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Markets, policy, defence and technology are part of the same story. Follow the evidence, see the connections, and arrive at the next decision with a clearer view.
The original correspondence
One news service. Six cities. 1568.
From Augsburg to six trading cities: an illustrated view of the Fugger correspondence network.
Motion pauses when you move on.
A letter with consequence
An old standard for a new inbox.
From 1568 the house of Fugger in Augsburg ran a private news service. It kept correspondents in Antwerp, Venice, Rome, Lisbon, Vienna and Constantinople, and it did not sell to the public.
Its readers were merchants and princes, and they were not reading out of interest. They were about to commit money on the strength of what the letter said.
The letters went out weekly, copied by hand. Grain prices and harvests. Plague. Troop movements. The health of kings and the solvency of princes. There was no opinion in them, no flattery, and no attempt whatever to entertain.
A report out of Antwerp moved real money in Augsburg within days of arriving. That is the whole of the arrangement: being first was worth nothing without being right, and being wrong was discovered within a week, because the losses could be traced back to the letter that caused them.
The correspondents were paid to be accurate — not to be interesting, not to be early, not to be liked. The service lasted nearly forty years on that basis and on no other.
That is the standard. It is four and a half centuries old and it has not been improved upon.
A clearer view, on your terms.
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Ideas worth turning over.
From observation to judgement · 1950–2040