“Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.” – Bertrand Russell
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend.
A long one today, apologies, but I had to get into what’s going on in France and how it’s relevant for crypto markets.
IN THIS NEWSLETTER
Coming up this week: not much macro, but a lot of tech-money meetings
Euro strains and barricades
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WHAT I’M WATCHING
Coming up this week:
A quiet week on the macro front, but there are quite a few high profile tech-money events.
Money20/20 USA started yesterday in Las Vegas and runs through to Wednesday, with an entire pillar of content on “Borderless Financial Architecture” and a hefty sprinkling of sessions featuring stablecoin companies.
The Bund Summit starts today in Shanghai and runs through to Wednesday – one of China’s leading international, non-governmental financial conferences (mainly in English), the event brings together high-profile finance names from around the world for panels and seminars on this year’s theme: Technology, Geopolitics and the Global Economy. The sessions include an invite-only closed-door seminar on digital currencies and another one on cross-border connectivity.
The World Bank Global AI and Digital Summit kicks off today in Seoul and runs through to Thursday.
On Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gives a keynote at the company’s AI event in Berlin. Crazy that we live in a time when a tech CEO’s remarks can move markets more than those of central bankers.
On Thursday, we get the US Conference Board’s Leading Index.
On Friday, we get the preliminary report on US manufacturing and services activity for October, and the final October consumer sentiment reading from the University of Michigan.
And the two-day Bitcoin-focused Plan B Forum kicks off in Lugano, Switzerland.
Euro strains and barricades
If you were at all online over the weekend, you’ll have seen distressing images of riots, looting and burning buildings in European streets: Paris, Marseille, Limoges, Lyon, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Brussels, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Porto and Tirana are just some of the cities affected, but the strongest heat of the violence was felt in France. Around 1,500 stores across the country were ransacked, according to early estimates; more than 2,400 arrests; over 600 injured policemen.
Many, especially non-Europeans, will probably think “of course it was France”, remembering the messy protests in recent years over fuel tax, pension rights and more, not to mention the glorification of the country’s revolutionary zeal in countless books, films, even musicals. After all, the battle cry “Aux armes, citoyens!” is enshrined in the French national anthem.
But what we saw over the weekend was different – it wasn’t a citizen uprising against an oppressive regime, nor was it your typical democratic objection to proposed legislation. It was a protest against “the system” – yes, the liberal, democratic system that has ruled Europe for decades – from young voters increasingly aware their economic futures are being squeezed. The same young voters who will decide electoral outcomes in the decades ahead.
As always, there is rarely one reason for a tip-over into this level of anger, and not all participants have the same motive. It’s also not the first time in recent years that European cities have burned, with the flames eventually dying down and the media shifting focus to the next attention-grabbing crisis.
But it’s important to squint at the underlying issues, as they aren’t going away peacefully even if protesters might. They’re also not unique to France. And they sketch an outline of the deeper shifts I often find myself writing about in these pages, shifts that point to systemic change and that ask us to look at how markets will react.
At the root of the weekend eruptions are four ongoing crises (there are actually more, but I’m going to stick to main categories): debt, fiscal, political and social. Let’s look at them in turn.
