Fighting the taper in China: David notes China is leaking and it's probably all America's fault. This is because China is most exposed to the quantity effect of liquidity withdrawal, meaning the country may be the most exposed to QE tapering. A charted history of robot evolution, and some thoughts on jobs: The robot threat is mounting. But Cardiff notes that while the anecdotal evidence that robotics will soon have a persistent, deleterious impact on even skilled middle-class jobs is both powerfully suggestive and plausible, if the impact is a surge in inequality, the new tech rentiers will presumably be looking around to spend their surplus on something, and that something might be the goods and services of an industry that will hire the newly jobless to produce them. Software eats the world, charges for privilege: Cardiff cites Charlie Warzel on the idea that the internet's free trial period may be coming to an end. Anecdotal evidence for this comes in the fact that newspapers are increasingly moving towards digital pay plans and that readers are increasingly tolerant of paywalls. KPN agrees sale of German business: The Dutch telecoms group, has agreed the sale of its German business to a subsidiary of Telefónica of Spain for €5bn in cash plus a stake in the enlarged group worth €3.1bn. Markets: Global stocks were eyeing five-year highs as risk asset bulls dominated another trading session. Fresh momentum was being generated by hopes for the Chinese economy, after state media reported that Premier Li Keqiang said that Beijing would strive to keep expansion above 7 per cent. Meanwhile, optimism continued to be underpinned by the perception of "Goldilocks" conditions in the US - where growth was deemed sufficient to buttress corporate profits but not so hot that it unduly hastened a tightening of monetary policy. The FTSE All-World equity index was up 0.3 per cent to 248.3, less than a couple of points below the cyclical closing high touched in May - the best level since the summer of 2008 - as the FTSE Eurofirst 300 added 0.4 per cent and after the Asia-Pacific region rose 1.1 per cent.