France's 10-Year Bond Yield jumps to its highest level in more than 22 years.

THE GLOBAL COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS HAS AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH. Inflation doesn’t hurt everyone equally. Imagine two households. One spends 70% of its income on food, transport, rent and electricity. The other spends 30% on those same necessities. Now imagine the prices of essential goods increase by 20%. For the first household, the additional cost equals 14% of its original income. For the second, just 6%. Same price shock. Completely different economic consequences. And here’s what makes this important: The poorer you are, the less freedom you have to escape rising prices. You can postpone buying a new phone. You cannot indefinitely postpone eating. You can cancel a holiday. You cannot simply cancel the need for housing. Economists call this price inelasticity of demand: consumption of necessities often responds relatively little to price increases. The IMF’s October 2026 research confirms that sharp increases in essential prices can impose disproportionately severe burdens on lower-income households. This exposes a weakness in how we discuss economic performance. A national inflation average can describe the economy without describing the economic reality of every household. Perhaps the most important question is not simply how much prices are rising. It’s whose standard of living is being sacrificed to absorb the increase.

Germany telling the China “oversupply” story is understandable, as jobs in automotive, chemicals, and machinery are on the line. Yet, when looking at both countries’ labour productivity since 2020, it tells a pretty clear story. Germany is flat at 0.7%, while China increased its labour productivity by 28%.

A judge on Wednesday ordered Meta to pay New Mexico $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for deceiving users about privacy and content moderation policies on Facebook.

Oldie but goodie.

Map of data centers in Socialist China.

The $5.1 Trillion Warning: Socialist China’s Industrial Rise Is Becoming an Existential Crisis for the West. Socialist China’s export offensive could have consequences far beyond defeating Western competitors: it could undermine the very foundations of Western civilisation. The critical question is how rapidly advanced economies could contract as Chinese products capture a larger share of their markets. Rhodium Group's calculations have revealed shocking figures. If current trends continue, Сhina’s export volume could rise roughly 50% between 2025 and 2030, lifting its share of global exports from 20% to 28%. China’s trade surplus reached $1.19 trillion in 2025. By 2030, China could gain $1.13 trillion in annual export value relative to its baseline, while the rest of the world could lose $5.1 trillion, including $2.25 trillion for the G7. The US and Germany could each lose more than $600 billion in potential exports. This is not a prediction that Western GDP will mechanically fall by those amounts. But it identifies the transmission mechanism: factories close, investment moves elsewhere, ecosystems weaken, workers lose jobs, and governments collect less tax revenue. Falling prices make the transformation even more powerful. Between 2022 and 2024, Chinese export prices fell 5% for machinery, 8% for vehicles and 10% for electrical equipment. Rhodium projects Chinese export volumes growing more than 9% annually through 2030, while Chinese export values rise only 3.5% as prices continue to fall. Who loses? Manufacturing economies whose export structures resemble China’s: Germany, Japan, Italy, Poland and the US. rhg.com/research/who-loses-f…

If you can’t beat them, join them. #Europe has spent years telling its companies to “de-risk” from #China. Yet some of Europe’s biggest corporations are doing almost the opposite: they are helping Chinese companies globalise. This is not charity. It is capitalism under pressure. The clearest evidence is the automotive industry. Stellantis invested €1.5 billion for a 20% stake in Leapmotor in 2023 and created #Leapmotor International, with #Stellantis holding 51%. Volkswagen invested $700 million for a 4.99% stake in XPENG and is jointly developing electric models using #XPeng technology. #Volkswagen also expanded its #Anhui operation with #JAC and acquired control of battery producer Gotion Inc. BMW Group, meanwhile, increased its stake in its long-standing Brilliance joint venture to 75% in 2022. Why are European corporations doing this? Because Chinese companies increasingly have the technologies, production speed, and cost structures European firms need. European partners bring something equally valuable: established factories, dealer networks, logistics, regulatory expertise, brands and access to customers. The result is a remarkable two-way exchange. Chinese companies bring software, electric-vehicle technology and manufacturing know-how. European companies provide the infrastructure needed to internationalise those capabilities. The AHK Greater China survey exposes the commercial logic. 36% of German companies surveyed identified the expansion of Chinese firms as their most promising business opportunity, while 68% had interacted with Chinese companies investing overseas. China’s outbound direct investment reached $174.4 billion last year, up 7.1%. Chinese manufacturers are no longer exporting products; they are exporting industrial capacity. European companies are becoming part of that expansion. Stellantis can provide Leapmotor access to a European distribution and service network. CATL built its first overseas battery plant in #Germany. Chinese technology increasingly enters European supply chains through local partnerships. Here lies the political contradiction. #Brussels wants to reduce European dependence on China while European corporations increasingly depend on Chinese innovation. The deeper question is not whether European companies are “helping” Chinese competitors. They are. The question is why. The answer is brutally simple: companies cannot operate on geopolitical slogans when their survival depends on technology, costs, speed, and markets. Europe may want strategic autonomy. Its corporations, however, are pursuing commercial autonomy—and sometimes the two point in opposite directions. That contradiction will define Europe’s industrial future. The irony is profound: Europe’s attempt to contain Chinese industrial power may be creating precisely the partnerships through which Chinese companies acquire European factories, distribution channels, regulatory knowledge, and global reach.

Scientists at Peking University, led by materials researcher Professor Jin Zhang, have engineered a groundbreaking carbon-nanotube armor that’s three times stronger than Kevlar while measuring just 1.8 mm thick. By weaving long, treated single-walled carbon nanotubes with high-strength aramid polymers, the team created a tightly bonded lattice that resists fiber slippage — one of the biggest weaknesses in traditional ballistic fabrics. Lab tests show the material can absorb over 700 megajoules of energy per cubic meter, more than double the energy absorption of today’s best protective fabrics. This leap in tensile strength and impact resistance could reshape personal protection gear, military armor, aerospace shielding, and even lightweight vehicle plating. Kevlar has saved more than 3,000 police officers since the 1960s, according to the National Institute of Justice — and this new nanotube composite may usher in the next era of ultra-thin ballistic protection.