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Peter Thal Larsen

@petertl.bsky.social

6.7K followers 560 following 1.6K posts

Global Editor, Reuters Breakingviews. Usual disclaimers apply. Signal: petertl.17 www.breakingviews.com

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · Nov 27

Here’s a starter pack of all the @breakingviews.reuters.com columnists currently on this thing.
bsky.app/start/did:pl...

Reuters Breakingviews

Join the conversation

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 18h

This will be met with the usual howls about over-regulation from the finance industry. But the reality is that the regulator reckons 44% of all car loans - 14 million agreements - treated customers unfairly.

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 18h

There it is: UK regulator recommends compensation scheme for unfair car loans made between 2007 and 2024. Average payout of £700 per head, for an estimated total cost of £11 billlion.
www.fca.org.uk/news/stateme...

Total cost of redress

We estimate around 85% of eligible consumers would take part in the scheme, which would mean estimated redress of £8.2bn (including interest). This estimate of 85% is based on participation rates in past redress schemes and our consumer research which shows 14% of past and current motor finance holders do not intend to make a claim. In the very unlikely event of 100% take-up, firms would owe up to £9.7bn in redress. And if there was a lower 70% take up, the redress owed would be . If there is 85% take-up of the scheme, the estimated costs to firms of implementing and operationalising the scheme would be , taking the total cost to £11bn.

We estimate that this would result in consumers being compensated an average of around £700 per agreement.

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 21h

This photo from Portland by @reuters.com's Carlos Barria 👌

A demonstrator dressed in an inflatable frog costume stands infront of law enforcement officers during a protest outside of the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) headquarters in south Portland, Oregon, U.S., October 3, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen

Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

🔊 Costly natural disasters are more prevalent, while technology allows insurers to pinpoint risks more precisely. In The Big View podcast Peter Thal Larsen talks to Mario Greco, CEO of Zurich Insurance, about how the insurer is navigating the landscape reut.rs/46VD0tk

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 1d

Il Sorpasso
www.breakingviews.com/columns/brea... by @pierrebri.bsky.social

Chart showing yields on French 10-year government bonds rising above the yields on 10-year Italian debt

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 2d

Margaret Thatcher was a fiscal disciplinarian who endorsed high interest rates. Sanae Takaichi is the opposite. A welcome corrective to some of the more simplistic weekend reactions from @hudsonlockett.bsky.social.
www.reuters.com/commentary/b...

Breakingviews - Japan’s leader-in-waiting is no Iron Lady

Sanae Takaichi likens herself to fiscal disciplinarian Margaret Thatcher but wants to up spending. Nor is she an unalloyed heir to mentor Shinzo Abe. Rather, her priorities portend either political discord or a sharp swerve that shatters economic consensus and pummels the yen.

www.reuters.com

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 2d

In which @jwmason.bsky.social puts his finger on a central contradiction of AI: it’s both a result of free sharing of information online, and a threat to it.
jwmason.substack.com/p/actual-int...

The lesson we should be taking from LLMs is the immense social value there is in having all kinds of material – all kinds of products of human intellectual labor – freely available online. They should be reminding us of the early utopian promise of the web.

But now we must turn this around. The other side, of course – of course! – is that the companies making LLMs are not doing so with the goal of more easily sharing the material that people have made freely available on the web. They are doing so with the goal of enclosing it, of converting the products of free human activity into commodities.

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 2d

Seriously? It's possible I didn't get to the end as an undergrad...

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 2d

I took a copy of Schumpeter too, for balance

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 2d

Meanwhile here is the 1964 edition of Paul Samuelson’s classic economics textbook worrying about the USSR economy overtaking the U.S.

Page from economics textbook titled “America leads Russia, but will the gap narrow”

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 2d

Wife’s aunt asked me if I wanted any of her late husband’s economics books and look what I found

Book cover: J. Stalin - Economic problems of socialism in the USSR

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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen

Kristina Cooke @kristinacooke.bsky.social · 3d

I spoke to a Venezuelan woman who was arrested in this raid and later released with her 4yo son. She said agents broke down their door, pointed guns at them and made sexualized remarks about Venezuelan women. When she returned to her apartment it was boarded up and all her possessions were gone.

Ted Hesson @tedhesson.bsky.social · 3d

US Border Patrol raid sweeps in citizens, families as Chicago crackdown intensifies, w/ @reneehickman.bsky.social @kristinacooke.bsky.social www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

US Border Patrol raid sweeps in citizens, families as Chicago crackdown intensifies

U.S. Border Patrol agents deployed to Chicago led a late-night raid on an apartment building this week, rappelling from helicopters onto rooftops and breaking down doors in an operation authorities said targeted gang members but which swept up U.S. citizens and families.

www.reuters.com

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 3d

The latest edition of The Week in Breakingviews has landed in subscribers’ inboxes. To get it every Saturday morning, sign up here: www.reuters.com/newsletters/...

Five things I learned from Breakingviews this week
Almost half of large UK businesses do not have insurance against a cyberattack. (Read on Reuters.com)
Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile has doubled in five years. (Read on Reuters.com)
China’s $108 billion Zijin Mining is almost as valuable as BHP and Rio Tinto.
Indian spending on artificial intelligence in the past decade was just 9% of China’s.
More than 5% of Americans with car loans are behind on repayments.

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 4d

Don Draper, a whiteboard, and Tariffs: But Everything is Exempt

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 4d

You’re speaking at a conference called SATH? Of course you are.

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 4d

Just signed off on the latest edition of The Week in Breakingviews, recapping the highlights from the @breakingviews.reuters.com team. To get it in your inbox on Saturday morning, sign up here: www.reuters.com/newsletters/...

Insights and ideas from Reuters' global financial commentary team.

www.reuters.com

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 5d

Just opened Facebook for the first time in ages. Immediately presented with an AI-generated ad for a new movie, complete with an AI-generated trailer. Of course, the movie does not actually exist. It's baffling. Who is going to the trouble of making this stuff? What's their angle?

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 6d

Only if you do it on a dial-up modem

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 6d

Would love to hear from the under-50s who are getting their fitness and true crime content from AOL dot com.
www.reuters.com/world/yahoo-...

More recently, AOL's website traffic has grown 20% year-over-year among the users aged 25 and 54, outpacing the growth in the category of users aged 55-plus, a source familiar with AOL's performance said.

More recently, AOL's website traffic has grown 20% year-over-year among the users aged 25 and 54, outpacing the growth in the category of users aged 55-plus, a source familiar with AOL's performance said.

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 6d

What's the value of a company founded in January that has no revenue, 15,000 acres, and plans for a nuclear-powered AI facility equivalent to five Hoover Dams? As of this morning, the answer is: more than $15 billion.
www.reuters.com/commentary/b... by @robcyran.bsky.social

Breakingviews - Rick Perry feeds IPO ducks with data center dream

What’s the value of a company with no revenue, 15,000 acres of land, and plans for a nuclear-powered AI facility? Over $15 bln, according to stock market investors. The former Texas governor will grease the skids, but Fermi needs clients and construction to justify its price tag.

www.reuters.com

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 6d

As Peter Cook once said in a different context: "We need a futile gesture at this stage". And here it is.
www.ft.com/content/3204...

UK to exempt newly-listed company shares from stamp duty tax

Officials hope exemption from 0.5 per cent levy for investors will boost liquidity and attract more London listings

www.ft.com

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 8d

sort of, yes.

Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 8d

New episode of 🎧THE BIG VIEW 🎙️: The plan for lending $300bn in frozen Russian central bank assets to Ukraine is gaining support. So I asked Hugo Dixon, who first suggested the idea back in January 2024, to explain how it would work, and why it's catching on now.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h...

How to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine

Podcast Episode · The Big View · 30/09/2025 · 37m

podcasts.apple.com

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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen

Reuters @reuters.com · 8d

🔊 Western countries hold $300 billion of Russia’s central bank assets. EU leaders have endorsed lending them to Kyiv. On The Big View podcast, Reuters Commentator-at-Large Hugo Dixon, an early advocate of the idea, tells Peter Thal Larsen how it works reut.rs/4nM4J7n

How to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine: podcast

Western countries hold $300 bln in cash and bonds owned by Moscow’s central bank. EU leaders have endorsed lending them to Kyiv. On this episode of The Big View podcast Reuters Commentator-at-Large Hugo Dixon, an early advocate of the idea, tells Peter Thal Larsen how it works.

reut.rs

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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 8d

I believe so. The opposite of diversification.