15th Century
Disintermediation
My first job was as a graduate trainee for a merchant bank in the City in the late 1980s and among the many buzzwords that the Slick Willies of that profession used to bandy about [more…]
Finance
Economics
Central Banks: Enemies of Freedom
Central banks are enemies of a free and prosperous society. Let me count the ways. Like the military, central banks are creatures of the state. Suggestions of them being independent are pure fantasy. There is [more…]
Economics
Andrew Bailey, a WWI General for a WWII Battle
We must be cautious how we welcome Andrew Bailey, Mark Carney was certainly the worst governor in post war history so CoCo the clown would look good initially. He has to date been what a [more…]
Economics
The ECB’s “mea culpa”
Economists, conservative investors and market observers have been issuing stern warnings for years regarding the severe impact of the current monetary policy direction. The problems In a recent statement, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos [more…]
Business
Campaign promises, and a dose of reality
As my regular readers know, most of my essays are forays into challenging economic issues. They reflect my own attempts to gain an understanding of their underlying principles. But there’s a lot riding on the [more…]
Economics
The Evolution Of The Bank Run
There are numerous and wide-ranging reasons why someone may choose to invest in physical precious metals. A deep understanding of monetary history provides plenty of solid arguments, and so do the mounting geopolitical risks, the [more…]
Business
The Gulf Between Rich & Poor
We are well into the protest season. The long run-up to the election period has been characterised by one protest after another – no-deal Brexit, climate change, arms sales, Tommy Robinson, police brutality, capitalism, Trump’s [more…]
Business
Every Folly Has Its Consequences
The great Spanish master, Francisco Goya, expressed it concisely: “The sleep of reason produces monsters”. Today, wherever you look, insanity masquerades as rational thought. Lunatics flout their blatantly potty views as if they carried the [more…]
America
Keeping Economics Simple
The US Department of Defence is a major customer of many private sector suppliers, including the Boeing Company. Although relationships between customer and supplier are mutually beneficial, that is by no means the only reason [more…]