Martin Sandbu’s Free Lunch is the FT’s weekly newsletter on the global economic policy debate. Free for premium subscribers, it is sent out every Thursday lunchtime in Europe, and offers a spirited opinion on the latest commentary and stories.
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Drop the angst for humanity’s future and roll up your regulatory sleeves
Plus, a good idea for how to finally make our banking system safe
Any case for saving business payroll accounts does not justify protecting multibillion deposits of megabanks
Some important and under-recognised truths about Ukraine even as Russia’s war rages on
Highlights from the publications of the World Bank-IMF spring meetings
The three Ts solution: triage, time and trillions
The past does not provide us with all the answers, but it offers some guidance
It’s a cat-and-mouse game where the cat had better win
You are doomed to repeat the errors of the last crisis if you don’t use the tools put in place since then
If we think all deposits must be safe, what is the point of banks?
If you were Putin, where would you put your hard currency energy revenues?
‘Shadow reserves’ from energy earnings undermine restrictions on central bank
Legal arguments over confiscating central bank assets must be economically literate
Ignorance is not bliss in sanctions policy
There is more — much more — that can be done with sanctions against Russia
The three simplest steps the UK could take that would make a real difference
Evidence is accumulating that tightening is not a good idea, but the IMF is not for turning
Making sense of the world’s least important migration crisis
Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and his colleagues are right to keep yield curve control in place
More nuanced thinking on both the currency and its inflation prospects
And some New Year readings on the biggest economics themes affecting us
The country’s friends are inching towards accepting the magnitude of the challenge — but too slowly
More evidence that factories have weathered the energy crisis well
Manufacturing output remains strong across most of the EU
The moneyed classes are beginning to think governments have been too kind to them
International Edition