The self-induced healthcare trap
In real terms the amount the UK spends on healthcare has risen from £500 in 1970 to £3,000 per person today. That’s a massive increase, but the payback has been that we are living 10 years longer. Ask...
16 Jul 202539min
Blowing the budget?
Financial markets don’t like it when governments announce plans to spend more money. That’s why there’s concern over Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which will add, by some accounts, $4 trillion to...
9 Jul 202544min
Ditching the dollar
There’s been a lot of talk lately about de-dollarisation. In other words, global investors are parking less of their money in US dollars (in the form of US treasuries/bonds). What was once considered ...
2 Jul 202541min
Is manufacturing fetishism a problem?
There was an article in The Economist last week, shared widely in press around the globe, about the apparent fixation with manufacturing. Aussie economist Saul Eslake calls it Manufacturing Fetishism,...
25 Jun 202540min
Selling the farm
There’s an irony that the UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has imposed an inheritance tax on farmers, whilst a trade agreement with the US could see Britain selling-the-farm on a farm grander scale.Phil ar...
18 Jun 202543min
AI and the death of work
Bill Gates has predicted that within 10 years we’ll be working a two-day week, thanks to advances in AI. He says it’ll mean a vast rethinking of the workplace. It’s not too dissimilar to Keynes's pred...
11 Jun 202542min
Insurance, the canary for climate change
There are challenges that the insurance industry faces, even though it can look like a licence to print money, Since the Big Bang of the nineties, when deregulation allowed the industry to flourish, i...
4 Jun 202540min
Are we ready for the next pandemic?
The pandemic killed 200 thousand people in the UK. Are we ready for the next time? Experts reckon will be even less prepared should we see another pandemic in the near future. Prof Tom Koch from the U...
28 Mai 202542min
