Bye-bye Greenspan. You helped create the mess we're now in and you realised too late. 1966: the welfare state was "nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society". In 2008 he admitted he'd put too much faith in the free market.

Trump's pond is like the devil's mirror in Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen - except Trump's version reflects back mud and dirt.

British politics is so odd. The country will soon be led by the former mayor of an English city whose friend stepped aside so that he could be elected to parliament with a view to becoming prime minister. Most folk get no say in the matter. No wonder they feel like no-one listens to them.

The richest human ever to have existed - by far - has just increased his wealth to over a trillion dollars. If you add up the annual economic output of the world's bottom 103 countries by total GDP you get to SpaceX’s $2.1 trillion market capitalisation.

It's not just Iran drawing these conclusions. Others in the Global South also know multilateralism is failing. “More than ever before, we have concluded that building trust is a meaningless strategy”. “Only strength can serve as a deterrent, not arguments in international forums about our rights."

One reason I consider #AI to be machine learning rather than 'intelligence' is that it seems to have no aesthetic sense. Here's another ugly graphic from an economic report I just read.

The always insightful Sarah O'Connor excels again in a superb piece about how statistical averages don't always tell the whole story about the winners and losers from industrial upheavals. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

The bullying continues. The US invents worries about 'forced labour' as an excuse for new tariffs. Somehow I never saw Trump as a labour rights enthusiast. www.thedailystar.net/business/new... giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

I love how out-of-touch these online celebrities make me feel. I'd never heard of Andrew Tait until he got arrested. These guys are completely new to me as well. "Piker has more than 3 million followers on Twitch and more than 1.5 million on X."👀 www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...

Fuel for Farage: "UK average earnings are set to fall outright as inflation rises over the coming months against a backdrop of very weak hiring." giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

A $1.75 trillion SpaceX valuation would be slightly larger than the combined GDP of all the world’s 44 least developed countries.

At least a third of US voters don't think it was the wrong decision to attack Iran? 😱

Agree, an excellent idea which is surely the future. 👍

As with Trump and other far-right shysters, Farage's party is so corrupt and incompetent that it'll certainly fail. There's no 'there' there. The big unknown is how many years failure will take, and that time risks dragging the UK down so far that by the time folk ditch him, it'll be too late.

As usual, this self-promoting hype makes no sense. Musk, 2015: “My guess for when we will have full autonomy is approximately three years.” Dec '15: "we will have complete autonomy in approximately two years.” Globally, 4.5% of cars on the road are electric. 3/4 of new cars sold are combustion.

Anyone who says neoliberalism is dead should read this. “Free-market principles remain the best proven path to lasting prosperity, with better and more permanent results than any of the alternatives,” Walz said. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

From not a lot to even less: How the billions to trillions agenda failed dangay.substack.com/p/from-not-a...

The Swiss got him to cut their tariffs by giving him a big clock. Britain did it with a large golden bell engraved with the word Trump. Iran will be getting ideas...

I googled UK aid cuts just now and the AI slop machine got the answer wrong. Aid will total an estimated £9.2 billion in 2027. It's not a *reduction* of £9.2 billion. The thing can't even read properly. Artificial intelligence my a*se.

Zambia would be required to give U.S. companies greater access to its huge reserves of lithium, copper and cobalt. This would, by extension, “end what the United States sees as China’s preferential access to Zambian mines”. The agreement would also force negotiations over mining industry regulations

"the lost souls in the middle of the road." I like that one.

Sorry, what was that again?

Oh no, Farage is going to start getting ideas about the English channel...

How iconoclastic. You could almost say Reform is "the party of alarm‑clock Britain.” I'm sure another radical firebrand said something similar in 2011. Oh sorry, it was Nick Clegg. Anyway, shouldn't it be smartphone Britain nowadays?

See the power of wishful thinking in FT coverage of Russia. Eg "Russia is running out of money" Martin Sandbu, Nov 2024, "Russia's economy flatters to deceive" Nov 30 2024. Now "Russian economy is faltering despite oil windfall" www.ft.com/content/04a9... www.ft.com/content/b4bc... All wrong.

"China will continue to rely on the rest of the world to absorb their excess production because the domestic political cost of empowering their own consumers is too high.” giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

During my visit to Bangladesh last week the Daily Star newspaper ran my piece on how the middle powers are abandoning the global South. Seems to have resonated well with that country, struggling as it is with a succession of foreign-born crises. www.thedailystar.net/opinion/view...

Something I love about visiting countries in the global South is being able to talk to so many bright, young people, who are full of ideas. In a murky world it gives you a bit of hope. Here's a summary of the chat I had at the Rapid thinktank in Dhaka yesterday: www.rapidbd.org/conversation...

Carney pronounced the rules-based international order dead. “We knew it was false.” If you knew it was false, why did you promote it, benefit from it and shape it? Were your other Davos chums in on the con? The 'middle powers' ditch the world's least advantaged: open.substack.com/pub/dangay?u...

Front page of Bangladesh's Daily Star today: www.thedailystar.net/news/banglad...

Trump's refusal to allow safe passage through Hormuz strikes at the heart of Pax Americana. US guarantees of secure shipping, alongside new efficiencies like containerisation, underwrote the global trade boom by slashing transport costs. The implications for world trade will be profound.

I'm off to Dhaka tomorrow to present our UN report on Bangladesh's readiness to graduate from least developed country status. It isn't ready because it's been hit by a series of crises over the past decade. Losing LDC benefits would come at a particularly bad time. drive.google.com/file/d/1TMAP...

In a blog for the Institute for Development Studies, myself and colleagues argue that an evidence-based World Trade Organisation of the future must empower all members and make better use of knowledge about the real impacts of trade. www.ids.ac.uk/opinions/fut...

The rise of electric vehicles is inevitable. Everybody wants to buy them again because of the Iran war. In UK, advert views for new BYDs up 77%. Searches for used BYDs up more than 375%. In France, requests for test drives of Kia EVs up 84% since February 2025. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

A sinister clown dad-dances embarrassingly with a sword. Dictators push the boundaries of acceptability to humiliate their audience and encourage obedience. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxs7...

The failure to extend the digital services moratorium at the #WTO Ministerial conference might mean that countries impose tariffs on digital services. The US is fiercely opposed. What does the US expect, though, when it's levying such high goods tariffs? giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

As rich countries slash aid spending; a dozen countries wage war in the Middle East; and the World Trade Organisation and other multilateral organisations fail, i'm reminded of what Captain Kirk said when asked what he thought about civilisation: "International cooperation, wouldn't that be nice?"

As #WTO #MC14 predictably ends without an agreement, we're witnessing one more stage in the breakdown of multilateralism and global cooperation. This article, by some friends in Bangladesh, describes the harsh reality for the least developed countries. www.tbsnews.net/analysis/wto...

As usual it's the poorest who pay the price. Low- and middle-income countries are the worst hit by the energy shock. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Locals in charge of a choke point charge a fee to pass through: exactly how tariffs originated many centuries ago.

Shares in the big 3 Chinese battery makers have way outperformed even those of the oil majors since the start of the war. Asia's overtaking manoeuvre on a carbon-addicted US is electrifying.

It costs more than $25,000 an hour to keep a single F-16 fighter in the air. Total cost of war so far: $24bn+ But we can't afford the green transition😕.

"The US, where petrol is close to $4 a gallon, said it was considering ... whether to suspend sanctions on Iranian oil." giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

If ever there were a statement of naked self-interest, with the arbitrariness of power laid bare...

just plainly evil.

Can't work out if the Cato Institute is being ironic here: "Every now and then, those of us who are fortunate enough to be Americans benefit from being reminded that we are not the only people in the world." www.cato.org/policy-analy...

The war cost more than $11bn in the first six days of strikes, mostly in munitions.

As it runs out of weapons, the Pentagon is expected to ask the White House and Congress in the coming days for as much as $50bn in additional spending for the military. About the same as the entire USAID budget used to be.