14 Apr 25 Monday Briefing

4 out of 5 ain’t bad

I’m now in Johannesburg for the week leading up to Easter, after a lovely weekend getaway at Pilanesberg National Park, where I spent my time on game drives, in mostly blissful ignorance about the increasingly ridiculous tariff escalations in the wider world. I did manage to spot and photograph elephants, rhinos, hippos, lions and cheetahs – 4 out of the Big 5 ain’t bad for a weekend!

News Roundup

What can I say, friends? We are in the thick of it now, whether we like it or not. Tit for tat, then exemptions (yay for our electronics being exempted, like the dopamine-addicted apes we are), and now an interesting pause and possible stalemate until the next round of appendage waving begins. Are you tired yet? Not Xi, who’s on a tour of my region, drumming up as much support as possible – lucky for him that his opponent is giving him a nice handicap. All this while the markets bleed.

Watch/Scroll

East and Southeast Asia are really starting to show up fossils from our very distant past, specifically Denisovan, traces of which show up in our DNA.

Read

Kyla Scanlon (my favourite Gen Z economist) explains why we should be more concerned about US bond market yields than the stock market.

Our favourite China-know-nothing Noah Smith, on the other hand, is bleating about capital flight and how it happens to other poorer countries but not us, oh the pearl-clutching horror.

Ponder

Views from both ends of the tariff spectrum, from du Toit who thinks that China will beat the West, and Malmgren who argues that we are facing a Corporatist vs TechbroOligarchist showdown.

Bonus: Look at these unbothered creatures