Donald Trump single-handedly revived Canadian liberal nationalism

Relevance to neoliberalism: the World Cup is globalism distilled into its purest cultural form. When different cultures meet, there is sometimes tension. Resolving those tensions is an essential part of a pluralistic society undergirded by human rights.

In this specific article, it's about the anti-Argentinian sentiment that exploded in the West these past few days. The xenophobic harassment and sometimes violence occurring because many observers have extended criticism of the Argentinian NT and its fans with the entire country, oftentimes with references to both Nazis and Zionism, culminating in Samuel L Jackson's now viral tweet calling Argentina "one of, if not the most racist countries" in world history.

I don't want to let Argentinian society off the hook entirely here. There is a long history of racism within their policies, and to this today, it comes out regularly during sporting events that almost never receive punishment from the country's institutions.

I will post a translation shortly.

In short:

A Reserve Bank says public understanding of the bank's function in the economy is crucial for the effectiveness of its policies.

About 60 per cent of respondents thought they had a "good" understanding of how the Australian economy works.

What's next?

The RBA board will meet to set interest rates in less than three weeks, with markets putting the chance of a rate hike at about 20 per cent.

The Reserve Bank is concerned that too many Australians have little idea what the central bank is trying to achieve with interest rates, which it says could be making its job harder.

A survey of 9,000 Australians shows about 60 per cent of respondents thought they had a good understanding of how the Australian economy works.

The proportion of people who said they understood economics well was lower across some demographics, "including younger cohorts, females, and lower income earners", the RBA survey found.

In addition to rating their own understanding, the survey also tested Australians' knowledge of key economic concepts.

The RBA said there were "fundamental gaps" in the public's understanding of how the central bank used monetary policy, and particularly about how interest rates affected inflation.

The findings follow the RBA hiking interest rates three times this year in an effort to put a lid on inflation, leaving many households dealing with higher mortgage repayments on top of other cost-of-living pressures.

Most think higher interest rates mean higher inflation

Inflation was listed as a top-three concern by more than two thirds of respondents.

Other major concerns included employment and wages (more prominent among younger respondents) and housing (particularly for renters and younger cohorts).

The survey also pointed to something of an existential problem for the Reserve Bank.

Despite the concern about inflation, respondents largely did not understand how the RBA was trying to bring it down.

"Only 25 per cent of respondents assessed correctly that higher interest rates would ultimately lead to lower inflation, while more than half indicated that higher interest rates would lead to higher inflation," the report said.

"This finding shows that most respondents expect interest rates to have the opposite effect on inflation to central bank economists."

The report authors described this as "not unexpected" due to the multiple ways rates affect inflation.

"There are multiple effects that could potentially work in different directions, including some effects that could lead people to the opposite conclusion if they are considered in isolation," they wrote.

The authors cited the research from the US that showed a large share of people expected higher interest rates to push up prices as the cost of doing business increased and firms lifted prices to cover costs.

In contrast, economists reasoned that higher rates would reduce demand and therefore inflation.

This mismatch has an adverse impact on public trust in the central bank, the survey results suggest.

Most respondents reported moderate to high levels of trust in the RBA, which it said was comparable with other Australian and international institutions and has been stable since early 2025.

But the central bank noted that "trust varies across the community, and is closely linked to understanding of the economy and perceptions of how the RBA operates".

It found those with greater knowledge of its objectives, higher economic literacy, stronger engagement with economic news, and higher levels of trust in people and institutions generally had higher trust in the RBA.

More trust, lower inflation expectations

Significantly, higher trust was associated with lower inflation exceptions, "highlighting that trust is important in its own right, and also for the transmission of monetary policy", the report said.

In other words, the more Australians trust the RBA and understand what it is trying to achieve, the more effective its policies.

This is where the rubber hits the road for the Reserve Bank — inflation expectations refer to how people's beliefs about where prices are heading can influence their decisions and therefore affect prices.

The opening paragraph in the RBA's monetary policy board's June statement, after leaving the cash rate on hold, read: "There are signs that some firms experiencing cost pressures are increasing the prices of their goods and services and others are looking to do so."

"Short-term measures of inflation expectations have eased but remain higher than earlier in the year," it said.

The RBA has previously said inflation expectations remain "anchored", but if this changes the RBA warns inflation will remain elevated.

This could mean higher interest rates for millions of mortgage borrowers.

Some forecasting August rate hike

The central bank's communications strategy has undergone several significant changes in recent years, after a major government-ordered review.

This includes the introduction of regular media conferences after each monetary policy board meeting.

"By providing clearer explanations of policy decisions and the factors underlying them, these media conferences aim to help the public better understand how monetary policy operates, how decisions are made and how those decisions could affect them," the RBA said in the survey report.

The next of those decisions will be made in less than three weeks' time, when the board next meets on August 10 and 11.

According to data from LSEG, the market is now pricing in a 22 per cent chance of an 0.25 percentage point hike in August.

Economists remain divided on where to next for interest rates.

On Wednesday, Westpac released its Leading Index, which it said confirmed that economic growth momentum is slowing.

However, Westpac's head of Australian macro-forecasting Matthew Hassan said "high inflation remains the [RBA board's] primary concern.

"As such, the June quarter CPI update on July 29 will be the critical reading ahead of the August meeting," he.

"On balance we expect it to show inflation running too high and a further [0.25 percentage point] rate increase from the RBA Board in August."

Tesla’s deliveries jumped 25 per cent in the second quarter, far exceeding market expectations, as rising fuel prices from the Middle East conflict boosted sales of its electric vehicles in Europe.

The US carmaker delivered 480,126 vehicles in the three months to the end of June, up from 384,122 in the same period last year and well above analysts’ forecasts of 404,000.

Tesla lost its crown as the world’s biggest electric-car maker to China’s BYD last year amid a consumer backlash against chief executive Elon Musk’s political activism.

But its sales in the UK and Europe have recovered with new registrations increasing 57 per cent year on year to 118,068 units during the first five months of 2026, according to European car industry body Acea. Still, its 2 per cent share in the region remained below BYD’s 2.3 per cent share.

Despite the strong recovery in the latest quarter, BYD remained ahead of Tesla with the Chinese group selling roughly 867,000 electric vehicles in the first six months of the year, compared with 838,149 vehicles for Tesla.

Tesla formally ended production of its premium S and X models earlier this year as Musk pivots the group’s focus and investments to robotics and artificial intelligence.

Tesla will continue to sell its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, while Musk has said the company is working on a new version of its Roadster sports car. Tesla also began mass production of its long-awaited Semi Truck in April, as it seeks to accelerate the shift away from diesel trucks.

“Tesla has not surprised to the upside to this degree in a while, a healthy sign the auto business is here to stay,” said William Blair analyst Jed Dorsheimer.

Improving demand in Europe as well as in China has helped offset Tesla’s weak performance in the US, where sales have been hit by the end of EV tax credits and President Donald Trump’s rollback in regulations to cut vehicle emissions.

Ahead of the announcement, data group Cox Automotive had forecast Tesla’s sales in the US declining by 20 per cent year on year in the second quarter.

In April, the Netherlands became the first European country to approve the use of Tesla’s full self-driving technology — which still requires humans to sit in the driver’s seat and pay full attention despite its label.

With sales of its EVs facing intense competition from Chinese as well as western rivals, Tesla is betting its future growth on the global expansion of its autonomous robotaxis, although only a small number are operating in Texas.

Despite the strong delivery data, Tesla shares fluctuated on Thursday, falling about 7 per cent after rising nearly 2 per cent.

Germany has deployed soldiers to Poland to help reinforce defences on NATO’s eastern flank in response to the threat of Russia.

While Poland already hosts various allied forces, the presence of German troops is particularly symbolic given the two countries’ difficult history. “United, we will prevail,” wrote the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces (SGWP), announcing the deployment.

“This is what allied cooperation looks like in practice, which translates into greater military readiness and strengthens NATO’s defensive potential.”

Last December, the Polish and German defence ministries revealed that a “mid-double-digit number” of German troops would be deployed from mid-2026 until the end of 2027 to support implementation of Poland’s East Shield operation, which seeks to bolster defences along the borders with Belarus and Russia.

They said that the German personnel would mainly engage in engineering work, such as digging trenches, laying barbed wire and constructing anti-tank barriers.

Today, Poland’s SGWP confirmed that “several dozen” German troops, including “highly specialised engineering forces” along with their equipment, had since June been temporarily deployed to “support the Polish armed forces in expanding defence infrastructure on NATO’s northeastern flank”.

It emphasised that the East Shield project is “purely defensive in nature” and comes in “response to threats stemming from, among others, Russian aggression against Ukraine”.

While the armed forces did not reveal the location of the deployment, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk indicated in a social media post that it was on the Russian border. Poland has a 210-km frontier with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports that the activities of the German sappers are focused in particular on improving defences around the so-called Suwałki Gap, a strategically important stretch of land around the Polish-Lithuanian border between Belarus and Kaliningrad.

“Together, we are ensuring Europe’s security,” said Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank, the Bundeswehr’s operational commander, announcing the deployment today.

“Through our engagement in Poland, we are strengthening NATO’s defence capabilities and underscoring the alliance’s unwavering commitment to ensuring peace through unity and credible deterrence.”

SGWP, which shared footage of Polish and German forces installing anti-tank barriers, said the work aims to “hinder and delay an aggressor’s actions in the event of a threat”, thereby “increasing the time for a response from the Polish armed forces and the entire [NATO] alliance”.

It also seeks to “create conditions for the efficient reception, deployment and use of NATO forces on Polish territory”.

SGWP welcomed “the involvement of the German contingent as a practical expression of allied solidarity and the result of consistently developing military cooperation between Poland and Germany”.

It also noted that the cooperation would help the two sides improve their ability to operate jointly, including “developing the competencies necessary for conducting a joint defence operation”.

However, it emphasised that the current deployment is focused on training and engineering, with no combat component, and that the German troops are unarmed. SGWP also emphasised that the East Shield operation remains entirely a Polish national programme.

The deployment of German troops to Poland comes shortly after the two countries signed a defence cooperation agreement in which they pledged to increase cooperation in areas such as military mobility, logistics infrastructure, maritime security in the Baltic Sea, and cybersecurity.

The agreement is a sign that the two countries now stand “shoulder to shoulder, as equals”, declared German defence minister Boris Pistorius.

Poland is also currently seeking a new permanent US military base on its territory, after President Donald Trump recently pledged to boost American troop numbers. Last week, Tusk also announced that Poland will host military exercises involving France and the UK this autumn.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Just to clarify, this isn't runaway consumer inflation. It’s driven by a massive surge in semiconductor export prices and a dramatic improvement in the terms of trade

It's amazing how such an unreal figure is even possible for a developed country

PS : Sorry the article is in Korean

Poland has joined a European Union project developing a secure satellite internet service that would provide an alternative to networks such as Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Warsaw has committed €656 million (2.8 billion zloty) to the IRIS² programme, with the money coming from Poland’s EU post-pandemic recovery funds.

In return for joining the project, Poland will gain access to the secure satellite communications network for government institutions, the armed forces and emergency services, while the growing Polish space industry will be eligible to compete for contracts linked to the development of the constellation

“This is a big day for Poland, the eastern flank and the entire European Union,” declared the EU’s defence and space commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, at a signing ceremony in Warsaw on Tuesday. “By investing in space, Poland is investing in its security, its economy and its future.”

Speaking alongside him, Poland’s interior minister, Marcin Kierwiński, said that IRIS² would help “ensure our security and strategic independence” while “demonstrating that Poland aims to be a leader in the European space industry and remain at the centre of EU security efforts”.

“No single country is able to build such a [satellite] constellation so efficiently, which is why we are joining this major project – to be part of it and one of its managers,” he added.

The IRIS² programme aims to deploy a constellation of nearly 300 satellites in low and medium Earth orbit, providing encrypted, interference-resistant communications for governments, defence agencies, emergency services and selected commercial users across the EU.

First announced in 2022, the project is part of the EU’s efforts to reduce dependence on non-European satellite operators amid growing concerns over cybersecurity, hybrid threats and the resilience of critical infrastructure following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It is super important for Europe to have a sovereign capacity, and Starlink will never do that,” said Eva Berneke, CEO of Eutelsat, one of the companies involved in the project, quoted by Politico Europe.

The project is expected to cost €10.6 billion, including €6.5 billion in public funding and around €4 billion from private investors. IRIS² is expected to become operational in 2030.

As part of its contribution to IRIS², Poland will finance six large satellites in medium Earth orbit (MEO) and six smaller satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

It will also build a ground gateway station in Warsaw to connect the satellites with GovNet, the country’s secure government fibre-optic communications network.

Earlier this year, the Polish government approved the use of money from its share of the EU’s post-pandemic reconstruction fund to cover its contribution to IRIS².

Once the system is up and running, Poland’s police, border guards and other emergency services would be able to use the network during natural disasters, power outages and other emergencies when terrestrial communications infrastructure is unavailable.

The system would also make it possible to provide temporary connectivity for civilians through emergency hotspots, says Poland’s interior ministry.

Polish companies will now also be able to compete for contracts covering satellite manufacturing, telecommunications equipment, software and ground infrastructure, expanding the country’s role in Europe’s space industry.

“It is estimated that each zloty invested in the project will generate a five-zloty return through new jobs, innovation and the development of domestic technologies,” the ministry said in a statement.

Poland has placed great emphasis on developing its space industry in recent years, with the aim of becoming a major European player in the sector.

Last week, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it will open a new security centre in Warsaw. One of its areas of operation will be satellite communication, including the use of satellite imagery to monitor critical incidents such as natural disasters.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk also revealed that Poland and the ESA are working on the first Polish spacecraft, which would provide servicing, refuelling and other services for satellites

Last year, Poland launched its first national military satellite. A Polish firm, Creotech Instruments, signed Poland’s largest ever contract with the ESA, a €52 million deal to build and launch a constellation of Earth observation satellites.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.

Abundance is really a radical framework that challenges all Dem party factions (and Republicans too!) and I don’t understand why pundits cannot get this

There’s nothing moderate about wanting to undo a century of federal, state, and local land use policy to 10x the rate of housing construction. Or break the labor cartels created by doctors, lawyers, and other white collar professions to push up costs for everyday consumers. Or remake America’s transportation system by building thousands of miles of high-speed rail. Or transform our energy grid with tons of new clean energy and infrastructure. I could go on—abundance envisions big changes!

In our broken polarization framework, ideas that represent a huge shift from the status quo get framed as “moderate” because they sometimes involve markets rather than state intervention. But exclusionary zoning and doctor cartels and veto-ridden planning don’t fit on the moderate-progressive spectrum, or even the left-right spectrum. They are just bad policies with massive negative consequences—namely higher costs for consumers and taxpayers—that earlier generations supported and entrenched interests continue baking into American life

The cool thing about abundance is it completely breaks the political polarization framework. Ultra-progressive NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani worked with moderate New York Governor Kathy Hochul to reform environmental laws that blocked sustainable housing and transit. Super-lefty California State Senator Scott Wiener passed the state’s biggest upzoning in history with votes across factional and party lines. Texas has exponential clean energy growth because their permitting is more chill

The abundance framework can help people who identify with any faction deliver better results. Whether it gets broadly adopted across issue areas remains to be seen because it’s still early days. The most politically developed abundance-y movement, YIMBYism, is barely a decade old. Everything else is nascent. But lawmakers are learning: Abundance-coded bills like The Road to Housing Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities and support across factional lines. To me, passing historic federal legislation with support from across the Democratic Party suggests the abundance framework is doing just fine

I wrote a full article here about abundance’s impact and defiance of political polarization

No classified briefings, no press conferences, no acknowledgment that the conflict with Iran is back on

archive link

Submission statement:

Novorossiysk is Russia's biggest ​port by volume and handles up to one ​third of Russia's grain exports. The ban follows traffic restrictions introduced ‌earlier ⁠this month in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.

Novorossiysk also ships oil, metals and goods in containers. A government order published on July ​21 banned ​vessels from ⁠anchoring in areas without air defences at the port of Azov in the ​Sea of Azov and the port ​of Kavkaz ⁠in the Kerch Strait.

The Trump administration is weighing military action in the West African country of Mali to target an al-Qaeda-affiliated group known as JNIM, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.

If approved, it would add an eighth nation to the list of countries where President Donald Trump has ordered strikes since the start of his second term — a chapter of his presidency that he initially said would be dedicated to ending global strife and redirecting U.S. resources to Americans.

There is disagreement, however, among senior U.S. officials over whether to proceed with attacking the militant group. A vocal advocate for using force is the National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, said the current and former officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military planning.

The militant group, whose full name is Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, has established a stronghold in Mali and increasingly launched attacks in coastal West African nations, establishing itself as the most well-armed militant group in the region and among the most powerful in the world.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

When the White House was asked for comment, an administration official would not disclose whether the president intended to move forward with military strikes but said the United States has been urging governments in North and West Africa “to purchase U.S. equipment and services to support their war efforts against the terrorists.”

The official said that terrorism in the Sahel, the vast semiarid region south of the Sahara, is a “multinational problem.”

“We urge regional partners and NATO allies to support the Alliance of Sahel States in their war against JNIM and ISIS,” the official added, referring also to the Islamic State, which rose to prominence in the Middle East before establishing affiliates throughout Africa.

The Alliance of Sahel States consists of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — all West African nations where military leaders have in recent years ousted democratically elected governments in coups, largely cut ties with the West and turned to Russia for security help.

But the administration official pinned the blame not on those governments but on their Russian partners, saying that Moscow “has proven to be an ineffective security partner for Mali.”

“We hope that other African nations take note of Russia’s terrible performance in combating terrorism,” the official said.

The Trump administration’s contemplation of military options in the country has not been previously reported.

Mali, a landlocked nation of nearly 25 million, has in recent years been plagued by violence by Islamist militant groups — and by Mali’s own junta government and the Russian mercenaries whom it hired to get the situation under control.

The militant groups, particularly JNIM, have grown increasingly powerful, turning Mali and its neighbors in the Sahel into the world’s center for terrorism.

Last year, militants with the al-Qaeda affiliate mounted a fuel blockade that paralyzed much of the country. This spring, they launched coordinated, nationwide attacks that included militants roaming the streets of Bamako, the capital; seizing a strategic city in the north from Mali’s military and the Russians; and killing the country’s defense minister in a suicide attack.

Meanwhile, IS Sahel — an Islamic State affiliate and a JNIM rival — has consolidated power near Mali’s border with Niger, where last year its militants kidnapped American missionary Kevin Rideout, who is believed to be held now in Mali.

To combat the violence, Mali’s junta government hired Russian mercenaries, first with the Wagner Group and now with Africa Corps, which is more closely linked with Russia’s defense ministry. The Russians have been accused of a string of atrocities, according to rights groups and The Washington Post’s previous reporting.

Héni Nsaibia, West Africa senior analyst for the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, said that Mali’s military and its Russian backers were responsible for killing hundreds more civilians than JNIM and IS Sahel combined. Last year, the Malian military and its Russian partners were responsible for 925 civilian deaths, according to ACLED, compared with 232 by Islamist militants.

“It is extremely problematic that a government like the U.S. or any Western partner would provide support to these regimes whose legitimacy remains contested, and which are incredibly fragile and repressive,” he said, referring to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Still, last year, as part of a push by the Trump administration to reengage with Mali, the United States ramped up intelligence sharing with Mali’s government, current and former American officials said at the time. The intelligence was used in strikes by Mali’s military, which had been largely shunned by the Biden administration for its refusal to set a timeline for a return to democratic elections and its work with the Russians.

But such cooperation has so far remained limited, nowhere near the scale of the U.S.-Nigeria security partnership that ramped up last year and has included U.S. airstrikes and a ground mission that killed one of the Islamic State’s top leaders in Africa.

Any direct U.S. military involvement in Mali runs the risk of hostilities with Russian forces in the region. It also could require deconfliction efforts between Washington and Moscow akin to ones that existed in Syria during that country’s civil war.

When asked if Secretary of State Marco Rubio supports military action in Mali, the State Department sidestepped the question, saying the U.S. “unequivocally condemns the terrorist activity in Mali.”

The department said the Trump administration is “committed to promoting regional ownership and cooperation against terrorist threats, and monitoring indicators and warnings of threats to our homeland.”

U.S. military action against JNIM would add Mali to the list of countries where Trump has ordered strikes: Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela. The administration also has waged a controversial military campaign against alleged drug runners in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that has resulted in scores of deaths.

Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, said that the U.S. could be most useful by getting involved instead in “conflict resolution,” forcing Mali’s junta government to talk with JNIM, which has focused not on global aims but on applying Islamic laws in local governance, and other political opponents whom the junta has largely silenced.

“Opting for the military solution one more time won’t get things resolved,” Nasr said. “The French tried that for 10 years. The Russians have been trying for five years. The situation has only gotten worse and worse.”

France launched its military intervention in the Sahel in 2013 at the request of Mali’s then-government. French forces quashed the insurgency in Mali and restored a measure of order. That initial mission was followed by a second, Operation Barkhane, that eliminated prominent militant leaders but ultimately failed to stop the spread of various armed groups.

Anger at France — fueled by its neocolonial missteps and by Russian disinformation — grew over the years, helping propel coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021 and in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. President Emmanuel Macron later withdrew French forces.

Nasr added that if U.S. strikes weaken JNIM, they conversely could help IS Sahel, whose growth has been limited by the rival al-Qaeda-affiliated group.

Peter Pham, a former Trump administration official, was less pessimistic about the use of military force but said a precondition should be reestablishing trust with the governments of Mali and Niger ahead of security cooperation efforts.

“While we may have very limited direct economic or other interests in these countries, we do not want jihadists like ISIS and al-Qaeda gaining a foothold there,” Pham said.

Gorka has long made aggressive counterterrorism policies a cornerstone of his ideology. But his impact on policy since the start of Trump’s second term has been modest, said a U.S. official — a source of relief for his critics, who object to his hard-line approach, and a disappointment to his supporters.

In the spring, Gorka engaged in conversations about becoming Trump’s next director of the National Counterterrorism Center following the resignation of Joe Kent, who left the administration embittered by the president’s decision to start the war in Iran. But those discussions have not materialized into a nomination for Gorka.

Current and former U.S. officials said that Gorka had been deeply involved with talks about how to bring home Rideout, the captured missionary. One key aim of the administration last year was to get “overflight” rights in Mali, a former official said, so that U.S. officials could fly airplanes and other surveillance technology over Malian skies to better track his movements.

That desire for overflight rights was behind the administration’s decision to lift sanctions on key junta members, including Defense Minister Sadio Camara, who was a key proponent of Russian intervention in Mali and was killed in the JNIM attack on April 25.

Gorka, current and former officials say, also was invested in an effort to kill Abu Ubaydah Yusuf al-Anabi, a leader in an Algeria-based al-Qaeda affiliate that has seen its influence wane in recent years. Although American officials were hopeful last summer that U.S. intelligence had been used in a Malian strike to take out al-Anabi, as The Post previously reported, his death was never confirmed.

Corinne Dufka, an independent expert on the Sahel, said that there is a risk that any U.S. strikes could lead JNIM to target the U.S. or Americans in the region — which it has not done so far — or to push the group closer to the main al-Qaeda organization, from which it has grown more autonomous in recent years.

“If the U.S. helps Malian authorities kill JNIM authorities, it could backfire,” she said. “And they could be squandering an opportunity to de-radicalize and demobilize one of the world’s most sophisticated jihadist organizations.”

Submission statement: The RN is preparing its party platform for next year's presidential election. Muslims are obviously gonna be a big target, but some members of the party (and not small ones) think this may be going too far for the median voter. Bardella had long avoided to handle the issue himself, but now that Marine is back in the race for the top job, she wants her favored policies to be top priority.

Themes of the sub: freedom of religion, far-right

IMO I hope that the party's hardline base stays home if they remove it, or vice-versa that their soft-right wing stays home if they keep it (or that they switch to another party). It'd make getting sane candidates on 2nd round slightly easier. But the median RN voter is too much into conspiracies and brainslop to really move away from the party.

Russia's Finance Ministry has suspended federal government bond auctions indefinitely as borrowing costs climb and investor demand weakens, complicating efforts to finance a widening wartime budget deficit.

The ministry said on Monday it was halting its regular weekly auctions of government bonds, known as OFZs, "to facilitate the stabilization of market conditions." It did not say when sales would resume, saying only that it would announce their restart at a later date.

OFZs are ruble-denominated government bonds that underpin Russia's financial system. They are the government's primary source of domestic borrowing to cover budget deficits, while banks hold them to manage daily cash needs and foreign investors buy them for returns.

The Finance Ministry has relied heavily on domestic borrowing to help finance a budget deficit that reached 5.7 trillion rubles ($72.39 billion) at the end of June, while military spending continues to outpace initial government plans.

Prices of OFZs have fallen sharply since mid-June. The RGBI government bond index has dropped from around 119 points to about 110, its lowest level this year, while yields on bonds with maturities longer than 10 years have climbed above 16.5%.

The ministry's last four scheduled auctions were either canceled or attracted little demand. It canceled the June 24 auction, sold only 10.3 billion rubles ($130.81 million) of a planned 110 billion rubles ($1.40 billion) on July 1, canceled another auction on July 8 and, on July 15, scrapped the sale after receiving no bids at what it considered acceptable prices.

The Finance Ministry had planned to raise 1.5 trillion rubles ($19.05 billion) on the domestic debt market during the third quarter. So far, however, it has borrowed just 8.8 billion rubles ($111.76 million) in net proceeds during the quarter, according to Vector Capital analysts.

Analysts said the main factors weighing on Russian government bonds were rising inflation and expectations that the Central Bank may pause its cycle of interest rate cuts.

Nikolai Leonenkov, director of corporate finance at investment company Rikom-Trust, said inflation and expectations for monetary policy had been the main drivers behind the bond market's decline.

Investors are also concerned that a larger federal budget deficit could require increased government borrowing and additional bond issuance, said Pavel Payevsky, head of credit analysis and macroeconomics at asset manager RSHB Asset Management.

According to Bloomberg, the Finance Ministry plans to raise an additional 2-3 trillion rubles ($25.40 billion-$38.10 billion) in debt this year to help cover military spending that is expected to exceed budget plans by 4-5 trillion rubles ($50.80 billion-$63.50 billion). The rest would come from cuts to civilian spending, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Alexander Kolyandr, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), said the ministry was unwilling to borrow at current market rates.

"Yields have jumped. In other words, the interest rate at which banks are willing to lend to the government has risen to around 16% for 10-year debt. That's a lot," Kolyandr said. "It's a very high yield, a very high interest rate. The Finance Ministry is clearly reluctant to borrow at that rate."

A More Accurate Portrait of Homeownership

A better metric shows that homeownership is even less common among younger Canadians than official statistics suggest.

The traditional homeownership rate metric is misleading. Fortunately, the Minnesota Fed just came up with a better measure.

Here at the Missing Middle, we frequently write about and talk about homeownership rates and post a lot of graphs like the one below, from our piece The Homeownership Journey Is Broken. Policymakers Need to Repair It:

Figure 1: Homeownership Rate by Age Cohort and Year, Canada

The problem with the metric becomes apparent when we chart the homeownership rate for every age group, including 15-19 years, as shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Homeownership Rate by Age, Canada, 2021, Traditional Definition

A homeownership rate of 16% for individuals between the ages of 15-19 would strike most people as absurd, but the data is accurate. The problem is with how statistical agencies define homeownership. It is simply the proportion of families that own the house they live in. But very few 15-19-year-olds are the head of a family in the first place, so they are neither owners nor renters. They are absent from the calculation entirely.

This absence from the calculation matters, as the traditional homeownership rate measure does not capture phenomena such as people in their 20s and 30s living with their parents longer. This problem has been recognized for some time, so the Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota decided to address it. In their piece New homeownership measure puts people first they created a new metric, the “homeowners-to-population ratio”, which measures the percentage of the population that owns a home, either as an individual or as a couple.

In an instructive infographic, the piece shows how factors such as older family members or adult children living with homeowners, or roommates living with the owner of a home, are captured under their new metric, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Traditional vs. Minnesota Fed Measures of Homeownership Rates

Fortunately, Census 2021 contains enough data to calculate homeownership rates using the new Minnesota Fed definition. Figure 4 shows that, under the Minnesota Fed definition, homeownership rates fall dramatically for persons under the age of 40, and those over the age of 85. This better captures the phenomenon of younger people living with their parents longer, and the elderly living with relatives or in long-term care homes. Under the Minnesota Fed definition, the homeownership rates for 15- 19-year-olds in Canada are effectively zero, a much more sensible result.

Figure 4: Homeownership Rate by Age, Canada, 2021, Two Definitions

The new definition causes homeownership rates to fall by 15 percentage points for those under the age of 30, 10 points for those between 30 and 34, and a whopping 20 points for those over the age of 85.

Figure 5: Homeownership Rate by Age, Canada, 2021, Two Definitions

A few other points stand out to us:

• Even under the new definition, those aged 85 and up are still more likely to be homeowners in Canada than those between the ages of 30 to 34. The rate at which older Canadians sell their homes and move into other forms of housing is vastly overestimated by Canadian policy-makers, particularly at the municipal level.
• Further to the previous point, those aged between 75 and 84 have higher homeownership rates under the new definition than any age category under age 50.
• In 2021, less than one-quarter of all Canadians between the ages of 25 and 29 owned the home they lived in, either as an individual or a couple.

This new definition of homeownership from the Minnesota Fed is far more sensible than the traditional definition, and we are grateful that they created it. Where possible, we will utilize their definition in future work.

Archived version: https://archive.fo/OTI7v

Russia is no longer willing to return some occupied territories to Ukraine as part of any deal to end the war and plans to retain them as buffer zones, according to people close to the Kremlin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin remains committed to taking full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region by force and will now retain areas of Sumy and Kharkiv regions near the border with Russia as buffer zones, three people said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive issues.

Putin has abandoned territorial concessions because Russia views increasingly confrontational statements from the US as evidence that informal understandings reached at his Alaska summit with President Donald Trump have collapsed, the people said.

While the US insists no deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine was reached at the summit last August, Kremlin officials have repeatedly asserted that a package of undertakings existed under a so-called “spirit of Anchorage” agreement between Putin and Trump. They included pressing Ukraine to surrender territory in its eastern Donetsk region in return for Russia handing back occupied areas of the northern Sumy and northeastern Kharkiv regions.

The Kremlin has hardened its position amid escalating Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia, including on Moscow, that have damaged oil refineries and sparked a nationwide fuel shortage. Trump also backed a new sanctions bill championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham that would target the top five purchasers of Russian oil and gas with tariff rates of as much as 100%.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The summit between Trump and Putin was their longest face-to-face meeting and took place amid high expectations for a breakthrough to end the war. In the end, Putin left Anchorage without agreeing to a ceasefire to allow for peace talks, while Trump said it would be up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make a deal.

US-led negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on a peace deal have stalled since February as the Trump administration focused on the war with Iran.

Zelenskyy challenged Putin in an open letter in June to meet for direct peace talks to end the war that’s now in its fifth year. Putin rejected that offer and said his army should “keep working.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are attending a meeting of counterparts from the Association of South East Asian Nations in the Philippines. Rubio said Monday he’s “open” to speaking with Lavrov in Manila, though neither side has confirmed a meeting so far.

Russia has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks. Intense fighting continues in the Donetsk region centered around Konstiantynivka, a strategic logistics hub whose capture by Russia would open the way toward Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Putin wants Ukraine to surrender control of territory in Donetsk that his forces have failed to take in fighting since 2014. Ukraine rejects that demand and has proposed a halt to the war along the existing front lines.

Russia is prepared to return to negotiations only after Putin has achieved the objective of taking Donetsk, according to two of the people close to the Kremlin. Russia’s Defense Ministry has assured the president it can establish full control of the area by the end of the year, one person said.

Many in Russia’s military consider that timetable unrealistic and believe that it will only be able to take control of Donetsk region during 2027, according to a person close to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

Rubio told reporters June 25 that “there was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement in Alaska” on a deal to end the war. “If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end to the war,” he said.

Lavrov said in a statement next day that Putin had responded in Alaska to proposals previously brought to Moscow by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.

“If one party, in this case the United States, puts forward its proposals for a settlement — for an approach to resolving this crisis — and the other party expresses concurrence with these proposals, then to state that no agreement was reached appears, to put it mildly, somewhat inelegant,” Lavrov said.