Yacht Brinkmanship: Owners of Tech’s Biggest Pleasure Craft Compete to the Ends of the Earth
For some, a superyacht isn’t enough—you also need submersibles, remotely operated vehicles, a Starlink or two, and a support vessel with a landing pad and extra crew.
If you’re Sergey Brin, Evan Spiegel, Jan Koum, Jeff Bezos, Laurene Powell Jobs, Eric Schmidt, Yuri Milner or any one of dozens of other modern-day tech moguls, it’s not enough to just own a yacht. Now you might need two—one for you and your guests to ride on, and one to act as a “support vessel,” tailing you around the seven seas while towing submersibles, seaplanes, helicopters or just some extra deckhands.
It’s the maritime version of keeping up with the Joneses. When it comes to accumulating pleasure craft, tech’s billionaire elite are sparing no expense—and that includes on submarines, the newest must-have add-on to the luxury superyacht, Titanic disasters be damned. Executives seem to bring the same cutthroat ambition to yachting that they do to business, sizing up each other’s yacht lengths, hiring the same small cadre of designers and tradespeople, and filling them with the same toys and tech.
“If you’re a billionaire, you want to have the nicest things because you can,” said superyacht designer Jonathan Quinn Barnett. “I think it’s actually a pleasure to know that if there’s anything out there, you own the finest.”
Figureheads and Wayfinders
When Jeff Bezos’ megayacht, Koru, set sail earlier this summer, observers noted that the 417-foot vessel’s figurehead bore a distinct resemblance to Lauren Sánchez, his fiancée. What they didn’t know was that Bezos was likely inspired by IAC chair Barry Diller, whose 305-foot sailing yacht, Eos, features a 9-foot figurehead of Diller’s wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. Bezos reportedly spent his final days as Amazon CEO on Eos.
When von Furstenberg commissioned artist and actor Anh Duong to sculpt Eos’ figurehead, Duong suggested using her patron as the model. The six-month commission included one note from the famously opinionated Diller: “He was concerned that she looked too serious,” Duong recalled. With a little tweak, the figurehead was complete.
Those who work in the yacht industry have become accostumed to tech moguls’ desires to one-up their peers with the latest creature comforts and state-of-the-art technology. “There is a greater desire to go and explore, rather than go and be on the back of a boat in St-Tropez or any of the regular yachting destinations,” said Crispin Baynes, a yacht broker at Burgess Yachts. He said popular destinations for seaborne moguls include the Northwest Passage and the South Pacific, where Google founder Brin’s 240-foot yacht Dragonfly reportedly delivered resources to Vanuatu after a cyclone hit the island in 2015.
Brin owns two other luxury boats, whose names also end with the suffix “fly”—Butterfly and Firefly. Mike Gregory, who captained Dragonfly during its 2015 humanitarian mission, has described the fleet as “delivering the highest standards of ‘off-the-beaten-track yacht exploration.’”
Submersibles, ROVs and Starlinks
Big tech’s knack for producing adrenaline junkies bodes well for submarine builders like Charles Kohnen of Seamagine Hydrospace. The late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen splurged for an onboard submersible on Octopus, his 417-foot megayacht. Kohnen, whose company has built about eight submersibles for yachts, said owners often use submersibles to find shipwrecks or explore sea life, such as pelagic fish that occupy the water column 200 meters beneath the surface.
Barnett, who designed the interiors of Octopus, said many tech clients also buy remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, which trawl underwater and send high-definition live broadcasts back to the mother ship. “You can sit in the comfort of a theater of your yacht and explore the bottom of the ocean,” said Barnett, whose nontech clients include film director Francis Ford Coppola. “It’s an amazing experience to see some of these things for the very first time.”
Another popular choice is projection mapping, which displays images on a yacht’s ceiling. “We’re basically transforming the interior space into something completely different,” Barnett told me. He said possible projections include a forest of trees, the night sky and videogames.
Starlink—Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider, owned by SpaceX—has proven revolutionary for the yachting industry. Many owners previously installed humongous domes atop their ships for delivering speedy internet connections far out at sea. Today, Starlink’s 2-foot-wide dish has rendered the domes (which provide cover for satellite antennas) obsolete. “Thank you to the Starlink team yet again coming to the rescue,” said Social Capital founder Chamath Palihapitya, as he beamed in from sea on a recent “All-In” podcast.
Support Vessels and Sea Chalets
Owners like Bezos and WhatsApp co-founder Koum reportedly pony up millions to add a support vessel, which trails the yacht and can carry helicopters, submarines, seaplanes and extra crew. “It’s a very new typology of boat,” said Kirsten Schwalgien, the designer behind Nebula, a 223-foot support vessel reportedly owned by Koum. (Schwalgien declined to confirm the identity of the vessel’s owner.)
Schwalgien said support vessels have risen in popularity over the last 15 years. “The owner looks at his shadow maybe more than his own yacht,” she said, referring to the support vessel. Many of these support ships include helipads so unwanted noise and wind don’t disturb the mother ship (Nebula includes both a helipad and a full-size hangar). Bezos’ bride-to-be, Sánchez—a licensed helicopter pilot—was recently photographed landing a chopper on Koru’s support vessel Abeona.
Many in the tech industry hire the same designers to craft their yacht’s interiors. French designer Rémi Tessier is reportedly responsible for the yachts owned by Koum, Snap CEO Spiegel and GoPro CEO Nick Woodman. Tessier declined an interview request.
Before signing up for services like Tessier’s, yacht owners often test the waters by chartering. “It’s like a ski chalet. You start renting it, decide you like it, and you get a bit more experience with it,” said yacht broker Baynes. Some never end up parting ways with the tens of millions required to buy a secondhand yacht or the upward of hundreds of millions for a custom one. “Chartering is like staying in a hotel,” Barnett said. He remembers George Lucas telling him, “I’m a renter. I rent and I give it back and then someone else has to take care of it.”
After all, sleeping in one’s own floating bed comes at a steep price. Former Google CEO Schmidt reportedly plunked down nearly $68 million for a 16-year-old, 267-foot superyacht—a tad cheaper than the rumored $500 million Bezos spent on his custom yacht. The yearly upkeep, including fuel and crew, is generally about 10% of the vessel’s value, according to Barnett.
String Instruments and Spacecraft
It’s just as important to add the owner’s personal imprint to the project, whether that comprises their hobbies or their collections. On Octopus, that meant incorporating Allen’s vast art collection, as well as the Microsoft co-founder’s love of music. Across the eight guest decks, Barnett opened up each level at the main stairwell to create two side-by-side long-string instruments, featuring half-inch–diameter braided stainless-steel strings. “You can walk up on any deck to one of these guitars,” Barnett said of the novelty, which is powered by Pro Tools audio software. “You can make either of the guitars sound like the bells of St. Mary’s or Jimi Hendrix just by changing the control.”
As tech billionaires dream of conquering space, Barnett sees megayachts as a more feasible goal. “It’s the closest one could get to building a spaceship in our modern world and traveling to places you could never go,” he said. “People may talk about going to Mars, but in this lifetime—in my lifetime—the best I can do is build you a yacht.”
Japanese Companies Are Making Big Promises to Boost Their Stock Prices
Many stocks trade below their book value, which Tokyo’s exchange finds unsatisfactory
Japanese companies, long viewed as moribund, are trying to change how investors think about them by promising better growth, governance and returns.
Snack maker Calbee said earlier this year that it had been hampered by a “conservative, inward-facing corporate culture and weak ability to effect change.” The 74-year-old company has pledged to revamp its business and boost its profits.
Ajinomoto, the monosodium glutamate and seasonings maker, plans to triple its earnings per share by 2031. That will involve a “dramatic expansion through business-model transformation,” the company said. Nissan Motor recently increased its annual dividend and plans to up it again. The automaker’s chief executive said the company has an urgent need to improve its price-to-book ratio, which is well below 1.
The pronouncements came after a push from Japan’s largest stock exchange—heeding longtime pleas from investors—for companies to pay closer attention to their market valuations and increase shareholder returns.
Japan’s economy is growing, and its stock market has surged this year. But many of its biggest companies aren’t efficient in how they use capital.
In March, the Tokyo Stock Exchange told most of its listed companies to develop, lay out and implement improvement plans. It noted that around half the companies on its main board were trading below their book value, meaning they were worth less in the market than the sum of their net assets.
In the U.S., price-to-book ratios aren’t typically used as a valuation metric for most stocks. Investors generally prefer to look at companies’ price-to-earnings ratios, except in the case of certain sectors, such as banks and other financial institutions.
The large number of Japanese stocks that trade below book value indicates “issues in terms of profitability and growth potential,” according to the exchange.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 is up 21% this year after hitting its highest level in more than three decades earlier in the summer. The market has benefited from a vote of confidence from American billionaire Warren Buffett, a weak yen and large inflows from global investors that had previously neglected the world’s third-largest economy. Some investors that have turned bearish on China have also moved money into Japan.
In May, camera maker Nikon’s finance chief, Muneaki Tokunari, said improving the ratio is “an important management challenge,” and the company needs to quickly find new sources of growth. Its price-to-book ratio topped 1 in June, thanks to the market rally, but has since dropped back to 0.84.
“Even though it has fallen below 1.00 again, we believe that quickly launching growth businesses and securing steady earnings at the moment are important issues for the time being,” a Nikon spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.
Honda Motor said in May it expected to spend up to $1.4 billion repurchasing shares in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2024. Its stock has soared nearly 50% this year. Toyota Motor said in May it would buy up to $1 billion in shares.
Companies in Japan are more likely to step up when their rivals are taking action, investors say. “People start to follow suit based on external peer pressure,” said Shuntaro Takeuchi, a Japan portfolio manager at Matthews Asia.
There has been a lot of focus on the price-to-book ratio, but it isn’t the only metric companies can use to prove themselves, said Hiromi Yamaji, chief executive of Tokyo Stock Exchange operator Japan Exchange Group.
“If they would like to use other indicators like ROE or RAROC or ROIC, we don’t care,” Yamaji said in an interview, referring to return on equity, risk-adjusted return on capital and return on invested capital. It is up to companies to communicate it to investors, he added.
Contacting some companies’ investor-relations departments in the country used to be a laborious affair for Hisashi Arakawa, the deputy head of investment management for Japan at Abrdn. He said he had to first arrange a meeting through a broker and in some cases wait for a few weeks—or not secure a meeting at all.
“If you just gave them ad hoc calls, they wouldn’t answer. But now we can call them any time,” Arakawa said.
“Every company that we hold that’s below book—they want to do something,” he added.
Better governance was a pillar of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic-revival program, with a corporate-governance code going into effect in 2015. But share prices were an afterthought for many Japanese companies, said Kei Okamura, chair of the Asian Corporate Governance Association’s Japan working group.
“A lot of the reforms in the past were on corporate governance, which is absolutely critical…but it never really addressed the key issue with respect to why Japanese valuations continue to be discounted relative to global developed-market peers,” said Okamura, who is also a portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman.
While the price-to-book ratio has been gaining prominence, it is an imperfect metric to assess Japan’s corporate health, market participants say. It also isn’t a good proxy for identifying investment opportunities, said Dan Carter, an investment manager for Japanese equities at Jupiter Asset Management.
“A business can have a price-to-book ratio of 0.9 and be too expensive,” Carter said. Capital-intensive businesses can be unduly scrutinized, he added. Banks, for example, often have a price-to-book ratio below 1 due to their large capital reserves.
Japan’s market reform has been effective in bringing about changes, but much more needs to be done to improve profit margins, said Nicholas Smith, a Japan strategist at CLSA. Compared with the U.S. and Europe in this regard, “Japan is a long way behind,” he added.
Could Namibia be the next oil frontier?
Shell and Total search for fields off coast of southern African nation that could make it world’s newest petrostate
Two of Europe’s biggest energy companies are stepping up efforts to open a potentially giant oilfield off the coast of Namibia in one of the clearest signs the industry is pursuing new fossil fuel resources.
UK-based Shell, which has drilled four exploration wells in the Atlantic Ocean off Namibia’s southern coast since 2021, received approval in June to drill 10 more. This year France’s TotalEnergies will spend $300mn — half of its global exploration budget — in the country.
If they succeed in identifying commercial volumes of oil, the southern African nation could become one of the world’s newest petrostates, just when global oil demand, according to some estimates, has started to decline due to the transition to cleaner sources of energy.
Both Shell and Total have plans to slowly cut their dependence on oil production to reduce their corporate emissions to net zero by 2050. Shell has already reduced its oil output by 25 per cent in the past three years and says it will maintain production at current levels until 2030.
But they also argue that the world will continue to consume significant volumes of oil until 2050, even as the supply of less-polluting energy sources increases, adding that new oilfields will be needed to meet demand even as it falls.
“Namibia continues to be a fantastic opportunity because it plays into the strength of our portfolio in deepwater [oil production],” Shell chief executive Wael Sawan told investors in July, although he added it was too early to judge how quickly the oilfields could be developed.
The expansion in activity in Namibia by both companies, which operate separate offshore projects, follows the drilling of several successful exploration wells in the past 18 months.
Total and its partners — QatarEnergy, Impact Oil and Gas and Namibia’s state-owned oil company Namcor — first announced the discovery of “significant light oil and associated gas” at the Venus site in February 2022.
This field has the most potential and is likely to hold more than 3bn barrels of oil, which would make it the eighth biggest oil discovery in the world since 2000 and the largest ever in sub-Saharan Africa, according to consultants Wood Mackenzie.
Although significantly smaller than Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field, the largest in the world, holding more than 60bn barrels, the development of Venus alone would make Namibia a major oil producer.
Total has drilled an appraisal well on the Venus site and plans to run flow tests this month, with results expected in September.
“Our focus will be Namibia first,” Total chief executive Patrick Pouyanné said in July, adding “we have a lot of oil in place”.
Shell, which is also working with QatarEnergy and Namcor, has drilled three exploration wells, one appraisal well and has already conducted a successful flow test, which it said was the first in the country.
Oil exploration is a challenging and costly business that involves using geological knowledge and seismic imaging to guess what might be buried underground and then sinking expensive exploration wells to find out.
In Namibia’s case, the work is complicated by the location of the most promising areas: between 200km and 300km from the coast and in water depths of more than 2,000 metres.
“This clearly is pushing the boundaries of previous deepwater and ultra-deepwater developments,” said Ian Thom, upstream research director at Wood Mackenzie.
But the early results have raised speculation in the industry that the finds could rival the series of discoveries from 2015-18 in Guyana, which turned the tiny Latin American nation into a major producer.
“This is incredibly early stages but you can see the excitement,” Thom said. “The amount of focus that Shell and TotalEnergies are putting into Namibia, it is clear that they see enormous potential here.”
When privately held UK-based exploration group Impact entered Namibia in 2014, the number of failed wells meant the country was seen as a “graveyard” for oil exploration, said chief executive Siraj Ahmed. “A place where there’s no real potential for hydrocarbons.”
But Impact’s thesis was that over thousands of years, the Orange River that runs across Namibia and South Africa had dumped resource-rich sediment further into the Atlantic Ocean than had previously been explored.
Total acquired part of Impact’s licence in 2017 and was joined by QatarEnergy two years later. QatarEnergy did not respond to a request for comment.
Although oil executives caution that it is too soon to predict whether the fields will be developed or how much revenue they might generate, the initial finds have raised Namibian hopes of a future economic windfall that could help further develop the country.
Namibia, with its small population of 2.5mn, has a GDP per capita of about $5,000, similar to Indonesia and Mongolia, but also one of the world’s most unequal societies, second only to South Africa, according to the World Bank.
Namibia’s oil ministry and representatives of Namcor were not available for comment.
International companies have mined diamonds and uranium in Namibia for decades but there is no history of oil production.
Successful development of the offshore fields would require the building of an entire new industry, as it did in Mozambique on Africa’s east cost, where Total has led a fraught attempt to develop a giant offshore gasfield since 2010. The French energy major suspended operations in 2021 after attacks by Islamist insurgents.
Given the time it may take to develop the Namibian fields — Shell has said it would not expect any oil from the country until after 2030 — there is a chance that oil demand could already be declining when the projects start to produce.
“There is a big risk of encouraging the initiation of an industry that, at least long term, is in secular decline,” said Michael Coffin, a former BP geologist who is now the head of oil, gas and mining at the think-tank Carbon Tracker. “That doesn’t seem like a great bet for the economic development of any country.”
The oil companies argue that demand will remain significant even as it declines, with potential developments such as Namibia offering opportunities to use advanced technology to produce oil with lower operational emissions.
“Whatever scenario you look at, it’s very clear that, even in 2050, oil and gas will remain a key part of our energy mix,” said Impact’s Ahmed.
However, operational emissions only make up 15 per cent of the carbon emissions associated with a barrel of oil; the rest is produced when it is burnt.
“The elephant in the room is that projects like Namibia might have lower emissions intensity, but you’re still adding a lot of barrels that will get combusted and increase atmospheric CO₂,” said Coffin. “If they’re sanctioned to go ahead, it’s unlikely that some existing production somewhere else would shut earlier.”
‘Super aggressive’ Riyadh Air to focus expansion on Saudi market
Chief executive says airline will avoid head-to-head clash with Gulf neighbours’ hubs
Saudi Arabia’s newest airline, Riyadh Air, plans to focus on the niche market for flights to and from the kingdom rather than competing with its Gulf neighbours’ vast hubs, its chief executive has said, in an explanation of its “super aggressive” growth plans.
Tony Douglas was speaking after the airline in March announced its first aircraft order, for at least 39 Boeing 787 wide-body jets, with options for 33 more. Riyadh Air is also in talks with manufacturers for a fleet of narrow-body jets, which Douglas said should allow Riyadh Air to serve more than 100 destinations by the end of the decade.
However, Douglas, a former chief executive of Abu Dhabi’s Etihad airline, said Riyadh Air would not use the aircraft to take on directly Qatar Airways or Dubai’s Emirates, the region’s top two carriers. Both airlines, as well as Etihad, have grown by offering connecting flights through their huge home airports to and from destinations in other parts of the world.
Douglas said Riyadh Air would instead focus on carrying passengers going to and from Saudi Arabia, which has been wooing tourists and investors.
“If we look at our closest neighbour, Qatar, obviously Qatar Airways have got an incredible international network, global reach, and a population of give or take 2mn people,” he said.
Qatar’s population was “relatively small” and Qatar Airways did a “brilliant job” of offering its home country “world-class connectivity”, Douglas added.
But he said: “A very substantial percentage of that traffic is transfer. Very little of it proportionally is point-to-point.”
Riyadh Air is owned by Saudi Arabia’s PIF sovereign wealth fund. However, the airline’s creation has led to questions about whether the kingdom needs another carrier alongside Saudia, the existing flag-carrier, and the budget airline Flynas.
The $650bn PIF, which is chaired by day-to-day ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has taken on an outsized role in the economy, with involvement in everything from video gaming to tourism, sports, electric vehicle manufacturing, camel milk production and nicotine vapes.
Douglas accepted that the airline’s plans were “super aggressive”. But he insisted it would be a commercially viable company and that there was an abundance of demand for the new airline.
“The demand for its citizens to have better connectivity around the globe is obviously growing,” he said of Saudi Arabia, adding that more tourists and visitors were expected to come to the kingdom.
Saudia is expected to shift towards catering to the millions of religious pilgrims who visit Islam’s holiest sites in the kingdom.
Douglas insisted Riyadh Air would offer “absolutely obsessional attention to detail” about the “guest experience” on board.
“For many international guests in the future, the first impression they’ll get is at 38,000 feet with Riyadh Air,” he said of the airline’s importance to Saudi Arabia.
Douglas did not address the issue about alcoholic drinks but officials insist Saudi Arabia can attract tourists despite the country’s religious conservatism, and its strict ban on alcohol. There has been some speculation about a move to permit beverages in tourist areas and Saudi’s new business district, although plans have yet to materialise.
The airline is meant to receive its first 11 jets from Boeing in 2025 and more incrementally as they come off the assembly line.
Douglas said recent supply chain shortages in the aerospace industry after the Covid pandemic were worrying. The sector has struggled to cater to the rapid rebound in demand for air travel following a severe fall in passenger numbers during coronavirus lockdowns.
Resurgent demand has been particularly strong in the Middle East. According to an Oliver Wyman forecast, fleets in the region are expected to grow by 5 per cent annually over the next decade.
“Seats, airframes, engines . . . the supply chain for the last three, four years internationally has been challenged at the extreme,” Douglas said.
Douglas said he hoped the problems could be resolved as Riyadh Air built its fleet but said the airline was keeping a careful eye on the aerospace industry. “I can see everybody put a huge amount of effort into skills development, recruitment, and retention right now,” he said.
Russian billionaire pleads for EU sanctions relief after decrying war
Request from Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh is test of whether bloc will reward Russians who break with Kremlin
Arkady Volozh, co-founder of Russian tech giant Yandex, has formally requested that the EU lift sanctions against him in the first big test of whether the bloc will reward prominent figures who publicly break with the Kremlin.
Lawyers for Volozh petitioned the EU to repeal the measures days after Volozh condemned Vladimir Putin’s ‘barbaric’ invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the move. The request will be discussed by EU officials next month.
Volozh’s request comes after he became only the second prominent Russian billionaire to unreservedly denounce the war in Ukraine earlier this month, prompting calls from diplomats, officials and other sanctioned individuals for the EU to respond.
The case has raised the issue of whether policymakers should include “off-ramps” for sanctioned Russian elite figures who speak out against the invasion.
Volozh’s decision to publicly condemn the war “poses a tricky question” for the EU given its aim to use sanctions as a tool to encourage targeted individuals to change approach and weaken the Kremlin, two western officials told the FT.
“Frankly, it is hard to imagine what else he could do,” said a person close to Volozh. “And there are hundreds of other sanctioned Russian businessmen watching closely to see what Brussels does.”
Volozh, 59, has lived in Israel since 2014 and has not returned to Russia since Putin ordered the invasion in February last year. He declined a request for comment.
He resigned as chief executive of Yandex, Russia’s answer to Google, and surrendered his voting rights after the EU sanctioned him last year for what it described as Yandex’s complicity in the war.
Although Volozh, like many others in Russia’s elite, was horrified by the war from the outset, he refrained from speaking out against it until earlier this month after drafting and scrapping several other similar statements.
“Arkady wanted to say all of this from day one of the war. But he felt he was responsible for his people [in Russia],” one of them said. “They’re finally all out – that’s the main reason why this happened now.”
Since then, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin has led complex and fraught negotiations with the Kremlin to spin off Yandex’s international projects and sell Volozh’s controlling stake.
In recent months, however, the deal has stalled amid disagreements over finding potential buyers amenable both to western authorities and the Kremlin, prompting some people close to Yandex to worry Russia could nationalise it.
Volozh has been criticised by anti-war Russians who said he was insufficiently penitent about Yandex’s role in spreading Kremlin propaganda through its online news platforms. Yandex sold them to state-owned VK last year.
After the criticism Volozh said “some things could have been done differently”, without elaborating.
“Sanctions of course play a role. He really worries about sanctions and his reputation,” the person said. “And he is really against the war and wanted to be vocal about that from the beginning.”
EU sanctions relating to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are reimposed every six months. Volozh hopes he can convince the EU not to renew the sanctions against him when they expire on September 15, according to people close to him.
EU sanctions can be lifted in accordance with court rulings or if member states agree that there is “convincing evidence” that the person or entity “no longer fulfils the listing criteria”, a spokesman for the European Commission said.
The only person to so far overturn western sanctions on the basis of their anti-war stance is the eccentric fintech tycoon Oleg Tinkov, who has loudly denounced Putin and the invasion. The UK removed sanctions against him last month, citing his statements as a reason for the decision.
Several sanctioned oligarchs have told the FT they have been put off speaking against the war by the lack of a formal procedure in the US, UK, and EU for lifting the sanctions if they did so.
“If they have some procedure, like say, let’s sign a declaration, then that would be very easy, right? If they believe it is crucially important . . . we will sign and publish it,” one oligarch said.
No member state has raised the issue of Volozh’s delisting in a formal meeting of EU member states, two diplomats told the FT.
“I don’t think anything will happen, unfortunately,” another person close to Volozh said. “[Other sanctioned Russians] were convincing themselves they were oh-so close before . . . and that was completely wishful thinking.”
Voici pourquoi le Liban en faillite est devenu une destination touristique à la mode
Environ 2 millions de touristes étaient cet été au Liban, et les lieux branchés de Beyrouth sont bondés. Ils auront dépensé 9 milliards de dollars. Pas suffisant pour redresser l'économie de ce pays ou une famille sur deux est confrontée à une grande pauvreté.
Voilà une destination de luxe. Le vol de quatre heures depuis Dubaï peut coûter 1.000 dollars. Les vacanciers déboursent souvent plus de 450 dollars pour une chambre d'hôtel, 100 dollars pour des assiettes de poisson grillé. Les cartes journalières pour les clubs de plage peuvent coûter 25 % du salaire minimum mensuel des locaux, mais ces établissements sont bondés. Les réservations dans les lieux branchés sont prises d'assaut.
PIB en recul de 98%
Nous ne sommes pas sur la Côte d’Azur ou à Mykonos. Mais au Liban, où une crise financière a plongé le pays dans l’une des pires récessions de l’histoire. Depuis 2019, la monnaie a perdu 98 % de sa valeur et le PIB a plongé de 40 %. L’inflation annuelle est supérieure à 100 % depuis juillet 2020 alors que le pays tente d'obtenir un plan de sauvetage de 3 milliards de dollars du Fond monétaire international.
2 millions de touristes
Rien de tout cela n’a empêché le Skybar, une discothèque très appréciée de Beyrouth, de rouvrir cet été après une interruption de trois ans. Les fêtards sirotent des cocktails exotiques et dansent toute la nuit sur un toit illuminé de néons, même si, dans les rues en contrebas, l'Etat ne peut pas se permettre de garder l'éclairage public allumé. Walid Nassar, le ministre du Tourisme, estime à 2 millions de visiteurs l'affluence de cet été, soit l'équivalent de 40 % de la population libanaise. La plupart sont des expatriés libanais.
Un déjeuner à 765.000 lires
La crise découle d'une "chaîne de Ponzi" menée depuis des années par la banque centrale, qui empruntait des dollars aux banques à des taux d'intérêt élevés pour financer d'importants déficits jumeaux (commercial et budgétaire) et maintenir une parité fixe. En 2019, il n’y avait plus suffisamment de nouveaux dépôts pour la maintenir. Les banques ont fermé leurs portes pendant des semaines, puis ont imposé des contrôles arbitraires des capitaux. Le pays a fait défaut en 2020. La lire était fixée depuis 1997 à 1.500 livres pour un dollar, mais le taux officiel est rapidement devenu sans importance, des taux officieux ont fait leur apparition ainsi bien sûr que le marché noir des devises. Pour un déjeuner au bord de la plage, la facture s'élève à 765.000 lires, soit 196 dollars au taux de subvention alimentaire, mais seulement 39 dollars au cours de change de la rue. Et ce alors que la moitié des familles libanaises n’ont pas les moyens de manger suffisamment, et encore moins de prendre des vacances.
Une manne de 9 milliards de dollars
Le tourisme est l'un des rares secteurs créateurs d'emplois. Les visiteurs dépenseront 9 milliards de dollars cette année, soit une somme égale à 41 % du PIB ratatiné du Liban. Pourtant, l’argent ne coule pas vraiment à flot. Les serveurs ou barmans peuvent gagner entre 150 et 200 dollars par mois. En 1977, The Economist a inventé le terme "syndrome hollandais" pour décrire comment la richesse en matières premières peut nuire à l’économie d’un pays. Le Liban ne dispose pas de telles ressources (même si des entreprises étrangères reniflent le gaz naturel au large de sa côte méditerranéenne). Ce qu’il y a, c’est une diaspora tentaculaire. Pendant des décennies, l’argent des expatriés a permis au Liban d’enregistrer l’un des déficits courants les plus élevés au monde (il a atteint 26 % du PIB en 2014). L’économie était improductive, mais cet argent a permis à de nombreux Libanais de se sentir comme s’ils vivaient dans un pays à revenu intermédiaire, achetant des marques importées et réservant des vacances à l’étranger. Rien de tout cela n’était durable.
L'argent de la diaspora représente 38% du PIB
Alors que la diaspora a cessé de déposer son argent dans les banques insolvables du Liban, les envois de fonds représentent désormais le chiffre stupéfiant de 38 % du PIB. C’est suffisant pour faire avancer le pays. Mais ces flux ne soutiennent que peu d’investissements publics ou privés. Au lieu de cela, ils reviennent directement, finançant la consommation dans une économie qui dépend encore fortement des importations. C'est comme une coupe de glace par une chaude journée d'été, brièvement dégustée mais vite oubliée.
El Nino Threat Puts US Solar Power Output At Risk This Winter
The Biden administration's rapid push to decarbonize power grids with solar and wind while squeezing fossil fuel plants into early retirement could spark grid stability risks this winter as a new report sheds light on the possibility of "below average irradiance across most of North America" due to the impacts of El Niño producing more cloud coverage.
Solar-focused news publication PV Magazine said, "Solcast, a DNV company, predicts that El Niño will likely bring lower than normal solar power production through winter in the United States. Its analysis is based on data collected from previous El Niño events."
Here's more from the report:
This coming winter is more likely than not to see below average irradiance across most of North America, as the impacts of El Niño bring cloudier, wetter conditions across the continent. Analysis of Historical Time Series data from El Niño years using the Solcast API, shows that irradiance is significantly impacted in these years.The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared that we are in El Niño's Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phase, and that there is a 90-95% probability this will continue into the upcoming winter.NOAA has further forecast a 60% chance that this will be a "strong event," so solar producers across the continent should be anticipating this to change their expected performance through the winter.Analysis of December-February months from previous El Niño events (2006-07, 2009-10, 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2018-19) shows the historic impact on global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI). This image shows a comparison of the average GHI in the El Niño episodes with the neutral and La Niña phases of the ENSO climate cycle.
The clear observation is that most of the Continental US experienced reduced irradiance during El Niño winters. California, the Midwest, Southern states, and Mexico in particular see higher precipitation, as well as cloudier conditions.Conversely, the North-eastern USA and neighboring Canadian provinces depict the opposite. These regions experienced increased irradiance during El Niño intervals.This trend correlates with decreased precipitation during such periods, another trend these regions might expect in the coming winter.As the solar energy sector leads into the lower-producing winter months, El Niño is likely to bring even lower than normal production through winter. The increased rain may result in decreased dust soiling for panels that aren't already being cleaned regularly.
Numerous power grids across the US have warned about the growth of power demand, while decarbonization policies have led to a mismatch between power sources due to the early retirement of fossil fuel power generation. We've pointed this out in America's Largest Power Grid Faces Worsening Reliability Risks and A Crisis Is Looming For The US Energy Grid.
Solar and wind are unreliable; these power sources are useless if the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow.
Meanwhile, a soaring number of Americans want reliable and clean nuclear power...
Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-What China’s economic woes may mean for the US. China’s growth has stalled and its real estate companies are imploding. But the fallout is probably limited, and there may be some upside for the US.
-Gina Raimondo is heading to China to both promote, and restrict, trade. The commerce secretary’s trip may be the clearest demonstration yet of the Biden administration’s careful navigation of its relations with China.
-FIFA suspends Spanish Soccer Federation chief Involved in post-World Cup final kiss episode. Luis Rubiales’s kiss cast a pall over Spain’s celebrations at the Women’s World Cup, stirring debate over the treatment of women in Spanish soccer.
-Vivek Ramaswamy, the Millennial, has a lot to say about his generation. The 38-year-old candidate says he has a plan to fix what ails Americans his age and younger, but many of his positions are out of step with those voters.
-Oliver Anthony, the singer of “Rich Men North of Richmond,” said his No. 1 hit is not a Republican anthem.
-Ukraine is still grappling with the battlefield Yevgeny Prigozhin left behind. He shored up Russian forces and drew Ukraine into a costly fight for Bakhmut, giving Moscow time to slow Kyiv’s counteroffensive.
-The Kremlin is considering options on bringing the private military group Wagner under its control.
-A top Ukrainian commander called for “all measures” to defend the northeast against Russia.
- Women say sexual harassment and discrimination are rife in group for realtors. The powerful National Association of Realtors has ignored complaints, including those against the group’s president, current and former employees say.
-The 1963 March on Washington changed America. Its roots were in Harlem. Before Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, a group of civil rights activists spent a summer planning an event many didn’t want to happen.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-None of the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination cared much about Vivek Ramaswamy six months ago, when the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur launched his campaign with a promise to vanquish “the woke left”. But through a blend of contrarian instincts, relentless campaigning and fealty to frontrunner Donald Trump, Ramaswamy has capitalised on his self-styled image as a supremely successful businessman to the point where he now comes second in some Republican primary opinion polls.
-Saudi Arabia is considering bids to build a nuclear power station from countries including China, France and Russia as the kingdom seeks to sway the US over a sensitive security pact.The kingdom, which is the world’s largest oil exporter, has long sought its own civil nuclear capability and has made US assistance with the program a key demand in a potential deal to normalize relations with Israel.
-Liberal-leaning US pension fund leaders and politicians have warned BlackRock and other big asset managers against backtracking on their commitment to environmental, social and governance causes, after a sharp drop in support for shareholder proposals at annual meetings.
-The real evidence of Xi Jinping’s importance within the BRICS was the expansion that looks set to add Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to the five-member bloc. This fits into Xi’s plan that China should lead the developing world in confronting US “hegemony”, even as he also grapples with an economic slowdown and deflation at home.
-“The technology for space has come down a lot in cost and it’s been commoditized in some aspects,” says Brian Weeden, director of program planning at the Secure World Foundation, a US think-tank focused on the sustainable use of space.
“That’s also why you’re seeing more countries exploring launch vehicles?.?.?.?[and] getting interested in space. And when they get interested in space, the Moon comes out as both a lofty but achievable goal.”
-Speaking at the US Federal Reserve’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday, ECB governor Christine Lagarde said central bankers had to be “extremely attentive that greater volatility in relative prices does not creep into medium-term inflation through wages repeatedly ‘chasing’ prices”. “If global supply does become less elastic, including in the labour market, and global competition is reduced, we should expect prices to take on a greater role in adjustment,” Lagarde said. “If we also face shocks that are larger and more common — like energy and geopolitical shocks — we could see firms passing on cost increases more consistently.”
NY POST
-President Vladimir Putin has ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state after a deadly plane crash believed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the volatile chief of the mercenary group. Putin signed the decree bringing in the change with immediate effect on Friday after the Kremlin said that Western suggestions that Prigozhin had been killed on its orders were an “absolute lie.”
-Bags of frozen vegetables sold at Food Lion and Kroger are being recalled over fears that they may be contaminated with potentially harmful bacteria. Washington-based Twin City Foods Inc. issued the voluntary recall for a limited quantity of frozen sweet corn and mixed vegetables “due to a potential for these products to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes,” according to a notice posted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).