chief economist Richard Yetsenga is no alarmist, but he does sound one big alarm for the global economy.
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Two of the most important corridors for international energy shipments are blocked by Iran and its proxies, oil prices are up and the global economy is reeling.
Lutnick said $500bn of estimated $1tn needed to fund checks to all US adults could come from new visa programDonald Trump’s controversial proposal to give a $5,000 “dividend” to all US adults if Republicans maintain control of Congress in November’s elections would not be paid out from US tax revenues, according to the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.“It’s not tax money,” Lutnick said in an interview with NBC News, adding that the administration could “earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers”. Continue reading...
Henrik Zeberg, an economist who studies business cycles, laid out his timeline for how and when a downturn could hit markets and the economy.
Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine cost Poland an estimated €113.4 billion between 2022 and 2025, according to Statistics Poland. The losses include reduced economic output, higher inflation, lower real wage growth, and increased defense and Ukraine-related spending.
Sweden votes on Sunday as voters weigh migration, crime, the economy and whether the far right will enter government.
US president will hold talks with Ireland’s leftwing president Catherine Connolly, and play golfDonald Trump has touched down in Dublin this morning for a two-day visit to Ireland, where he will hold talks with the Irish president and prime minister, and play golf.The weekend visit coincides with the Irish Open, a major golf tournament taking place at the beachfront Doonberg golf course owned by the US president.Many in Ireland are rooting for Connolly to let rip at Trump for his policies and rhetoric on immigrants and the Middle East. Others hope she will stifle any criticisms to avoid provoking a visitor who could upend Ireland’s economy.” Continue reading...
Hong Kong — Rachel Xia has grown quite used to flying solo in the decade since leaving her hometown…
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The record price of diesel threatens to stoke inflation at a time when consumers are already price-sensitive and businesses are reeling from higher costs due to trade tensions. Why it matters: Diesel is a key cost throughout the supply chain, meaning soaring prices could eventually show up in what consumers pay for everything from groceries to household goods.Driving the news: The national average price of a gallon of diesel topped $6 for the first time ever, AAA said Friday, Axios' Ben Berkowitz reports.That's up 60% from a year earlier.Between the lines: Food prices could be among the first places consumers feel the ripple effects, executives said this week.At grocery chain Kroger, which has been trying to keep a lid on prices: "I would expect that the pressure is actually going to mount," CEO Greg Foran said Friday on an earnings call.At pork producer Smithfield Foods: "That impact is beginning to flow through in the second half of the year," CFO Mark Hall said Thursday.At Hormel Foods: "With the Iran war and the spike in diesel costs, that's been something we've had to confront," interim CEO Jeffrey Ettinger said Wednesday.But the effects extend well beyond food.For example, at Newell Brands — whose portfolio includes Rubbermaid, Sharpie and Coleman — the inflationary impacts of energy costs have far exceeded the company's initial estimates."It's either resin, which is obviously dependent on the price of oil, or it is direct transportation costs, i.e., diesel," CFO Mark Erceg said Tuesday.The big picture: Energy prices have spiked since President Trump launched the war with Iran, which prompted the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane.The latest Energy Information Administration outlook expects retail diesel to average $4.40 a gallon in 2027, up 33 cents, or 8.2%, from its previous forecast of $4.07, Axios' Rebecca Falconer and Ben Geman reported.The average price of unleaded gasoline has also spiked, rising by $1.11 over the last year to $4.30 per gallon as of Friday, according to AAA.By the numbers: 47 of the 50 states have experienced an increase in average diesel prices of more than $2 per gallon over the last year, according to GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan.The economy is facing an extra $300 million in diesel costs every 24 hours.California is poised to become the first state with average diesel prices above $8 — with many stations already above $9, according to GasBuddy.The bottom line: Record diesel prices are turning the energy shock into a broader cost shock for businesses and consumers.
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explicare.deThe cost of diesel hit $6 a gallon for the first time ever this week. It could be another blow to consumers already feeling the sting of high inflation.
Resilient start to third quarter comes as surging oil price reignites inflation fears