Expanding the Legacy
Investor Confidence Soars
FOMO is firmly in charge of the US stock market: the Fear of Missing Out has nearly all classes of investors – from retail to institutional – pouring vast volumes of cash into stocks. Excitement reaches new heights during the current earnings season with S&P 500 companies reporting an average...
Free Trade in Retreat
The EU free trade baton, carried by the UK until Brexit materialised, has been relayed to the ‘Stockholm Six’ of likeminded liberal countries pushing back against French and Italian pressure for Europe to get tougher on trade defence – and relax on subsidies. Germany was invited to join the informal...
Chapter 68: Tales of Shopkeepers, Trolley Cops, and Bookshops
Thursday, October 29, 2020 – Shopkeepers in Wales have reported a disconcerting increase in the number of scarcely clad patrons visiting their premises, often sporting nothing more than underpants and a facemask. The quasi-streakers roaming the aisles of Welsh grocery stores and pharmacies are on a mission to highlight the...
Fishing in Troubled Waters
It’s perhaps a case of having your fish and eating it too. The number of analogies that may be rallied to describe the current standoff between the European Union and the United Kingdom over the post-Brexit assignment fish stocks is almost endless. The EU may have bigger fish to fry...
Hard Limits to Sovereignty
It is not a good time to be a supporter of Brexit. If spin were a tradable commodity, all would be exceptionally well in the realm. Alas, it is not. The attempt by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to supplant essential elements of the Withdrawal Agreement, signed with the European Union...
UK Mulls Breaking Law
Eighty years, to the day, since living its Finest Hour, the Hinge of Fate turned Great Britain towards yet another nadir – the latest in a string of historic setbacks that slowly and painfully disassemble a once great power. On Monday, September 14, Parliament voted on the second reading of...
Trump and Biden Clash on TV
In the US, the number of covid-19 deaths has rushed past 200,000 whilst worldwide more than one million people succumbed to the disease. As the second wave of the Corona Pandemic gathers pace, it remains eerily quiet on the vaccine front. However, warnings abound that the virus may roam freely...
Trump Literature
President Donald Trump has become the unlikely saviour of the long-suffering book publishing industry. In the run-up to the election, and his possible eviction from the White House, publishers are scrambling to release a veritable tsunami of tell-all books by former associates of Mr Trump, most of whom have an...
Chapter 51: Stage Set for EU Clash
Monday, May 25, 2020 – The Hague is expected to deploy the biggest gun available to EU member states and roll out its veto to derail a Franco-German plan that introduces eurobonds under a different name. Last week, the Dutch were said to have succumbed under pressure from Germany and...
Puppets on a String
Some 2,980 puppets have gathered in Beijing to applaud President Xi Jinping in an annual choreographed ritual that goes by the name of National People’s Congress (NPC) – a misnomer on at least two counts. Over the course of ten days, President Jinping and his close associates pull the strings...
