V. O'Hara

By SaltMarsh Economics

After easing policy by 200bp since last June, the ECB left interest rates unchanged this week. At 2%, the Deposit rates is squarely in the middle of its 1.5% to 2.5% neutral range – judged to be neither overly restrictive, nor clearly accommodative – which gives the Governing Council an opportunity to pause for breath and then revisit the state of play on 11 September.

Of course, as Lagarde repeated several times during her latest press conference, the economic environment at the moment is “exceptionally uncertain” and will remain so for as long as global trade tensions persist. Therefore, although policy is currently in a “good place,” further easing may well be required later in the year to help keep the recovery on track. So what could trigger ECB action?

As has continued to be the case since March, the ECB does not know what the new normal for global trade will look like over the 2–3 year forecast horizon. In the baseline scenario which the ECB published in June, US tariffs on imported goods will be around 10pp higher than they were last year (20% higher for goods from China) and the EU does not retaliate. However, a more “severe” alternative scenario which does include retaliation is also entirely possible. This, on the ECB’s estimates, could lower euro area GDP by around 1pp compared to the projections in the baseline, and would put pressure on the Governing Council to respond.

In addition to thinking about what may happen to tariffs and trade flows, the ECB is also increasingly focusing on capital flows and the exchange rate (see our original post focusing on this theme from early May here). The euro is surging: it has appreciated by almost 14% against the US dollar since the start of the year. While on a nominal trade-weighted basis, it is now at a record high, having climbed by 6% in 2025. The US administration appears to welcome a weak dollar. And, for now, the ECB is tolerating things and continues to use its standard coded language of “we don’t target the exchange rate”.

EURO exchange rate: trade weighted and against the USD

However, at Sintra, the ECB’s Vice President de Guindos also stated that if the euro advances beyond $1.20 (it’s at $1.175 today), it could prove tricky for the Governing Council. This much more candid statement suggests that, with some of the domestic inflationary measures continuing to move down, the Governing Council’s patience when it comes to the strength of the euro is starting to run out – and any significant further appreciation will warrant a response.

Inflation is ‘Discretionary’ vs ‘Non-discretionary’ goods and services in Germany

Share of Euro area’s portfolio investment assets which are in the US

Authored by Darren Taylor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

JOHANNESBURG—African governments are using Chinese artificial intelligence to find, jail, torture, and even kill political opponents and pro-democracy activists, according to several investigations.

Researchers say Beijing is exporting its “surveillance state” model to African countries and rapidly positioning itself to control the critical infrastructure, data, and energy that will power the continent’s AI systems in the future.

This could mean that China will have immense influence over politics and public life in Africa, potentially influencing election outcomes and swaying public opinion in favor of Beijing and its allies, according to the studies.

Some academics say it’s happening already.

One investigation by a nonprofit studying the use of social media and other technology to target dissident groups worldwide concluded that a “largely invisible pattern” is transforming conflicts across Africa.

The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) stated that using technology such as spyware to hunt political activists and employing facial recognition to track protesters represents “a new kind of mercenary force” in Africa, one that’s largely shaped by companies controlled from Beijing.

Adio-Adet Dinika, researcher and affiliate fellow at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Science in Germany, headed DAIR’s Data Workers Inquiry project. It investigated incidents in countries including Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe.

Dinika’s research revealed the existence of “digital sweatshops” in African cities and towns, including in Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; and Gulu, Uganda, where workers are paid as little as $1.50 per hour to teach AI systems to recognize faces, moderate content, and analyze behavior patterns.

The Chinese regime is perpetrating what Dinika called “digital colonialism at its most insidious.”

“I call this surveillance colonialism, the process by which foreign powers extract data and labor from African populations to build AI systems that ultimately police, repress, and destabilise those very populations,” he wrote.

Among the new additions was CloudWalk, with which “the Zimbabwean government agreed to the installment of a mass surveillance network in Zimbabwe,” the Treasury stated at the time.

“The agreement included a requirement that the Zimbabwean government send images it acquires from the surveillance network back to Cloudwalk’s offices in China, so that Cloudwalk could improve the ability of its facial recognition software to recognize individuals based on skin pigmentation,” the Treasury stated.

The technology that emerged, according to Dinika, is now used by China across Africa and the world, including in public spaces in Zimbabwe frequented by anti-government demonstrators.

Zimbabwe counts itself as one of Beijing’s closest partners.

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s spokesperson, Nick Mangwana, told The Epoch Times that Zimbabwe’s “excellent cooperation ties” with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leader, Xi Jinping, “means Zimbabwe now has one of Africa’s most sophisticated crime-fighting tools.”

An extensive study into Zimbabwe’s use of AI surveillance systems by Germany’s Humboldt University in 2024 concluded that the use of the technology has not resulted in a single public conviction of a criminal.

Zimbabwean pro-democracy activist, Evan Mawarire, told The Epoch Times: “When you are arrested and locked up by the police, they boast how they use their AI technology to identify us at protests. The Chinese tech gear is being used as a form of political control. The police say they can watch us anytime, anywhere, because they have also bought devices from the Chinese to monitor internet and phones.”

In response, Mangwana said he would not comment on the “nature of our security apparatus and how it is employed, because that would make it ineffective.”

He emphasized that Zimbabwe’s security forces use technology “in line with Zimbabwean law.”

CloudWalk and the Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe declined to comment.

In Ethiopia, the pro-Beijing government is using Chinese “sentiment analysis tools” against the country’s Tigray population, Dinika said.

He said those tools allow the authorities to monitor social media and online posts in real time, while even providing information regarding the tone of communications.

Dinika explained that one of the key AI tools used by the Ethiopian authorities is an AI application called Natural Language Processing.

“By means of this, the system is trained to understand the context and nuances of the Tigray language. It can interpret verbal cues such as sarcasm, and Tigray people have disappeared just on the basis of this,” he said.

When Ethiopian authorities relied on Chinese AI during the 2020–2022 Tigray conflict, they weren’t just buying technology, Dinika said. They were “outsourcing critical governance functions to foreign entities with their own strategic interests.”

During the conflict, the algorithms that determined which social media posts amounted to “ethnic incitement” were trained by data workers in Kenya, his investigation found.

During Kenya’s 2024 Gen Z protests against a proposed tax increase, the country’s top telecom company, Safaricom, “unlawfully” shared customers’ location data with security forces, Dinika’s report alleged.

This allowed the police to track and detain protestors, he said.

Safaricom has denied any level of cooperation with Kenyan authorities.

Dinika said Kenya President William Ruto’s government used “data interception” in combination with facial recognition tools and footage from hundreds of Chinese-supplied CCTV systems to create what he termed a “digital dragnet” that resulted in the “enforced disappearances” of 82 people, with 29 still missing.

Professor Willem Gravett, a senior lecturer in law at the University of Pretoria, has also documented the increased use of Chinese technology in Africa.

Read the rest here..

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

Travel back in time to the year 2021 and you might find yourself in the middle of a bizarre debate over the virtues of “cancel culture”. At the time the political left was aggressively trying to secure long term power within the US through a multi-pronged psychological offensive – A war on the minds of the masses designed to force Americans into submission.

A big part of their strategy relied on the fundamentals of Cultural Marxism: The combination of Marxist mob tactics, artificial consensus and the exploitation of minority grievances as a vehicle for controlling speech. This was the rise of the “woke movement” to the halls of government.

The root of their power was not martial. In fact, the political left is weak and largely astroturf with minimal ability to project power in a physical way. If conservatives wanted to destroy them tomorrow the task would be relatively easy. We don’t because many of us still have hope that our problems can be solved through peaceful discourse.

What the leftists did have at their disposal was a massive institutional apparatus of government agencies, corporations, Big Tech and NGOs. The full might of the establishment cabal was on their side, which meant they had the means to enforce “cancel culture” and silence their ideological opponents.

I don’t think there has ever been a psychological war on a population that was more pervasive and tyrannical. Not since Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China has a citizenry been under such a siege by their own government. The fact that we survived this event, defeated the onslaught and actually grew a grassroots anti-woke movement without the use of social media forums is truly mind blowing.

Very few people today realize the level of victory that was achieved. We thwarted perhaps the largest 4th Generation “mind war” ever devised and we did it without any institutional access. We won by simple truth and word of mouth.

Another tool that the leftists and globalists used was the mobilization of illegal migrants, gays and minorities as a shield against criticism or counter-protest. If conservatives and moderates fought back with superior debate or our own protest groups, we were immediately accused of racism, xenophobia and homophobia. Merely presenting an opposing view to the progressive machine was considered an act of evil.

Large contingents within all of these groups were happy to go along with the agenda for numerous reasons.

First and foremost, DEI allowed them to easily game the system. They could snatch up grants, subsidies, welfare, and leapfrog over more talented and more intelligent competitors in education and business simply because of their “marginalized status”.

Secondly, the system under progressives was two-tier; leftists activists, illegals and minorities were given preferential protection while breaking the law and causing chaos. Conservatives were labeled terrorists for any act of defiance. We were banned from the largest web platforms. Some of us were targeted by the online mob and lost our jobs. Others were “de-banked” and threatened with ostracism from the economy. Still others were imprisoned.

This imbalance of the law bred a culture of entitlement, especially within the LGBT cult and the black community. Illegal aliens were given carte blanche to enter the country and feed like parasites. Not only that, but they were treated like heroes coming to save the US from “population decline” and “labor shortages”.

They all participated in the game willfully and joyfully. They were ALL part of the problem. But, of course, none of them ever thought the party would end or that they might end up facing consequences for their behavior. They joined in the feeding frenzy without considering the inevitable clap-back.

The primary argument that leftists would often use to defend the application of cancel culture was that there was “no such thing as cancel culture”, only the righteous utilization of “consequence culture”. This was, of course, a misdirection. The word “consequence” suggests that a person deserves punishment for wrongdoing and that the leftists canceling him (or her) have the right to do so.

Cancel culture was never about justice or karma, it was about suppression of anyone who disagreed with the political left. A corrupt group of psychopathic people with no support from the majority is in no position to dole out consequences. They can dole out harassment and intimidation, but not justice.

In recent months, however, I think these people are finally beginning to understand what “consequence culture” really is and clearly they don’t like it.  I touched on this issue when it comes to Hollywood and liberal entertainment media in my article ‘Conservative Creators: Don’t Let The Liberal Entertainment Crisis Go To Waste’, but I wanted to expand on the idea of payback for the political left and what it will mean going forward.

For example, I have to admit I can’t help but laugh over the Stephen Colbert controversy and leftists crying about violations of “free speech”. Keep in mind that a multitude of journalists and celebrities were fired, banned from public platforms and silenced for not going along with the establishment narratives on covid, open borders, the 2020 election outcome, January 6th, etc.

Leftists celebrated when FOX was pressured to fire their biggest name, Tucker Carlson, over his skepticism of the 2020 election and the “insurrection” claims surrounding J6. Carlson was mostly correct in his positions, but that didn’t matter.  The progressive view?  “It’s a private company, they can fire whoever they want…”

Now they are raging over Stephen Colbert getting the boot and losing his time slot (it’s a sign that most leftist late night hosts are facing the chopping block). Never mind that the guy’s show was bleeding around $40 million per year and his audience in the coveted 18-34 age range was shrinking into oblivion. Never mind that Colbert was acting as a shameless shill for Big Pharma. Liberals demand that his show remain in place. They demand that he never face any consequences for selling out and acting as a propagandist instead of a comedian.

Too bad. He’s toast, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Welcome to REAL consequence culture.

Within the black community there is another form of accountability taking place. The BLM movement basked in their privileged status, rampaging through cities and doing as they pleased under the protective hand of Democratic governments. In the process they destroyed whatever social capital they had left and ended decades of “white guilt” in the span of a few years.

Now, white conservatives and moderates just don’t care anymore. We don’t care about being called racist. We’re not interested in the supposed trespasses of previous generations. We’re NEVER going to pay reparations (you’re never going to see a dime), and we’re not going to tolerate ghetto behavior in shared public spaces any longer.

The term “black fatigue” has gone viral in the past month for a reason: White people are done with passively accepting bad behavior from a certain subset of blacks (many black Americans are also tired of ghetto culture and want it to end). The magical accusation of “racism” holds no power over us anymore.

Interestingly, we’re seeing this change culminating across the board, even in the corporate world. We see cruise lines banning typical ghetto habits on their ships. We see retailers abandoning predominantly black neighborhoods because of unfettered crime. We see DEI being dumped in hiring and blacks (and women) say they are being overtly affected. Well, this is what happens when you spend the last several years acting increasingly more unhinged, entitled and violent.

You were protected by a liberal narrative of historical shame, but that’s dying out. Which means people are going to start expecting you to display manners and self control. Otherwise, there will (finally) be consequences.

Illegal migrants might be the most entitled group of all. I can’t fathom a bunch of Americans entering another country illegally and then demanding access to their jobs market and welfare programs while also carrying around Americans flags in protest and asserting that they have no intention of assimilating. They would be shot in the streets in most places and no one would tolerate them.

The same standards are being enacted in the US after years of open borders. The illegals are outraged…and no one cares. There is some moderate empathy for agricultural workers, but they represent a tiny minority among the tens-of-millions of alien migrants that have invaded the US. And honestly, I really don’t care if they sweep up the farm workers, either.

America needs an immigration reset, at least for the next decade so that we can figure out what the hell happened and repair the damage done to our job markets, housing markets and wages. The media publishes sob stories regularly about illegal immigrants living within the US for 20 years or more that are suddenly facing deportation. Meaning, we’re supposed to care more about illegals that broke the law for 20 years compared to illegals that broke the law for 20 days?

No, consequences must be handed down and no one gets a pass. Not anymore.

I was also greatly amused by the recent interview with a slobbering, raving and classless Hunter Biden. Let’s not forget that Joe Biden was probably mentally vacant for a much of his presidency and ostensibly Jill Biden and Hunter were running things with their advisors behind the scenes. Is it any wonder that America was falling apart? We had a degenerate crackhead and his psychopath mommy at the helm.

The moron STILL acts as if he could officially be president one day. But if it is proven that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent during his term and most of his pardon signatures were forged by aids without his cognitive understanding, then ole’ Hunter is in for some legal consequences of his own. In the meantime, the fact that the family has fallen from grace and Hunter is a national laughing stock is enough.

When I witness the wide-eyed astonishment of these people as they finally face punishment, I think of the legacy of the western world. I think of the generations of good men that worked tirelessly to institute a sense of order, principle and the conventions necessary for our society to succeed. I am reminded, time and time again, how difficult is it to create a thing vs. how easy it is to destroy a thing.  I’m reminded that our forefathers never would have put up with this shit.

In the end, civilization cannot survive and thrive unless consequences are exacted upon people who deserve them. I believe we are entering a new epoch when any person or any group, no matter their purported circumstances, will face automatic retribution for seeking to tear down the west. This is the way things used to be, and deconstructionists had best prepare themselves for the returning swing of the pendulum.

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