PNC Bank Gobbles FirstBank, and the World Pretends Not to Yawn By Hugo Valdez-Cortez, International Finance Correspondent on his third espresso and last nerve When PNC Financial Services announced it would inhale FirstBank Holding Co. for an undisclosed-but-whispered-to-be-jaw-dropping sum, the reaction outside North America was the polite shrug usually reserved for a distant cousin’s third…
Football on TV Tonight: 90 Minutes of Global Theatre, Sponsored by an Online Casino You’ve Never Heard Of Bylined from a hotel mini-bar in Doha, where the peanuts cost more than my first apartment. Tonight, somewhere between the war headlines and the weather report, a ball will be kicked on your screen and half the…
Paris, Thursday — The French government has fallen faster than a soufflé in a wind tunnel, and the rest of the world, nursing its own political hangover, is watching with the kind of sympathetic grimace usually reserved for a friend who just face-planted on the dance floor. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne handed in her resignation…
Heathrow: The World’s Largest Holding Pen for the Chronically Optimistic By our man in Terminal 5, nursing lukewarm espresso and existential dread LONDON—Somewhere between the perfume cloud at Duty Free and the slow-motion riot that is UK Border Control, Heathrow Airport quietly asserts itself as the planet’s most democratic purgatory. It doesn’t matter if you…
Solana Sierra: The Blockchain’s Last Resort and the World’s Quiet Panic By Henrietta “Hank” Delacroix, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker DUBAI—Somewhere between the 42nd floor of a glass tower that looks like a misplaced USB stick and the 43rd floor that sells NFTs of the 42nd, Solana Sierra was quietly rolled out last Tuesday. In the…
A Social Security Bill, by Any Other Name, Still Smells Like Desperation Geneva—Across the fluorescent-lit conference rooms of the International Labour Organization, the phrase “social security bill” is being whispered with the same reverence once reserved for the Ark of the Covenant and, more recently, for Beyoncé tickets. Delegates from 187 countries have gathered to…
StubHub’s IPO: Selling Tickets to a Show Called Late-Stage Capitalism by Dave’s Locker Global Correspondent When StubHub filed to go public last week, the planet’s collective reaction was less “Wow, live events are back!” and more “Ah yes, another marketplace for the same Beyoncé ticket, now with quarterly guidance.” From the bourses of New York…
FC 26: The World’s Newest Shared Delusion By Dave’s Foreign Correspondent-at-Large (currently self-medicating in three time zones) They say football is the universal language; if so, FC 26 is the latest dialect everyone suddenly claims to be fluent in. From smoke-choked cyber-cafés in Lagos to glassy fintech lounges in Singapore, the initials are being dropped…
Interest Rates: The Global Game of Financial Whack-a-Mole By Our Man in the Currency Bunker, somewhere between Frankfurt and FOMO Somewhere on a Bloomberg terminal, a red arrow blinks like a tiny, strobing heart attack. That, dear reader, is the world’s pulse today—set by a committee of twelve serious people in Washington who decide how…
France: The World’s Most Glamorous Patient in Relapse By “Correspondent X” (still wearing yesterday’s cologne) Paris—If nations were dinner guests, France would arrive fashionably late, ignore the dress code, and somehow make the entire table talk about her. Once again, the hexagon is convulsing—this time over pension reform, police violence, and the charmingly medieval habit…
The Curious Global Career of Kendrick Bourne, or How a Slot Receiver Became a Metaphor for 21st-Century Mobility In a world where supply chains snap like cheap earbuds and passports mutate into status symbols, the professional wanderings of Kendrick Lamar Bourne—yes, that really is his government name—offer a darkly comic masterclass in modern transience. While…
The Global Democracy Sale: Everything Must Go, Terms and Conditions Apply DATELINE—Somewhere with functioning Wi-Fi and a suspiciously empty ballot box. Democracy, that plucky Athenian start-up turned planetary franchise, is having a clearance event. From the marble steps of the Acropolis to the fluorescent-lit community centers of Iowa, the brand is being re-imagined, repackaged and—when…
