Project Syndicate

I don't know.

Third, I didn't mean to plug this, but I just wrote a piece for Project Syndicate, uh, it's at the bottom of the rundown-

Mm

... where I was asked to write about, uh, revisiting questions of privacy in the age of AI.

And this is kind of set by recent episodes of growth miracles like in East Asia.

Um, today, various economists, thinkers in this area, they're sort of muddying the waters a bit, right? Danny Roderick just came out with this op-ed in, in Project Syndicate, um, expressing doubts about the viability of export manufacturing for Africa, which was a shock because he's like the manufacturing guy.

Um, others, uh, more recently, like for example, Joe, Joe Studwell's recent book, How Africa Works, which I know you just review, reviewed, um, uh, seems to continue to be very optimistic about the viability of export manufacturing-led growth on the continent.

Where do your views lie when it comes to export manufacturing on the continent today?

Out of the blue, an old chum called me from Singapore asking about France, which is a place I love, but frankly don't pay much attention to because they are revolting about something different every day.

He'd read a research note from Gabikal asking, "How wide can French spreads get?" At the same moment, my AI flashed up a Project Syndicate article asking, "Is another Eurozone debt crisis looming?" We then saw a European mini bond crisis threaten to metastasize yesterday as European bond yields whipsawed all over the place.

Stating that France has a debt problem wins you a no shit Sherlock badge.

France's debt traded 140 basis points wider than Germany at one point yesterday.

He's the author of, and this is a great, uh, title, The American Dream Is Not Dead, But Populism Could Kill It.

And his commentary runs regularly in the Financial Times, Project Syndicate, and the National Review.

He's a professor of practice at, uh, Georgetown's, uh, School of Public Policy and a former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Uh, Michael, welcome.

Carl has worked at The Global Fund and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union's Development Agency, and Ecobank Foundation, and served as vice president of Inclusive Impact and Sustainability at Visa across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Harvard Kennedy School, Aspen New Voices Fellow, Project Syndicate Columnist, the kind of resume that just frankly blows me away.

That comes with a thirty thousand view of-- thirty-thousand-foot view of the world.

But then loss came for Carl the way it comes for all of us and really brought him down to the ground.

And it seems that also, you know, people now that they are watching this escalation taking place, this escalation, which seems to have no limit.

Naturally, people are also beginning to wonder, like, where is all this leading and can it possibly end and so on? And at least one story I read, I think it was in Project Syndicate, which said that, you know, the United States cannot end this anymore without the intervention of China, because it's one of Iran's very important trading partners and, of course, continuing to buy oil.

reacted very strongly when Scott Besson suggested that he would impose secondary sanctions on countries continuing to trade with Iran.

And of course, Scott Besson also, I mean, after announcing this with great fanfare, he has not indicated any actual timetable for any of his actions and so on.

I left the instant Musk bought Twitter, so.

And I wrote about it in Project Syndicate.

Uh, and I said, uh, "Musk is going to use Twitter, uh, to, uh, to remove its democratic potential and destroy it as a source of information." So I think, you know, not to toot my own horn, but I think I, I was like...

I immediately wrote that piece, that this was gonna be the destruction of a democratic platform.

We can work quite a lot of things out.

The article you refer to of mine, which appears in Project Syndicate this week, says that you can actually form agreements as a fast mover group of nations.

Don't we know that with some of the free trade agreements around the Pacific, for example.

So you can do this in a way that supports the international system and gives a basis to move towards broader UN agreements when there's time.