Milkshake You knew the US dollar was doing well; I bet you didn’t know it was this impressive. Every single currency in the world is down in the last decade against the USD. One theory explaining this is the dollar milkshake. The video is four years old but it got a lot right. With US

The price of fish Back in the 1990s a survey was conducted in fishing villages on the West coast of Africa. The idea was to measure the impact of mobile phones on supply curves for fish. Pre phones, if a fisherman at a port had too much of a particular fish, he would simply drop

Upgrade “the rally on El Salvador bonds almost defies gravity”. So says Santander, which is quite something given the disastrous year bonds are having almost everywhere else. In truth, the bonds still have a junk rating, but through bitcoin, El Salvador has found a way to put itself on the map globally, attract significant inbound

Narcos Those of you who haven’t watched Narcos are missing a treat. Released in 2015, the final series aired three years ago later to great acclaim. It was visually pleasing, atmospheric and unsurprisingly, given the product they were shifting, highly addictive. The story depicts the progression of Pablo Escobar’s cartel in Medellín, Colombia and his

A loser “We agree. The denial of the Grayscale proposal was arbitrary and capricious because the Commission failed to explain its different treatment of similar products.” So said the U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The SEC now has 45 days to appeal; but the next stop is the United States Supreme Court. Tight

Do it and do it fast The starting gun has fired in the US elections with the first Republican primary debates last night. Here’s a guess at how things roll out from here: The US election is next year. Very hard to win if unemployment is rising and inflation is high The job must be

Passive investment My new favourite account on Twitter is StripMallGuy. He buys and sells small shopping centres in New York. If you are interested in commercial property in particular, he is a must-follow. This particular tweet struck me because where do you find truly passive investments? People will tell you property is set and forget

Sunday looms The saga of ‘will they, won’t they’ for US bitcoin ETFs reaches its next major milestone this Sunday. Back in April, Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest submitted their ETF application. We are now at the second Approve/Deny/Extend stage for the SEC. The situation is rather complicated by the SEC being in court against Grayscale

Everything’s a fine I assumed they were dead. Somehow though, the corpse of Credit Suisse managed to get fined by both the Bank of England (£87m) and the Federal Reserve ($269m) for their dealings with defunct hedge fund Archegos. Credit Suisse lost $5.1bn (£4bn) when the hedge fund defaulted in March 2021. It ultimately led

1984 A light start for you. We have a tendency to be histrionic about privacy and the State and all manner of things here. Presumably with that in mind I was sent an alternative view of the Orwell classic 1984. Reasonable to suggest that had Orwell included Def Leppard, the book’s reach would have been