Bribery Election bribery is not new. In Australia marginal constituencies receive many times more Federal funding than safe seats. It’s not normally advertised though, which makes the latest effort of Kamala Harris surprising on a number of levels. It is apparent that she is struggling for votes from black men under 40. Accordingly, she has

ETF options Options on BlackRocks Bitcoin ETF IBIT are now approved. A highly volatile product on top of a highly volatile product. It took 10 years to get a simple spot ETF and 6 months to get something that must surely be orders of magnitude more risky. Pricing options correctly is hard. Doing so with

Cricket season Over the road, the cricket square has been cut. Chief among the amusements of the game is there is always a record that falls in cricket. However dull the particular encounter, something will happen. “The highest 8th wicket stand between a right and left hander in a tea-time session”.  “Most runs down the

Perception At the commencement of the internet did anyone perceive that URLs like google.com would be worth billions of dollars? To begin with google was quite straightforward; a URL and some mathematics that could search the internet. It was very difficult to anticipate at that stage what it would become. Even today, save for their

The time has come Why might the time have come? Because prices are back under control? No! because the labour market is not. The Federal Reserve is not the same as the ECB. Its mandate is twin, prices and employment. I think this critical difference is going to come to the fore over the next

Polymarket Potential investor: “just tell me one thing that has actually worked, that is a viable product, that isn’t bitcoin that’s out there right now, today”. Me: “OK. Polymarket. The largest prediction market in the world“ The styling as a ‘prediction market’ is rather cute. You can open a market on something, price your prediction

The State I have referenced this book a lot, admittedly to mixed feedback. Some of you loved it, plenty of you DNF. Personally, I think it’s aging well on multiple levels. One of which came to mind this week following a tumultuous period in the United Kingdom. One of the tenets of the book is

Safe Haven “and so, it’s become absolutely clear that bitcoin is not a safe haven asset” I was watching Bloomberg on Monday as the Japanese market went into meltdown, completing its worst day since 1987. Some talking head (from an Australian investment firm) popped up and made the declaration about bitcoin. The only place you

Mad to quit So our prediction for a surprise July cut was wrong. “If that test is met, a reduction in our policy rate could be on the table as soon as the next meeting in September.” The ‘test’ is of course inflation versus unemployment. The Federal Reserve, unlike the ECB, is tasked with maintaining

Nobody uses it If we were to ask people if they know about AI, they would say yes. Overwhelmingly, they have used ChatGPT, been moderately impressed, and rarely use it now. To get the best from it requires sustained effort and most people simply will not make any sort of sustained effort to learn a