What people don't get about Meloni is that she is driving the tricycle of three parties that have tended to share power as a coalition whenever the post-cold-war right wins elections in her country: the Berlusconi party, the League, and her "post-fascist" group. During the 90s and 2000s, the "post-fascist" leader Gianfranco Fini was Italy's foreign minister and considered by far the most respectable leader of the right-wing parties (including by the Economist and the NYT). It is embarrassing that her party is lineally descended from Mussolini, but everybody on the Italian right makes dumb statements about how Mussolini wasn't so bad. (He really wasn't as bad as Hitler but that is an embarrassing thing to be proud of.)
She isn't an icon of corruption like Berlusconi; she isn't as racist or pro-Putin as Salvini. Mario Draghi is a very impressive man but putting him in charge is not a long-term solution to Italy's problems: if the Italian left doesn't like Meloni they should try winning elections.
It’s been fascinating to watch the news media pivot from Beppi Grillo being the “bad guy” in the Anglo world’s interpretation of Italian politics to now being a friendly left wing coalition. I feel like us English speakers have no idea how things work there!
There is definitely more of a “renaissance court” side to their politics than to ours: their unelected, supposedly ceremonial President sometimes fires the elected PM and appoints a professor to run the country, or decides that the coalition that won a majority can’t pick its own finance minister.
Mandatory resort fees are the devil. This nonsense has been going on for almost ten years now and in places like New York can be more than $100 if you stay a couple of days. Restaurants are doing this now with 3-4% arbitrary surcharges that don’t appear until you get the bill.
What would be an appropriate regulatory framework for mandating hotel pricing transparency at the federal level? FTC authority via General Commerce Clause? (n.b. not dormant commerce clause). Not an issue with airlines. I'm not current on case law regarding limits on the Congressional authority post US v Morrison.
Real rates are skyrocketing. Typically this means either:
A. much higher economic growth forecasts
B. much higher govt default probability
Ironically those are exact opposites. But even more strangely is that neither really make sense. Equity markets are down significantly so A. can't be true by any means. And implied default by looking at credit default swaps doesn't completely tell the story either (although it's at least somewhat directionally right).
The reporting here has been awful also. Most reporters don't even acknowledge that rates are made up of inflation plus real. The ones that do differentiate it get the causality on rising rates completely backwards.
"The yield on 10-year Treasury inflation-protected securities (Tips) hit 1.2 per cent on Tuesday, up from roughly minus 1 per cent at the start of the year, as traders bet the Federal Reserve will aggressively raise interest rates and keep them elevated for years to come as it attempts to cool inflation"
Just total facepalm here... causality is totally backwards. Fed doesn't *cause* an increase in real rates, the Fed REACTS to real rates and sets fed funds rate either lower or higher than the natural rate in order to be expansionary or contractionary.
“I do not advocate indiscriminate bombing of London to grow the UK economy.“ This has to be one of the best “to be sure” phrases of all time!
As a Londoner I was relieved to read it.
Truss seems less impressive than Giorgia Meloni.
What people don't get about Meloni is that she is driving the tricycle of three parties that have tended to share power as a coalition whenever the post-cold-war right wins elections in her country: the Berlusconi party, the League, and her "post-fascist" group. During the 90s and 2000s, the "post-fascist" leader Gianfranco Fini was Italy's foreign minister and considered by far the most respectable leader of the right-wing parties (including by the Economist and the NYT). It is embarrassing that her party is lineally descended from Mussolini, but everybody on the Italian right makes dumb statements about how Mussolini wasn't so bad. (He really wasn't as bad as Hitler but that is an embarrassing thing to be proud of.)
She isn't an icon of corruption like Berlusconi; she isn't as racist or pro-Putin as Salvini. Mario Draghi is a very impressive man but putting him in charge is not a long-term solution to Italy's problems: if the Italian left doesn't like Meloni they should try winning elections.
It’s been fascinating to watch the news media pivot from Beppi Grillo being the “bad guy” in the Anglo world’s interpretation of Italian politics to now being a friendly left wing coalition. I feel like us English speakers have no idea how things work there!
There is definitely more of a “renaissance court” side to their politics than to ours: their unelected, supposedly ceremonial President sometimes fires the elected PM and appoints a professor to run the country, or decides that the coalition that won a majority can’t pick its own finance minister.
Mandatory resort fees are the devil. This nonsense has been going on for almost ten years now and in places like New York can be more than $100 if you stay a couple of days. Restaurants are doing this now with 3-4% arbitrary surcharges that don’t appear until you get the bill.
Do Brits have crappy household appliances?
What would be an appropriate regulatory framework for mandating hotel pricing transparency at the federal level? FTC authority via General Commerce Clause? (n.b. not dormant commerce clause). Not an issue with airlines. I'm not current on case law regarding limits on the Congressional authority post US v Morrison.
Josh - check out this tweet thread from Basil Halperin
https://twitter.com/BasilHalperin/status/1573356261156028416
Market inflation forecasts have actually *fallen*. The increase in rates is entirely attributable to an increase in *real rates*.
This is much like in the U.S. where market inflation forecasts are back to 2021 levels
see: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=PfTR#0
Real rates are skyrocketing. Typically this means either:
A. much higher economic growth forecasts
B. much higher govt default probability
Ironically those are exact opposites. But even more strangely is that neither really make sense. Equity markets are down significantly so A. can't be true by any means. And implied default by looking at credit default swaps doesn't completely tell the story either (although it's at least somewhat directionally right).
The reporting here has been awful also. Most reporters don't even acknowledge that rates are made up of inflation plus real. The ones that do differentiate it get the causality on rising rates completely backwards.
https://www.ft.com/content/4bd55556-b50c-47f0-b8cd-cccd3973df78
"The yield on 10-year Treasury inflation-protected securities (Tips) hit 1.2 per cent on Tuesday, up from roughly minus 1 per cent at the start of the year, as traders bet the Federal Reserve will aggressively raise interest rates and keep them elevated for years to come as it attempts to cool inflation"
Just total facepalm here... causality is totally backwards. Fed doesn't *cause* an increase in real rates, the Fed REACTS to real rates and sets fed funds rate either lower or higher than the natural rate in order to be expansionary or contractionary.
If the rise in rates is all due to higher expected real rates, shouldn’t the Pound be strengthening?