When I moved from Britain to the United States in 1995, a significant motivator was my search for good government. The British government’s quality had sharply declined after the departure of Margaret Thatcher and seemed likely to get still worse after Tony Blair’s inevitable arrival. Conversely, the Bill Clinton/Newt Gingrich tandem was distinctly hopeful for the U.S. The picture today is globally grim for those seeking a replica of the capable, intelligent government of Lord Liverpool. If one were similarly seeking a new home today, one would need to search globally to find the brighter spots amid the general gloom. Continue reading →

The Bank of Japan has indicated that it will buy Japan Government bonds in an indefinite amount at a yield of 0.25% — thus refusing to share in the belated tightening policies of other central banks. That is a policy worthy of Rudolf von Havenstein, President of the Reichsbank in the years leading up to the Weimar Republic hyperinflation of 1923. Beyond monetary policy, there are other Weimar signs about Japan also – trouble appears to be ahead. Continue reading →

With 35% of the world’s grain supply subject to the disruption of the Russia-Ukraine war, it seems likely that the next six months will see a disruption in global food supplies, in some areas causing famine. If so, that will complete the set of evils supposedly unleashed upon the world by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Revelation of St. John the Divine (War, Famine, Pestilence and Death.) As post-Enlightenment thinkers, we are not used to expecting the Biblical Apocalypse. Were we wrong? Continue reading →

Standard investment textbooks and advisors mandate that you should have a percentage of bonds in your portfolio, the percentage rising with age (my Vanguard page advises me to have fully 70% of my money in them). Yet bonds offer no upside, they do not protect against inflation, and lawyers working for borrowers have ensured there are all kinds of downside traps. The standard advice is wrong — in an era without a Gold Standard, investors should avoid bonds altogether. Continue reading →

Peabody Energy (NYSE:BTU) share price fell 17% last Monday on news it had made $534 million in margin payments, hedging against the price of its main product: coal. Investors may justifiably feel aggrieved; they successfully called a revival of the coal market, only to be thwarted by an amateurish management that thwarted them. Not to dunk on Peabody in particular, but it raises the question: would today’s corporations be better off if they operated without any top management at all? Continue reading →

President Vladimir Putin’s catastrophic blunder in invading Ukraine has upset the applecart of the post-1991 international order. The outcome of that conflict is currently unknown – there are a wide range of possibilities. However, most of the better outcomes will result in an end to the globalization dream – in reality, nightmare – and a return to an atomized world, with higher costs, to be sure, and maybe the occasional war but with far greater freedoms. Only the unlikely triumph of globalizers would condemn us to a truly unfree world, and perpetual and increasing impoverishment. Continue reading →

Like any good child of the Cold War era, I was brought up to believe there were white hats and black hats: democratic countries that respected freedoms, even though one might disagree with particular governments, and non-democratic countries, at that time mostly Communist but historically also Fascist, who violated human rights and individual freedoms with impunity. Now we have a democratically elected international bully who is corrupt and tyrannical, yet runs a pretty admirable economic policy, and a democratically elected darling of the media who behaves like a tyrant when opposed. The freedom line is growing awfully blurred and may disappear altogether if some possible dystopias eventuate. Continue reading →

Financial media are now worrying that, if the Fed is even hawkish enough to raise rates by 0.5% instead of 0.25% at its meeting in March, the U.S. and global economies will tank. In reality, with producer price inflation at 9.7% in the year to January 2022, even a 0.5% interest rate rise is the first step in a very long road, perhaps back to the double-digit interest rates of the early 1980s. So, the economy is probably doomed anyway – and just why would you want to preserve it, in its current form? Continue reading →

Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, celebrating 70 years on the throne, set me to wondering in what ways history would have changed if one of her predecessors had reigned for 70 years. Modern constitutional monarchs have little historical effect, with one exception which I will deal with below, while most of their predecessors, who ascended to the throne at 40 or 50, could not plausibly have lived long enough. (George III, who could have, was terminally mad from 1810 onwards.) Mediaeval monarchs, even living long enough, would have changed only foreign policy (for example, I have seen an alternate history with an aged and triumphant Richard I, oppressing France for half a century). There is however one contender, who could have reigned for 70 years and would have changed even world history by doing so: Charles II. Continue reading →

Portugal’s Socialists recently won an unexpected victory after gaining access to €45 billion in Covid recovery funds – magic doors opened for the party favored by Brussels’ bureaucrats. In Italy, Mario Draghi’s socialist government is propped up by €200 billion in Covid recovery funds, as the years drag on without free elections. This is an EU problem, yet elsewhere also subsidies, slush funds and taxes are being used to subvert democracy and support socialism. While such subsidies are in place, we are in grave danger of subsiding into a George Soros tyranny indistinguishable from the former Comecon. Continue reading →