#also ticks are not real in this universe. just so you know. max and daniel are safe

[bitingdrivers]

Your stuff is really cool! Are you still taking prompts? Cuz I would love the 'Dandelion' one with Max, its such nice word play I find. He's the dutch lion and the dandelion flower literally translates to lion's tooth, no? (In French it's dent-de-lion)

Would be kinda cute, but feel free not to though, no pressure, have a nice day

hello!! i took a little bit different approach with the prompt, hope you still like it!!! in my head, i set this in the verse of this fic , but you can totally read it as a stand alone

22. dandelions

Fallen branches and pine cones crunch under the wheels, as their mustard Range Rover crawls through the woods, following the path carved into the forest floor by other people that ventured here. Young birches and firs accompany their journey, with rustling of leaves that glide along the windshield and sides of the car, and prickly spruce paws that poke inside the rolled-down windows.

Through the crowns of pine trees rises the clear summer sky, blue like the forget-me-nots that grow in their garden. Rays of scorching sun peek from behind the tree branches, casting pools of golden light on the underbrush.

The road is uneven, and as the car jumps on another bump, Daniel jumps with it, swearing under his breath; the seat belt digs sharply into his bare shoulder. Beside him, Max laughs, shifting the gears.

"Why couldn't we go to the shore with normal road?" Daniel asks, reaching to turn down the volume of the song that's been blaring through their stereo.

"Because," Max starts, "This shore is private, of course."

The car jumps on another bump.

"Of course it's private, there's no road!" Daniel exclaims, as the car's suspension wobbles on a turn.

Max shifts gears again, his long legs clad in tiny shorts moving on the pedals, and drives downhill. Ahead of them is a rickety bridge — two wooden boards thrown over a trench.

"Daniel, you do this every time. We have been going to this shore for years, I know how to drive on this road," Max replies nonchalantly.

The car's wheels touch the wooden planks of the bridge, and despite the nervous pit in Daniel's stomach, the wood doesn't break, and their Rover smoothly makes it to the other side.

Daniel breathes out, relieved.

Max pats him on the thigh and says sympathetically, "We're almost there."

"Yeah, I know."

They continue to drive through the forest, until the woods open into the river bank — it's covered in bright green grass and littered with tiny yellow dots of coltsfoot, dandelions and buttercups; near the murky emerald water, the field turns into cracker-dust sand.

Max parks their Range Rover in the middle of the grass, shielding them from the other unlikely visitors. They leave the doors open, music paying loudly in the empty field.

Daniel leaves his thongs in the car and steps out onto the field, tiny grass blades tickling his feet. Max does the same, then goes to the boot to get their stuff.

The sweltering heat eases off with the breeze from the water — Daniel breathes in, feels the air cool down the sweat on his bare chest. Bugs buzz around, and if he listens very closely, Daniel can hear the distant bird song from the forest.

Once they spread out their blanket, Max goes to the water — the water is too cold to swim in, but he still dips his feet it.

"No," Daniel hears him say from his place on the blanket. Soon, Max appears beside him and sits down, taking his shirt off.

Daniel chuckles, "Too cold?" and reaches for the sunscreen.

"Freezing," Max agrees, smiling, and turns his back for Daniel to put the cream on — Daniel covers his pale shoulders, dotted with tiny freckles that only come out in the summer, moves to Max's arms with the tine lines ending at where the sleeves of his t-shirts sit, makes sure to cover his soft stomach and thighs.

After they are both covered in sunscreen and Daniel made sure to put a hat on Max's head, they lounge in the sun, reveling in the cool breeze from the river.

About thirty minutes into their lounging, Daniel gets bored of lying around and baking in the sun. He stands up and wanders a little farther into the green and yellow field.

Max interrupts his story about a sim race he had yesterday to ask, "Where are you going?"

With a cheeky grin, Daniel replies, "Gonna make something for you, Maxy," and begins to pick the dandelions that litter the grassy shore.

Max watches, eyes peeking out from the elbow that his head is lying on. "You're doing a bouquet?" he asks, eyeing the bunch of flowers in Daniel's hand.

"Better."

Satisfied with the number of flowers, Daniel comes back to Max and sits down on the blanket. Then, he picks up two dandelions and twists them around. Max watches, as Daniel uses the stem of a third flower to tie the two buds.

After Daniel weaves more dandelions together, Max catches up.

"Oh!" he gasps, "You're making a crown!"

Daniel nods, delighted, and brings the unfinished crown on Max's head to measure how much more he needs to weave.

"I didn't know you can do that," Max says, sitting up and picking up a dandelion tp play with the stem — the milky fluid from it sticks to his fingers, and Max whispers "Ew", wiping his hand on the blanket.

"I was bored last summer, while you were away on your trip," Daniel explains. Max went back to the Netherlands for a couple of days to visit his friends, and Daniel was doing anything to stop missing him — cleaned their house twice, worked in the garden sunrise to sundown, taught himself how to make flower crowns: he made one for himself and two for Sassy and Jimmy, but they did not appreciate it when Daniel tried to put the crowns on their heads for a picture.

"Here we go," Daniel says once the dandelion crown is done. "A golden crown, fit for mylion. prince" He can't fight his smile as Max takes off his cap and allows Daniel to gently place the crown on his head.

"How do I look?" Max asks, shyly looking at Daniel. His cheeks and nose, dusted with tiny freckles, are pink from the sun, the corners of his eyes crinkled with intensity of his smile.

Daniel's heart flips; he loves Max so much.

"Like the prettiest prince I've ever seen," he replies, unable to stop himself from kissing Max. Max makes a soft noise and kisses back.

Once they part, Max says, a little out of breath, "Daniel, I cannot be the only one with the crown, you need to be a prince too, of course."

He picks up two dandelions from the blanket. "Teach me how to make one."

Daniel smiles and leans in for another kiss.

"Okay, Maxy."

[ultralifehackerguru-blog]

New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/bbc-has-concluded-a-list-of-best-25-films-in-the-21st-century-that-you-should-not-miss/

BBC Has Concluded A List Of Best 25 Films In The 21st Century That You Should Not Miss

If I ask you to name some of the best movies in the 21st century, what will you say?

The Lord of The Rings? A Beautiful Mind? Little Miss Sunshine? Finding Nemo? Her? Inception? The Martian? Inside Out? Moonlight? Or La La Land?

There’re many amazing films released over the past 17 years. Some are very popular among the public, some got nominated or even received widely-recognized awards. They’re all amazing in their unique way but some of them really stood out from the crowd.

BBC Culture recently reached out to 170 famous film critics around the world and asked them each to pick the best 10 films released from the beginning of 2000 to present days. And based on the critics’ votes, BBC came up with the list of the 21st Century’s 100 Greatest Films.[1]

Here’s the famous film critics’ shortlisted best 25 films with the review for BBC, and you can save a bit of time and know which one to go first. Here we go:

25. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)

Christopher Nolan’s Memento, an airtight puzzle of a movie about a man who can’t form new memories searching for his wife’s killer, set a standard for narrative sophistication that few mainstream films have tried to duplicate…The film forces us to consider the unreliability of human memory and our tendency toward self-deception, even as it thrills us with a captivating crime-noir story…Unforgettable. – Eric D Snider, Freelance, US

24. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s ambitious, powerful and ultimately elegiac masterpiece centres on the question of whether man is, in fact, an animal. Tormented alcoholic Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) returns from World War Two and struggles, unsuccessfully, to conform to post-war America’s social evolution…but the real point of the film is an exploration of thought and consciousness, and whether submission to belief systems can genuinely tame atavism. – Ali Arikan, Dipnot TV, Turkey

23. Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)

All of Michael Haneke’s films are bound to haunt you. With Caché he cuts to the chase and makes the idea of haunting the theme of the story itself. Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star as a bourgeois Parisian couple that start to receive disturbing video tapes showing their home…The act of not looking away is the moral imperative at the heart of Caché, which makes it a supreme political and cinematic movie at the same time. – Hannah Pilarczyk, Der Spiegel, Germany

22. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)

The 21st Century’s reigning empress of cinematic ennui, Coppola has always used celebrity as a shortcut to the loneliness that exists between private lives and public images… Lost in Translation as her most perfect film, the one that best articulates how it can be to find yourself in a world that seldom lets you forget where you are. – David Ehrlich, Indiewire, US

21. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)

The Grand Budapest Hotel is the 21st Century’s farewell salute to the century before. It vaults backwards in time from today to 1985 to 1968 to 1932, where Ralph Fiennes’ concierge Monsieur Gustave welcomes us to proper civilisation with a nod. We know Gustave’s immaculate world is ticking towards destruction, first by war, then by decades of neglect. Inevitably, the lazy and impersonal present will win, mass-producing not just our hotels, but our cinemas and the blockbusters on their screens… This oddball tragicomedy enlists us in the fight for beauty. Sir, yes, sir. – Amy Nicholson, MTV, US

20. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)

Synecdoche, New York was initially conceived when Charlie Kaufman was approached about doing a horror film. Instead of masked killers and extraterrestrial monsters, though, Kaufman set out to make a movie about the stuff that really keeps us up at night. Synecdoche, New York is every deep-seated fear you’ve ever had, writ large: you’ve disappointed your spouse and failed your children, you’ve let your loved ones die lonely, excruciating deaths… Kaufman’s masterpiece is a reminder that even at our lowest and darkest, we are not alone. – Angie Han, Slashfilm, US

19. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)

A cohesive vision with a structured journey built around themes of survival and endurance, the fourth entry in the dystopian franchise showcased what is otherwise the narrative and thematic drought within the Hollywood blockbuster machine… Without resorting to cheap cynicism and faux-grittiness, Miller zeroes in on the sensuality of the environments, the carefully crafted machines and scorched landscapes. – Justine A Smith, Freelance, Canada

18. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)

“By setting the story in a north German village in the months prior to World War One, Haneke not only challenged the myth of childhood innocence but also delivered a fictional prequel to the upcoming events in Germany… it speaks to this century’s audiences: an unsettling view of the danger of righteousness, an ominous threat that always seems to recur. – Fernanda Solórzano, Letras Libres Magazine, Mexico

17. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)

It’s Del Toro going back to his roots, to his alchemy of pop and auteur cinema, to give us a look into the horrors of war – in this case the Spanish Civil War… Pan’s Labyrinth gives us tragedy through the filter of fantasy, going deep into a well of suffering and magic. Its power lies in its purity: nothing we can imagine is as terrible as what we can do to each other. – Ana Maria Bahiana, Freelance, Brazil

16. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)

Holy Motors is not a movie. It is an act of grief designed as an expression of love, and while enfant terrible Leos Carax has been an essential director for any film fan since his debut… Surreal, silly, sexy and sad, Holy Motors is a guided tour through everything about cinema that matters to Carax. He was drowning as a man in his own life – Holy Motors was his first feature in 13 years after struggling to get financing – and he turned his art into a life raft. Movies matter. Here’s why. – Drew McWeeny, Hitfix, US

15. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)

One scene, one cut, zero music… Imbuing a backstreet abortion with the brutal tension of a crime thriller – and abortion was a crime in 1980s Romania… Yet despite much harrowing imagery, depicted in unblinking detail within a fraught 24-hour timeframe, the film’s underlying humanism is glimpsed through the unbeatable spirit of protagonist Otila, a college student who takes unthinkable risks and goes through grueling lengths to help her friend Gabita fix her unwanted pregnancy. – Maggie Lee, Variety, Hong Kong

14. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)

Few films have dared to capture the full spectrum of human evil so candidly, so perceptively, as Oppenheimer does in his unclassifiable non-fiction epic in which the Texas-born Danish film-maker convinces members of the death squads to reenact their murders in the style of their favourite Hollywood films… it’s about national amnesia, about the power of self-deceit and the questionable morality of truth-seeking… it’s one of the most celebrated documentary in 21st Century. – Joseph Fahim, Freelance, Egypt

13. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)

Here’s a bold statement about a bold movie: Children of Men, like no other film this century, and perhaps no other movie ever, solves the meaning of life… it’s rich and vital in its emotional and philosophical depth: its sadness, its anger, its reverence and worry for humanity… Children of Men has endured to become a cult favourite that should be required viewing for anyone grappling with feelings of dread about modern civilisation. – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair, US

12. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)

Zodiac, his meticulous, gorgeous and haunting true crime movie, is a deep dive into obsession, following a newspaper cartoonist who becomes consumed by the 1970s Zodiac murders… Gloriously detail-driven, Zodiac drags viewers into a compulsive world where the smallest hint can be the biggest clue, and it presents the obsessive’s worst nightmare: that, in the end, answers are utterly unattainable. – Devin Faraci, BirthMoviesDeath, US

11. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)

Set in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis is an achingly melodic tribute to an unloved underdog. Davis (Oscar Isaac) is striking out on his own after his musical partner goes solo. Along his dour journey, he’ll find others vying for similar success and others just trying to survive… Inside Llewyn Davis is a solemn song for anybody trying to become somebody. – Monica Castillo, The New York Times’ Watching, US

10. No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)

Bardem’s film characterisation is so powerful, so splendidly overwhelming in his random application of violence, that he manages to extinguish whatever preceded it in the mind of the audience. Set in West Texas in 1980, the film’s sense of time and place are unparalleled… There’s a hypnotic quality to the movie’s pace, watching characters you can’t help but like… make a series of catastrophic decisions that bring each into Chigurh’s universe, a world soaked in blood with a predetermined outcome. – Ben Mankiewicz, Turner Classic Movies, US

9. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)

If there is a film that makes you take a deep look at yourself in the mirror again and again, this is it. Asghar Farhadi’s searing relationship drama does not make a judgement about its characters. Rather, it pitches the situations so realistically that the viewer ends up sympathising with both protagonists even though they are pitted against each other… all made to look as if one is watching one’s neighbours, or maybe someone in one’s own home – create an unparalleled cinematic morality play. – Utpal Borpujari, Freelance, India

8. Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000)

Audiences in 2000 were astonished by how fluently Edward Yang’s Yi Yi portrays contemporary life through the intermingling stories of members of a Taipei family separated by the dilemmas specific to their stations in life. That’s quite ironic, because in today’s world of personal alienation through the allure of social media, the film now feels like a period piece, yet somehow, it resonates with an even greater urgency… Its quiet reflections on life, love, family and death are all gracefully affecting, no matter the gap in generation and culture. – Oggs Cruz, Rappler, Philippines

7. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

Like a great poem, The Tree of Life opens itself to a thousand interpretations, as director Terrence Malick takes a spiritual and lyrical journey through time, from a dusty 1950s childhood in Texas back to the beginnings of the cosmos itself… The joys and aching losses of parenting become transcendent, even Biblical, in Malick’s hands. – Kate Muir, The Times, UK

6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

The story of a breakup gone wrong… But this wasn’t your average whimsical tale of romantic yearning… the movie belongs just as much to Kate Winslet, whose character’s decision to erase her own memories of the ex-couple’s time together sets the drama in motion. Eerie and surreal, charming and tragic, the movie wrestles with the fundamental instability of all human relationships, achieving a wise and powerful vision that is — ironically for a tale about fading memories — unforgettable. – Eric Kohn, Indiewire, US

5. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)

For more than a decade, Richard Linklater spent a few weeks each year chronicling the life of Mason (Ellar Coltrane)… and watching the cast, which also includes Ethan Hawke and a remarkable Patricia Arquette, age before our eyes, adds an extra layer of poignancy to every single scene. In an era when every aspect of society was accelerating, Linklater slowed down to tell the one of the definitive stories of our time. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush, US

4. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

Miyazaki’s story of a young girl trapped in the spirit world, trying to rescue her parents, feels like a throwback to an earlier age of hand-drawn animation… it has an ambitious sweep to its elaborate visuals of Japanese spirit-monsters and a sense of soaring adventure. It’s a traditional fairy tale turned into an exciting narrative of transformation and discovery. – Tasha Robinson, The Verge, US

3. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

From its near-wordless opening scene, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood feels like something forged, not filmed. Daniel Day-Lewis, as turn-of-the-century prospector Daniel Plainview, grunts, spits and scrapes his way into a hole under baked Western earth; he strikes silver, drags his half-broken body to certify his claim…The rest of the movie – a sprawling, half-mad testament to greed, industry, moral hypocrisy and ballyhoo at their most elementally American – could be watched with no sound at all and still be perfectly understood. – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post, US

2. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)

Wong Kar-wai is one of world cinema’s most notorious perfectionists, but he earned every moment of editing-room indecision with In the Mood for Love… We never see the faces of the spouses whose affair pulls two lonely neighbours into their delirious romantic spiral… all the better to heighten the erotic charge of every swaying hip and every voluptuous swirl of the camera. And we never hear the lost, whispered words at the climax… never before has a film spoken so fluently in the universal language of loss and desire. – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, US

1. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

WH Auden called Los Angeles “the great wrong place”. James Ellroy called it “the great right place”. The idea that two, or more, seemingly conflicting ideas can simultaneously be true is so often forgotten in the zero-sum culture of today, but it’s at the heart of David Lynch’s empathetic masterpiece… Mulholland Drive is a reverie of sex, suicide and “silencio”…. Lynch’s film is so gorgeous and so painful, so mysterious and, in many ways, so recognisable – drive on the actual road, Mulholland, at night, and then walk from Western to Vermont, and you’ll see – that, whatever theory you ascribe to it, the picture does indeed reflect a reality that moves beyond southern California and parks itself in our brains, tapping into our dreams, deepest fears, inscrutable natures, erotic desires, and pool boys. – Kim Morgan, Sunset Gun, US

Are some of your favorite films on the list too? And have you got some new films to watch up next?

This is just the top 25 from the list of the greatest films, check out the complete list on BBC Culture here .

Reference

[1] ^ BBC Culture: The 21st Century’s 100 Greatest Films

©

[myfinancialguideme-blog]

Real Time Economics: Will Trump’s Tariffs Knock Down Trade Barriers?

New Post has been published on https://financeguideto.com/awesome/real-time-economics-will-trumps-tariffs-knock-down-trade-barriers/

Real Time Economics: Will Trump’s Tariffs Knock Down Trade Barriers?

This is the web version of the WSJ’s newsletter on the economy. You can sign up for daily delivery here.

U.S.-China trade talks resume in Washington, Democratic presidential hopefuls have big ideas on economic policy, and Brexit is generating yet more uncertainty in the U.K. Good morning. Jeff Sparshott here to take you through key developments in the global economy. Send us your questions, remarks or suggestions by replying to this email.

BATTERING RAM

As trade negotiations with China resume this week, the Trump administration is racing to strike a deal that will result in long-term reforms–and prove that tariffs are an effective battering ram to open markets. The chairman is pursuing an ambitious agenda to advance new deals this year encompassing about 40% of the global economy, Jacob M. Schlesinger reports.

China is the priority, as the administration has given Beijing a March 1 deadline to commit to cement, broad economic changes. But it’s not the only battle: On Sunday, the president received a Commerce Department report laying out options for blocking auto imports in the name of national security–a measure that would largely affect U.S. allies in Europe, Japan and South Korea. And the administration is ramping up its pushing to win Congressional approval for the rewritten North American Free Trade Agreement.

WHAT TO WATCH TODAY

The Cleveland Fed’s Loretta Mester speaks on the economy and monetary policy at 8: 50 a.m. ET.

The National Association of Home Builders housing market index for February is expected to tick up to 59 from 58 a month earlier.( 10 a.m. ET)

U.S.-China trade talks resume. Deputy-level sessions start Tuesday, principal-level sessions start Thursday in Washington.

TOP STORIE

POLICY SHOP

The 2020 presidential campaign is generating scads of policy proposals with potentially broad economic repercussions. The latest: Elizabeth Warren’s $70 billion-per-year universal child-care program that would cover up to 12 million children. The Massachusetts senator would pay for it through her proposed “wealth tax, ” Reid J. Epstein reports.

She isn’t alone in offering robust federal programs. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker touts his “baby bonds” proposal, which would allot $2,000 at birth and up to $1,000 annually after that to every child in the U.S ., accessible on their 18 th birthdays. Eight of the 11 Democratic primary nominees back a single-payer government health care program; five co-sponsored a federal program to provide paid household leave; and at least four support building college tuition free at public universities.

WHAT’S COOLER THAN COOL?

It’s no longer cool to talk about the federal public deficits. President Trump didn’t talk about it during his State of the Union. Neither did Stacey Abrams in her Democratic response. All told, Washington’s red-ink alarms have gone dead, even though the annual deficit will pass the trillion-dollar mark starting in 2022. The WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib asks if this lack of concern is wise.

The answer: perhaps not indefinitely. First, when overseas fund finances American indebtednes, that means some of America’s domestic economic output heads overseas in debt pays. Second, interest payments are piling up and mobbing out spending on government programs like infrastructure, schools and social benefits.

COUNTERPOINT

Some economists are making a once-heretical argument: The U.S. needn’t be so worried about all of its red ink. One theory: When the interest rate on government borrowing is below the growth rate of the economy, financing the debt should be sustainable, David Harrison and Kate Davidson write. Some left-wing economists go even further: Modern Monetary Theory argues that fiscal policy makers are not constrained by their ability to find investors to buy bonds that finance deficits–because the U.S. government can, if necessary, print its own currency to finance deficits or repay bondholders.

NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

Investors around the globe are effectively paying governments to hold more than $11 trillion of their bonds, a fresh sign of ebbing economic confidence in Europe and Japan. Negative-yielding government bonds outstanding through mid-January have risen 21% since October, Daniel Kruger reports. The bonds guarantee that a purchaser at issuance will receive less in refund and periodic interest than they paid.

HOW’S THAT BREXIT THING GOING?

Seven lawmakers quit the U.K.’s main opposition Labour Party on Monday, the biggest defection from a major British registered political party in nearly 40 years and the latest evidence that Brexit is accelerating a realignment of the country’s politics. The lawmakers, who are against Brexit, want a second referendum on the U.K.’s membership of the European Union, Max Colchester and Stephen Fidler report.

Japanese vehicle maker Honda Motor Co. will shut a major production plant in the U.K ., becoming the latest automobile group to scheme a pull back from the U.K. as Brexit looms. Earlier this month Nissan Motor Co. said it abandoned plans to produce its next-generation X-Trail crossover sport-utility vehicle in the U.K ., quoting uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT( AND I FEEL FINE)

The U.K. economy continued to add jobs in the final months of 2018, in spite of persistent jitters over the country’s exit from the European Union. The number of people in work in the three months through December was up 167,000 on the previous three-month period, maintaining the employment rate unchanged at a record high of 75. 8 %. The jobless rate bided at 4.0%, its lowest level for four decades, David Hodari reports.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

If we’re serious about the trans-Atlantic partnership, it’s not very easy for me as German chancellor to read…that the American Department of Commerce apparently considers German and European automobiles to be a threat to the national security of the United States of America. — German Chancellor merkel, speaking at a Munich Security Conference( via Politico)

TWEET OF THE DAY

[wsj-responsive-sandbox id= “0”]

WHAT ELSE WE’RE READING

Think climate change is a hoax? You can put money on it. “Anyone doubting the observed warming tendency can make a significant profit by betting against it in weather markets. However, the observed annual tendency in futures prices shows that the supposedly-efficient financial markets agree that the climate is warming . … When money is on the line, it is hard to find parties willing to bet against the scientific consensus, ” Wolfram Schlenker and Charles Taylor write in a National Bureau of Economic Research running newspaper.

Germany is bracing for a global slowdown. “An export champion, it has been one of the biggest recipients of globalisation, free trade and open perimeters: exports are equivalent to 50 per cent of its GDP . … Yet its export success also attains it uniquely vulnerable to external shocks. As a result, Donald Trump’s showdown with Xi Jinping, America-first protectionism and weakening growth in big markets like China–whose GDP expanded by just 6.6 per cent last year, the lowest rate since 1990 — are taking a much bigger toll on Germany than on other countries such as France, ” Guy Chazan writes in the Financial Times.

UP NEXT: WEDNESDAY

The Dallas Fed’s Richard Kaplan speaks in Houston at 1:10 p.m. ET.

The Federal Reserve releases minutes from its Jan. 29 -3 0 policy meeting at 2 p.m. ET.

Read more: blogs.wsj.com