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@mathijsbouman.nl The same dynamic is playing out in battery technology. Policy changes have slowed investment in electric vehicle manufacturing, but they have not halted the rapid decline in battery costs."

@mathijsbouman.nl Utilities are not choosing green energy projects because they have become environmental organizations. They are choosing them because the numbers increasingly leave little alternative.

@mathijsbouman.nl The economics are increasingly favoring renewable energy. Across much of the United States, large-scale solar and onshore wind have become the lowest-cost sources of new electricity.

@mathijsbouman.nl "Mr. Trump’s reforms were certainly not intended to promote renewable energy. But permitting is technology neutral. Faster approvals benefit whatever the market wants to build.

@mathijsbouman.nl How Trump Unwittingly Boosted Green Energy www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/o...

@mathijsbouman.nl Leestip www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/o...

@mathijsbouman.nl "Even more striking than the sabotage and fragility that Braw depicts is the stumbling international response."

@mathijsbouman.nl That makes seabed cables sitting ducks (or sunken ones) for countries such as Russia and China, which see damaging them as a way of exerting geopolitical pressure."

@mathijsbouman.nl But the undersea kingdom that has taken shape since 1858 has no navy to defend its highways. The laws, such as they are, aim to protect freedom of navigation, with a strong presumption of innocence.

@mathijsbouman.nl including trillions of pounds of financial transactions daily. Others, much thicker and more expensive, transmit electricity. They, like seabed gas pipelines, were built in an optimistic, trusting era when deliberate sabotage seemed inconceivable.

@mathijsbouman.nl "Modern life depends on what she calls the “undersea spaghetti bowl” of 600-odd cables, a million miles long, that crisscross the seas and oceans. The most numerous and most vulnerable carry data, responsible for all but a few percentage points of global internet traffic,

@mathijsbouman.nl The war you should be worrying about? It’s under the sea "The Undersea War by Elisabeth Braw reveals how China and Russia are sabotaging our deepsea cables – and how woefully unprepared we are to stop them" www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Waar Nederland historisch gezien altijd in de wereldtop stond voor onderwijskwaliteit, hoort het land sinds 2015 bij de sterkste dalers wereldwijd. www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opin...

@mathijsbouman.nl Mochten er FD lezers zijn met te diepe zakken in Oost-Duitsland staan een heleboel goedkope kastelen te koop. Zoals Schloss Tucheim: een kasteel van bijna 1.000 m² met een bijbehorend park van 18.822 m² voor €175.000 (waarschijnlijk nog wel wat miljoenen erbij voor de renovatie).

@mathijsbouman.nl Als ABP zo had belegd als het Noorse staatsfonds had het nu 400 miljard meer gehad. Ter vergelijking: 400 miljard euro is bijna 40% van het totale Nederlandse Bruto Binnenlands Product (BBP).

@mathijsbouman.nl A more integrated financial system would unlock investment for strategic industries, enhance stability and reduce fragmentation costs. It would enable more European banks to compete globally and make the Continent a more attractive environment for foreign firms."

@mathijsbouman.nl "If the European Union strengthened its internal market structure by completing the Capital Markets Union and Banking Union, it would transform the Continent’s ability to scale and compete.

@mathijsbouman.nl in two 2024 reports, one by Enrico Letta and the other by Mario Draghi, both academics and former Italian prime ministers. Yet so far, fewer than 16% of the reforms have been implemented, tipping Europe into the “slow agony” of decline Mr. Draghi warned about."

@mathijsbouman.nl would be a more capable security partner, a more resilient economic partner and a stronger counterweight to Beijing’s economic power. To succeed, the Europeans must reform how their economy functions. They know what to do, which is to adopt the more than 300 recommendations

@mathijsbouman.nl If this continues, Europe will be in the dire position of failing to meet its military and social needs." "A Europe that can mobilize capital, scale innovative companies, consolidate defense production, reduce strategic dependencies and generate stronger growth

@mathijsbouman.nl "Europe relies on exports for nearly 60% of its energy, has a disjointed defense industrial base, faces a manufacturing threat from China, and has a tangle of rules that hamstring capital formation and technology innovation.

@mathijsbouman.nl "A renewed commitment to American values and alliances coupled with bold reforms by Europe would be a geopolitical and economic home run, guaranteeing the Western world’s strength for the next 250 years."

@mathijsbouman.nl Jamie Dimon: A Plan for the Western World’s Revival "A U.S. trade pact with Europe could encompass friendly democracies and revive the old alliance." www.wsj.com/opinion/jami...

@mathijsbouman.nl However, presently the trend is on publication for numbers rather than for knowledge. To meet regulatory requirements, this has led to publication pollution, which undermines research integrity."

@mathijsbouman.nl "Historically, research was carried out with integrity, ethics, and genuine curiosity. The main goal of research in ancient times was to acquire new knowledge, and the results were shared through interactions. There was no pressure to publish the findings.

@mathijsbouman.nl Publication pollution: The erosion of research ethics in the age of metrics www.ovid.com/10.4103/jehp...

@mathijsbouman.nl Beste Nieuwkomer van het Jaar 2026

@mathijsbouman.nl Next year Britain is holding its first home defence exercise since Cold War days, and updating the “war book”, which gives crisis-management instructions to the public authorities. Too little. And quite possibly too late."

@mathijsbouman.nl But those American stockpiles have shrivelled during the war with Iran. We are also woefully unprepared for attacks on our critical infrastructure.

@mathijsbouman.nl "Russia sees other weaknesses too. Britain, like our allies, is pitiably short of air defences. Our military planning (if you can call it that) relied on obtaining extra stocks of precision-strike munitions and air-defence interceptors from the US if needed.

@mathijsbouman.nl "Russia believes it is in a winnable war of military attrition with Ukraine and of political attrition with Kyiv’s western backers. We will get bored, tired — or, if the stunts succeed, scared; Ukraine will run out of soldiers and money, and then Russia will get what it wants."

@mathijsbouman.nl have been circling the region in a US-led operation that also involved land and naval forces." "But, just as when Ratcliffe’s predecessor went to Moscow in 2021 to warn Puti.n against invading Ukraine, the Kremlin seems in no mood to listen."

@mathijsbouman.nl "Something sinister is clearly brewing. It may involve Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. In recent days, some of Nato’s most advanced surveillance and electronic-warfare planes

@mathijsbouman.nl Puti.n could test Nato resolve at any moment "As Russia cranks up its sabotage campaign, the US is distracted and Britain’s defence is flimsy" www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Als de islam niet in Europa aanwezig zou zijn, zou een belangrijk deel van de huidige specifieke terreurdreiging (het jihadisme) wegvallen. Lokale radicalisering van Europese burgers met een islamitische achtergrond zou wegvallen.

@mathijsbouman.nl "Already, getting this new defence finance scheme going signals seriousness to European public opinion, to Russia and to the Trump administration."

@mathijsbouman.nl "The new scheme can also finance stockpiles that bean-counters hate: piles of munitions and spare parts lying in bunkers and warehouses, just in case. It can start building resilience into the supply chain; Europe must reduce its dependence on both China and the US."

@mathijsbouman.nl By specialising in defence investments, the bank will gain expertise and clout to fix this. The EBRD is a model here, with its deep knowledge of eastern Europe. Wily defence behemoths will find it harder to bamboozle an expert banker than a hapless, underpaid civil servant."

@mathijsbouman.nl The result is that European Nato has far too many kinds of kit, all with their own spare parts, and often incompatible, expensive and out of date.

@mathijsbouman.nl "Attempts to reform defence procurement have relied on good intentions and rules, such as Nato’s standards for interoperability. Governments gaily support these constraints until they bite, at which point politicians argue ferociously for special treatment.

@mathijsbouman.nl plus “subscribed capital”: in effect IOUs. This model means such a bank can borrow and lend ten times more than its shareholders have paid in."

@mathijsbouman.nl A typical multilateral bank has a AAA rating, meaning it can raise long-term money cheaply — more so than many of its member governments. These governments pay for their shareholdings with a small amount of upfront cash, known as “paid-in capital”,

@mathijsbouman.nl "We already do this when we use publicly owned banks to finance long-term infrastructure and development projects: the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), owned by 77 countries, has since 1991 financed the startling recovery of post-communist Europe.

@mathijsbouman.nl "Hollowed-out armed forces are not just a laughing stock. They make us alarmingly vulnerable: no air defences against drones and missiles and a dock-bound navy that struggles to protect our sea lanes (and seabed)."

@mathijsbouman.nl How to plug Europe’s £1 trillion defence gap "A multilateral rearmament bank could raise the cash and fix the systems that make us alarmingly vulnerable" www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

@mathijsbouman.nl 7-daagse riviercruise Hanzesteden - Texel - IJsselmeer www.anwb.nl/vakantie/rei...

@mathijsbouman.nl "Pensioenfonds ABP heeft alle aandelen in machinefabrikant Caterpillar verkocht." Daar gaat de riviercruise van de ambtenaren.

@mathijsbouman.nl "Habitat modification or degradation caused by human activity is often the main reason that species face extinction. An intergovernmental body of leading scientists has found it to be the top driver of biodiversity loss worldwide."

@mathijsbouman.nl Many species are already running out of places to live, and the new rule is likely to add extreme pressure, experts said."