ITK Daily | September 12

Happy Monday.

To be ITK, know this:

Truth: I was once called unprofessional by a Chinese Communist Party apparatchik.

The Economist is launching its first long-form podcast series with Xi Jinping as the focus: Hosted by China correspondent Sue-Lin Wong, The Prince will "hunt for the real story of China’s leader Xi Jinping" in an eight-part podcast dropping September 28. Listen to the trailer here.

Read this: Some of the new king’s realms may become republics: The queen’s passing gives them an opportunity to break the link to the British crown. Economist

+ Elizabeth II served as head of state of 32 countries, most of them colonies. At her death, she remained so for just 15. And for most of the subjects that she retained, the queen maintained a mere ceremonial presence in their lives.

Read this: Will Charles III replace Queen Elizabeth on Canadian money anytime soon? Canadians may see a new face on the money in their pockets, but it's not a rule that it has to be a monarch. CBC

+ It's most likely we'll see the King appear on Canadian coins, but not necessarily the $20 bill.

+ Any decision to replace or remove the monarch on the $20 banknote likely won't happen until after the Bank of Canada completes the process of updating the $5 bill, which could still take a few more years.

Read this: Ukrainian officials drew on US intelligence to plan counteroffensive: Overcoming a reluctance to share their strategy, the Ukrainians were able to use US resources to identify key Russian targets. NYT

+ Such real-time intelligence has allowed the Ukrainians, the US government acknowledges it has played the decisive role in planning and execution, to target Russian forces, kill senior generals, and force ammunition supplies to be moved farther from the Russian front lines.

+ “These guys have been trained for eight years by Special Ops,” said Evelyn Farkas, a Pentagon official in the Obama administration. “They’ve been taught about irregular warfare. They’ve been taught by our intelligence operators about deception and psychological operations.”

WP: Russian troops in big retreat as Ukraine offensive advances in Kharkiv

As Ukraine pleads for more weapons, allies warn the cupboards are almost bare: CBC reports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to make a direct appeal to weapons makers this month.

Ukraine appeals for $17bn emergency fund as winter looms: FT reports Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal urges ‘international partners’ to aid with shielding citizens from cold weather and reconstruction.

Read this: TikTok’s secret to explosive growth? ‘Billions and billions of dollars’ Says Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Forbes

+ At the Code Conference in LA, tech and media CEOs and politicians all expressed concerns about the Chinese-owned app — as a competitor, and as a national security risk.

+ Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is leading tech antitrust legislation targeting the power of 谷歌 , 苹果 , 亚马逊 , and Meta , warned that TikTok, too, could soon be part of that mix.

+ “Why would we allow them to play such a dominant role in our free market economy?” -- Mathias Dopfner, CEO of Axel Springer

When the good and the great all agree on TikTok ... watch out

Read this: The obscure economist Silicon Valley billionaires should dump Ayn Rand for: He lived almost 200 years ago, but Henry George’s theories might have something to offer people who want to put their money to good use today. Vanity Fair

+ He made the best-ever short defense of free trade: You wouldn’t fill your harbor with rocks to keep out goods your citizens want to buy, would you? Well, that’s what you’re doing when you slap tariffs on imports.

+ George’s masterwork, published in 1879, was Progress and Poverty, which set forth to explain how “increase of want” could go hand in hand with “increase of wealth.”

Pay for your own coffee suckers: 高盛 ' complimentary in-lobby “grab and go” coffee station, brought in last year as an incentive to get people back into the office, is over, NYP reports, as the banking giant strips away pandemic-era perks.

Read this: VAR should be scrapped – it has turned a fireball of emotion into a slowly deflating balloon: The gains from knowing a higher proportion of decisions are juridically correct have been outweighed by the spontaneity and euphoria that have been anaesthetised in the process. The Times

+ "A technology introduced for well-intended reasons, it has diminished the unexpected delirium in the world’s most popular game. And this is, to me, hugely regrettable." -- @matthewsyed

Read this: The NFL dominates American television, and likely always will FOS

+ It was only eight years ago that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban predicted a greedy NFL would implode within a decade, quipping “pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”

+ The juggernaut will encroach on days traditionally dominated by rival leagues.

+ Frequent predictions over the last decade of football’s demise haven’t come true.

Read this: The NFL is America’s best crisis-management company Will Leitch

+ "The National Football League (NFL) understands that its mastery of escapism is the secret to its incredible, almost overwhelming success."

+ "When you become as massive as the NFL — and it is massive with estimated revenues of $18 billion last year, more than the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) combined — you become something larger than sports: You become an institution."

+ "Football is as American as cold beer and hot dogs. And no one wants to know how hot dogs are made. They just want to eat them."

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc

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