Alexandre Kateb

BRICS: un élargissement synonyme de volonté de dédollarisation. J’ai été ravi d’apporter mon éclairage sur cette question ⁦@BFMTV⁩ ⁦@bfmbusiness⁩ bfmtv.com/economie/inter…

@brivael Qui es-tu ? Par rapport aux figures que tu cites, une poussière, une note de bas de page.

Je veux présenter mes excuses, au nom des Français, pour avoir enfanté la French Theory (qui a enfanté la pire des merdes idéologiques : le wokisme). Nous avons donné au monde Descartes, Pascal, Tocqueville. Et puis, dans les ruines intellectuelles de l'après-68, nous avons donné Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Trois hommes brillants qui ont fabriqué, dans l'élégance de notre langue, l'arme idéologique qui paralyse aujourd'hui l'Occident. Il faut comprendre ce qu'ils ont fait. Foucault a enseigné que la vérité n'existe pas, qu'il n'y a que des rapports de pouvoir déguisés en savoir. Que la science, la raison, la justice, l'institution médicale, l'école, la prison, la sexualité, tout n'est qu'une mise en scène de la domination. Derrida a enseigné que les textes n'ont pas de sens stable, que tout signifiant glisse, que toute lecture est une trahison, que l'auteur est mort et que le lecteur règne. Deleuze a enseigné qu'il fallait préférer le rhizome à l'arbre, le nomade au sédentaire, le désir à la loi, le devenir à l'être, la différence à l'identité. Pris isolément, ce sont des thèses discutables. Combinées, exportées, vulgarisées, elles forment un système. Et ce système est un poison. Car voici ce qui s'est passé. Ces textes, illisibles en France, ont traversé l'Atlantique. Les départements de Yale, de Berkeley, de Columbia les ont absorbés dans les années 80. Ils y ont trouvé un terreau qui n'existait pas chez nous : le puritanisme américain, sa culpabilité raciale, son obsession identitaire. La French Theory s'est mariée à ce substrat, et l'enfant de ce mariage s'appelle le wokisme. Judith Butler lit Foucault et invente le genre performatif. Edward Said lit Foucault et invente le post-colonialisme académique. Kimberlé Crenshaw hérite du cadre et invente l'intersectionnalité. À chaque étape, la matrice est française : il n'y a pas de vérité, il n'y a que du pouvoir, donc toute hiérarchie est suspecte, toute institution est oppressive, toute norme est violence, toute identité est construite donc négociable, toute majorité est coupable. Voilà comment trois philosophes parisiens, qui n'ont probablement jamais imaginé leurs conséquences pratiques, ont fourni le logiciel d'exploitation à une génération entière d'activistes, de bureaucrates universitaires, de DRH, de journalistes, de législateurs. Voilà comment on a obtenu une civilisation qui ne sait plus dire si une femme est une femme, si sa propre histoire mérite d'être défendue, si le mérite existe, si la vérité se distingue de l'opinion. C'est de la merde pour une raison simple, et il faut la dire calmement. Une civilisation se tient debout sur trois piliers : la croyance qu'il existe une vérité accessible à la raison, la croyance qu'il existe un bien distinct du mal, la croyance qu'il existe un héritage à transmettre. La French Theory a entrepris de dynamiter les trois. Pas par méchanceté. Par jeu intellectuel, par fascination du soupçon, par haine de la bourgeoisie qui les avait nourris. Mais le résultat est là. Une génération entière a appris à déconstruire et n'a jamais appris à construire. Une génération entière sait soupçonner et ne sait plus admirer. Une génération entière voit le pouvoir partout et la beauté nulle part. Je m'excuse parce que nous, Français, avons une responsabilité particulière. C'est notre langue, nos universités, nos éditeurs, notre prestige qui ont donné à ce nihilisme son emballage chic. Sans la légitimité de la Sorbonne et de Vincennes, ces idées n'auraient jamais traversé l'océan. Nous avons exporté le doute comme d'autres exportent des armes. Ce qui se construit maintenant, en silicon valley, dans les labos d'IA, dans les startups, dans les ateliers, dans tous les lieux où des gens fabriquent encore des choses au lieu de les déconstruire, c'est la réponse. Une civilisation se reconstruit par les bâtisseurs, pas par les commentateurs. Par ceux qui croient que la vérité existe et qu'elle vaut qu'on s'y consacre. Par ceux qui assument une hiérarchie du beau, du vrai, du bon, et qui n'ont pas honte de la transmettre. Alors pardon. Et au travail.

“We should be partners, not rivals," says Chinese President Xi Jinping to US President Donald Trump at a summit in Beijing. In his opening remarks, Trump touted his “fantastic relationship” with Xi, and said US business leaders were in the city to "pay respects" to Xi and China bloom.bg/4dj0v2N

President Obama on Iran: “We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got 97% of their enriched uranium out. There’s no dispute that it worked and we didn’t have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the Strait of Hormuz”

This weekend, amid a fragile, three-day ceasefire with Ukraine, Russia celebrated Victory Day — the anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Why was the celebration so muted compared to years past? And what does it say about President Putin's grip on power? I explored:

Daniel Craig: The New Face of BYD's DENZA Luxury EVs. What an amazing ad.

This (arabnews.com/node/2642938) is, by any measure, an extraordinary article: Prince Turki Al-Faisal is a son of King Faisal and ran Saudi intelligence (the GID) for over two decades. He is writing that the plan of "the US-Israeli war on Iran" was "to ignite war between us [Saudi Arabia] and Iran," so that Israel could "impose its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings." This further confirms that, contrary to what many have asserted, the notion that the Saudis were quietly backing the war on Iran was a myth (alongside the recent fact the Saudis denied the U.S. access to its bases and airspace: x.com/RnaudBertrand/…). From the horse's mouth they're literally saying it was as much a war on them as it was on Iran! Pretty crazy when you think about it: this is Saudi Arabia saying that their real enemy in this war was the U.S. and Israel. Hard to overstate how significant a rupture this represents. Now of course they could be saying so because, seeing how the war turned out, they're trying to retroactively position themselves on the winning side (at least strategically, by saying they didn't take the bait), or trying to justify domestically why they absorbed hits from Iran without retaliating. And, of course, it's not like they're presenting Iran as some sort of ally here: Prince Turki explicitly calls them a "neighbor" that caused "pains." But still, the end result remains: the Saudi establishment is now committing, on the record and in plain language, to a framing in which, while Iran is a "painful neighbor", the U.S. and Israel represent the deeper strategic threat, having tried to engineer their destruction. If you had any lingering doubt that this war accelerated the collapse of U.S. influence in the region, this should settle it.

JPMorgan just published the scariest oil chart I’ve ever seen. World inventories are in freefall. And when this line hits 6.8 — the global energy system doesn’t slow down. It breaks. 🧵

This article by Robert Kagan is worth reading. It is a searing assessment of the catastrophic failure of the Israel-U.S. war on Iran, calling it a defeat. It is also perhaps best captures how Iran sees things and why it is not submitting to Trump’s demands in the talks 👇🏼 “There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure. President Trump likes to talk about who has “the cards,” but whether he has any good ones left to play is not clear. The United States and Israel pounded Iran with devastating effectiveness for 37 days, killing much of the country’s leadership and destroying the bulk of its military, yet couldn’t collapse the regime or exact even the smallest concession from it. Now the Trump administration hopes that blockading Iran’s ports will accomplish what massive force could not. It’s possible, of course, but a regime that could not be brought to its knees by five weeks of unrelenting military attack is unlikely to buckle in response to economic pressure alone.” theatlantic.com/international/…

Gulf Arab states have spent decades marketing themselves as glitzy and safe. But the Iran war has left some scarring. @glcarlstrom explores whether the Gulf can recover its reputation econ.st/48JTLts

"I've never seen anything like it before." Oil storage tanks in the United States will run empty "somewhere in the July 4 period," Carlyle's Jeff Currie tells @flacqua bloom.bg/4niuf4G

This is a major advancement in robotic reasoning and control. See the video !

Most are missing what really happened yesterday: Iran EXPANDED its control of Hormuz Threatening UAE pipeline that evaded earlier attacks, cutting oil etc even more Iran gained more power

This 9-minute lecture by Nassim Taleb on "Probability Distribution" will teach you more about prediction trading than 2 months as a Quant intern at Jane Street. Bookmark it & give it 9-minutes today. It’ll be the most productive start for your week. Then read article below.

JUST IN: A new McKinsey & Company report breaks down exactly what it costs to build a humanoid robot, and why the supply chain is one of the biggest bottlenecks nobody is talking about. The typical humanoid bill of materials today: $30,000 to $150,000 per unit. The long-term target to unlock mass-market demand: under $20,000. That's a LOT of cost compression still required. Here's where the money goes: → Actuators — 40-60% of total cost, and the PRIMARY performance differentiator → Sensing & perception — 10-20% → Compute & control — 10-15% → Structure — 5-10% → Battery — 5-10% The uncomfortable truth: the most expensive component, actuators, also has the LEAST developed supplier ecosystem. And here's the scaling dilemma nobody has solved yet. Suppliers won't invest in dedicated production lines because volumes are too low. But volumes stay low because costs are too high. A classic chicken-and-egg problem. The one structural advantage? China. Its deep EV supply chain overlaps directly with humanoid components, motors, power electronics, permanent magnets, precision bearings. That's why Chinese manufacturers have a significant head start on cost curves. Western humanoid companies are racing to either vertically integrate or lock in co-development partners. Neither path is cheap. Neither path is fast. Everyone is excited about the humanoid robot race. Not enough people are talking about the supply chain war underneath it. That's where this gets decided. P.S. It's good to see Schaeffler providing 'picks and shovels' in this humanoid race. 🇪🇺 McKinsey Report here: mckinsey.com/industries/ind… ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news → ziegler.substack.com

Trump’s announced “escort” of ships thru Hormuz recalls the famous 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident … A manufactured pretext for the United States to massively escalate its military involvement in the Vietnam War Prepare for major escalation vs Iran google.com/imgres?imgurl=…

Massive US airlift this morning to Gulf. Strong indicator of attack on Iran likely imminent

UAE quitting OPEC has an obvious explanation which no one is talking about. This is that UAE is under financial stress as a result of the Hormuz closure. There have been several signs of this: (1) UAE's refusal to rollover its $3.5 billion loan to Pakistan; (2) UAE's recent agreement with the US of a swap arrangement with the Federal Reserve; (3) Reports from China of massive capital flight from the Gulf States to Hong Kong, which at one point reportedly reached $40 billion a week. UAE hosts the biggest international financial centres in the Gulf. In the event of massive capital outflow and in the absence of corresponding inflow from oil exports it is easy to see how UAE might be under financial stress. In fact there are reports UAE at one point was taking administrative steps to try to staunch capital outflow, which, if as great as the Chinese reports were saying, might have badly stressed its banks. If so it is not surprising if UAE is currently positioning itself outside OPEC in order to boost oil exports to the greatest extent that it can. All discussed at the beginning of today's video which also looks at Putin's response to the Tuapse drone attacks and the latest changes in the Ukraine battlefields. youtube.com/watch?v=irI2s-… @TheDuranReal @AXChristoforou @TheGrayzoneNews @LarrySonar21 @MearsheimerJ @DanielLDavis1 @ggreenwald @Glenn_Diesen @yanisvaroufakis @RnaudBertrand

Watching the news today feels a lot like watching a movie I’ve seen many times before. In 1971, I witnessed a major currency devaluation that I thought would be a disaster—but the markets actually went up. It was a lesson I only learned by looking back at 1933. When you study the historical "scripts," the current plot becomes much clearer.

@business Europe is led by Idiots. So sad.

The US is being “humiliated” by Iranian leaders as President Trump struggles to negotiate an end to the war, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday (translation via AP) bloom.bg/3QyiieU

Packing over 1,000 horsepower, BYD claims the Denza Z can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (0-62 mph) in less than 2 seconds. It also features BYD’s new Blade Battery and Flash Charging 2.0 system, enabling it to recharge in as little as 5 minutes.