The City

Will the political pendulum swing against Boris, or the entire Conservative Party?

This week, Nigel Farage spent some time with old friends in the City. And what he heard there is a bit of a worry. Those…

The Treasury will need a bailout from the Bank of England in order to finance its bailout of the Bank of England

Yesterday’s Fortune & Freedom introduced you to some of the chaos unfolding at the Bank of England. But all that was mere amusement compared to…

The Bank of England is in all sorts of strife

Usually, we try to present you with some sort of useful conclusion or take-away in each edition of Fortune & Freedom. But I haven’t got…

How high can interest rates go before the crash?

It’s reverse limbo at the Bank of England. How high can interest rates go before disaster strikes? And will the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street,…

We know bubbles burst… but do we act like it?

You might not think that economics and financial markets lend themselves to beautiful prose. But you’d be wrong. Especially when it comes to the nature…

If an Englishman’s word is his bond, someone should run a spellcheck

On 16 September 2021, we published a piece about bonds and why they are a bad investment, if not downright dangerous to hold. Since then,…

Welcome to Rishi Sunak’s haunted house of tax horrors. (His wife is out.)

Did you hear the door slam behind you? Have you tried checking whether it’s locked? Oh… well it looks like we’re stuck inside Rishi Sunak’s…

Duck now to avoid the Russian sanctions boomerang

No doubt the world’s movers and shakers are very surprised by what their Russian sanctions have triggered so far – an energy crisis, a food…

Will uranium or shorter showers save us from Putin?

The tide is turning on net zero, inflation and nuclear power. But what are the political and financial implications, if some of our firmest beliefs…

What they did while you were in lockdown is nothing new

So, the director general of the Cabinet Office’s COVID-19 Taskforce was fined for breaking Covid-19 lockdown rules. And the government’s former ethics chief was fined…

Is the yen signalling a monetary Pearl Harbor?

You’ll need your thinking caps on for this one, my friends. But if someone had explained sub-prime mortgages to you in 2006, that would’ve been…

What if Janet Yellen’s delusional prediction was actually a promise?

Back in 2017, at an event in London, Janet Yellen, then the Federal Reserve chair at the time, made an extraordinary prediction: “Would I say…

Why the origins of Covid still matter to your portfolio, whether you like it or not

I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about Covid. Indeed, you may be hoping that the crisis is behind us. Especially for investors. We’ve got other…

Is financial repression in a time of populism even possible?

I recently interviewed Degussa chief economist Thorsten Polleit about inflation. One of his predictions was for persistently high, but not necessarily out of control, inflation.…

Central banks are losing control and politicians will pay the price

Well, I got a bit animated in the video below… but for good reason! The UK’s central bankers are waxing lyrical about “the remit is…

The price of failure is measured in interest rates

Each time interest rates begin an upcycle, investors must ask themselves two questions. Who can least afford the higher interest rates, and when exactly do…

The Merchants of Menace and the potential debt disaster

What happens when interest rates are kept too low for too long? It might sound like an academic question. But when the correct answer is…

Summer in the City of London, despite Brexit

Just before Christmas in 2020, my German uncle sent me the usual Christmas message. But he added something intriguing. He wrote in German that, “The…

Life will go back to normal once we get vaccinated, right?

Before we begin with an analysis of whether vaccines succeeded in returning the world to normal, or delayed it, let me congratulate you on your…

The tide is turning on the stock market’s skinny dippers

My grandfather was a champion lawn-bowler for a very simple reason – his ability to conduct psychological warfare on his opponents. This began with his…