Title page image from John Dee's The General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation (1577) one of the first texts to express the idea of the "British Empire". Source: British Library. What if the ideas we were taught to dismiss as outdated, or even dangerous, deserve a second look? What if Donald Trump is “not entirely wrong” when he rails against free trade, champions protectionism? What if decades of free‑market orthodoxy have obscured some uncomf

Are We in a New Rate-Hiking Cycle? Are central banks around the world raising interest rates again? If so, why — and are they doing the right thing? Let's look at what's happening in light of tomorrow's meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). It looks like we're at the start of a new hiking cycle. Since the start of the war in Iran, inflation expectations have risen, and prices themselves are now starting to climb again too. Under the orthodox, domin

How a military defeat in the Gulf might end American hegemony AI generated Image Recently there has also been growing concern about a potential loss of confidence in U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. dollar. Some have even argued that we might face a new “Bretton Woods”–type scenario, similar to when the United States effectively defaulted on its gold obligations, terminating the convertibility of dollars into gold. I do not think we face such a risk. First of all, we are no longe

Yes. The UK breached the Sahm Rule in every month from June to September 2025. But what exactly is the Sahm Rule? It was developed by Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist who writes extensively on macroeconomics, labour markets, and economic data. It focuses on movements in the unemployment rate. Specifically, if the unemployment rate rises by more than 0.5 percentage points relative to its lowest level over the previous 12 months, this is considered a warning si

GPT generate image of Trump meeting Mamdani “It’s the economy, stupid.” Sometimes it takes a comedian, not a political analyst or an economist, to say the quiet part out loud. Tim Dillon—one of America’s sharpest and most irreverent comedians—recently offered a blunt explanation for Zohran Mamdani’s surprise victory in New York’s mayoral race. Beneath his trademark sarcasm was a diagnosis that cuts to the heart of Western politics today. Why did Mamdani win? “Because people d