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lansink.bsky.social
Retired Dutch ambassador. Served in Egypt, Iraq, India, U.S.A., Libya, Germany and Tunisia. Renegate Atlantist. Running, birdwatching. Socio-economic historian.
171 posts 28 followers 45 following
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Posts 37 Comments 13

AI Is Learning to Lie, Scheme, and Threaten Its Creators. Threatened with being disconnected, Claude 4, Anthropic's newborn, blackmailed an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital affair. ground.news/article/in-a...

submitted 4 hours ago • 0 comments

My take on the NATO summit. Lots of unintended consequences with Europeans agreeing to something that few intend to deliver on. NATO ignoring its major challenge, fighting together as Europe with less US. That requires deep reforms, not vague spending pledges. www.csis.org/analysis/nat...

submitted 4 days ago • 16 comments

“NATO has just kick-started a massive guns vs. butter fight in Europe. Not only is this fight largely unnecessary, but it’s one NATO could struggle to win and leave both Europe and the alliance weaker.”

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Nu de Europeanen hun uitgaven fors verhogen kan de #Trump dat doen wat hij eerder aankondigde. We kunnen verwachten dat de #VS binnenkort begint met het terugtrekken van troepen uit #Europa.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Dat #Trump dit hij op sociale media publiceert zegt veel over zijn zwakheden en de helaas juiste inschatting van #Rutte. Wat weer eens bevestigt dat er geen (!) relatie is tussen rijkdom/macht enerzijds en intelligentie/morele balans anderzijds.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Als zelfs onze best bekende internationale politicus steenkool Engels spreekt, moeten we de gemiddelde Nederlander het maar vergeven dat we ‘survival of the fittest’ verkeerd vertalen naar ‘de fitste/sterkste’, i.p.v. naar ‘de meest aangepaste’.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

This likely successful tactical #US attack on #Iran, corrects the mistake of #Trump1, but also sends the signal that it has completely aligned with the unsustainable political course of its colony in the Middle East, thus hastening its loss of hegemony. www.faz.net/aktuell/poli...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

“Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back. We have moved into an era where many men no longer seek women to impress other men or to connect across difference. They perform elsewhere. Alone. They’ve filtered us out.“ www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/s...

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

What a chart. The Iran nuclear deal Trump I tore up was working perfectly - Iran was not enriching in that era. Now, Trump is dancing on the edge of a volcano in the hopes of getting precisely that kind of deal back.

submitted 11 days ago • 11 comments

De beurzen staan lager na de aankondiging van #Trump dat er een ‘deal’ is het #China. Niet verwonderlijk gezien de uitlatingen van zijn eigen onderhandelaar en het feit dat de huidige voorwaarden slechter (!) zijn dan voor het begin van zijn dollemansrit. newrepublic.com/post/196708/...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Als ik na contact met bv. een helpdesk mijn dank voor de aandacht overbreng wordt er door (veramerikaniseerde) jongeren vaak geantwoord dat dat ‘geen probleem’ is of ‘helemaal goed’ is. Nu vraag ik mij, is bedanken een probleem? Moet ik worden opgevoed ? #kenuwtaal #graaggedaan

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

For the ECB, a debt crisis in Italy would be difficult to deal with, so it's easier to introduce things like the anti-fragmentation tool TPI, which caps yields when they go too high. But this has a cost: out-of-control deficits in Italy with no end in sight. Euro zone incentives are badly messed up.

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments

How #China is defending itself against the #Trump administration's ill-considered trade-attacks and how that leads to fewer #jobs and #security risks for the #US and #Europe. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/b...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

US tariffs on China are a big deflationary shock, most obviously so for China, where goods that would have gone to the US now pile up in warehouses. But also for the rest of the world, where China is now dumping goods that would have gone to the US. Global deflation is the real story...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

“The most powerful companies, racing to build the most powerful superhuman intelligence capabilities — ones they readily admit occasionally go rogue to make things up, or even threaten their users — don't know why their machines do what they do.” www.axios.com/2025/06/09/a...

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

The #US government creates 2 trillion debt this year and has to pay 10 trillion (200% of revenues) in interest and refinancing this year anyway. If spending and interest do not come down and taxes do not go up, #dalio foresees a default in 1-5 years. www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-co...

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

TINA (There Is No Alternative) is the biggest ally of US reserve currency status. It's notable that with all the positive buzz around Europe, Euro longs (blue) are below their all-time highs of recent years. For the Euro to be a true alternative, Europe needs fiscal union and that moment has passed.

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

Op 14 oktober vervalt de ondersteuning van alle huidige Microsoft Exchange mailservers. Voor die tijd moet iedereen over gaan op een hele nieuwe versie OF migreren naar de cloud. En dat laatste zou weleens per ongeluk kunnen gebeuren bij de onze demissionaire overheid. berthub.eu/articles/pos...

submitted 22 days ago • 4 comments

Le Monde: “Door zijn partij terug te trekken uit de coalitie, kon de leider van de PVV opnieuw de schuld afschuiven op de andere partijen en doen vergeten dat bijna geen van de verkiezingsbeloften van dit kabinet en zijn partij zijn waargemaakt.” www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl...

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Auto companies face shortages due to China's rare earth restrictions. It will get worse before it will 1) get even more worse, 2) stabilise at a lower level, 3) return to pre-‘liberation day’ level, 4) get better. Take your pick. www.reuters.com/business/aut...

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Economic uncertainty was already at peak levels. It just got worse. www.axios.com/2025/05/30/u...

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

#Garantie mogelijk onduidelijk bij webshops. Volgens de #telegraaf niet bij fysieke winkels. Helaas, je wordt zelfs bij een fysieke winkel als de #ETOS doorverwezen naar de fabrikant bij klachten over een product. Telegraaf.nl www.telegraaf.nl/video/138603...

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

Instability and higher transaction costs might plague a multi-polar monetary system. Since the cyclical drivers of non-US-dollar economies do - increasingly because of Trumps policies - not sync with the US, a uni-polar dollar system is arguably even more damaging www.ft.com/content/d25c...

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

As US Nuclear Status Slides, Beijing learned from the way Russia's Vladimir Putin used the threat of nuclear war to deter the West from more direct involvement in the Ukraine war. The Chinese saw that this actually works. cbn.com/news/us/us-n...

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

Lagarde ties euro strength to military power 🪖 💶 . But history shows money also follows energy: coal backed the pound, oil the dollar. If Europe wants the euro to lead, it should invest in the energy of the future—green power 🌱 ⚡ www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/da...

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Fiscale Fabeltjes gekraakt door het FD: Veel mensen roepen om lastenverlichting. Maar... is onze belastingdruk - ten opzichte van de economie - echt zo hoog? Spoiler: lager in Nederland dan in de EU. 🇳🇱 38,6% in Nederland 🇪🇺 39,6% gemiddeld in de EU Een fabeldraad 📊🧵

submitted 33 days ago • 6 comments

Trump treibt Asien in Chinas Arme. Ministerpräsident Li bei ASEAN, ein neues Freihandelsabkommen schon beschlossen. Eigentlich hätten die Nachbarn anderes zu besprechen: die Provokationen im Südchinesischen Meer. Doch Man habe mit China „kein Problem“. www.faz.net/aktuell/wirt...

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Angst um den Dollar: Lagarde sieht Weltordnung in Grundfesten erschüttert. Anders als früher gebe es nun den Euro als zweitwichtigste Währung der Welt. Aber Lagarde gab zu: Bisher hat er die Anleger noch nicht komplett überzeugt. www.faz.net/aktuell/wirt...

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

The Great Trade Hack: I highly recommend this new e-book by @baldwinre.bsky.social It helps to understand Trump's trade policies and what's wrong with them. cepr.org/publications...

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Mensen stemmen niet op competentie, maar op het wereldbeeld en de retoriek. Als de gekozen partij de democratie ondermijnt, wisselt slechts 8% naar een andere partij. www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/h...

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Filterblasen und Echokammern, Forscher haben Zweifel. archive.ph/2025.05.25-0...

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Net als in de stervende Sovjet-Unie hebben veel westerlingen hun geloof in de heersende ideologie van een op rechten gebaseerde liberale democratie verloren. De geschiedenis van Europa heeft ons geleerd wat de kosten zijn van haat, tribalisme en geweld. www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

In the grand sweep of history, longer-term US Treasury yields aren't that high. But what's worrying is that they've not fallen as signs mount that tariffs are weighing on economic activity. That's odd and a possible sign that risk premia are building at the long end of the yield curve...

submitted 40 days ago • 4 comments

Israeli sources “Hamas Wanted to Torpedo Israel-Saudi Deal With Oct. 7 Attacks”. They succeeded. Hamas correctly calculated that Israel would overreact, but miscalculated that Israels weapon suppliers would keep it on a short lease. Times change. ground.news/article/hama...

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

#MAGA, by chasing away partners, hastens the demise of #US welfare and security. It will negatively impact especially US citizens without sufficient financial buffers. “Colombia seeks to join China-based development bank” ground.news/article/colo...

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

The argument's over: Americans pay for tariffs www.axios.com/2025/05/19/t...

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

🚨 working paper (w. @morganlcj.bsky.social @markuswagner.bsky.social): Protesters are not judged equally - even if tactics of groups are similar. We ran an experiment in 🇩🇪 testing how people react to farmers vs. climate activists blocking roads. What we find is disturbing: osf.io/preprints/os...

submitted 45 days ago • 10 comments