As we fearfully watch the markets as the liabilities and exaggerations of AI threaten to unravel, or ponder what games arch-manipulator Scotty Bessant is playing with the Yen… there are times to sit back and wonder what life is really all about? The answer is in doing what makes you happy. In my case its sailing… Instead of trying to explain markets, let me run through how the yacht I was sailing just won Vintage Class at the 200th Cowes Week Sailing Regatta.

How Iran Won Trump's War

PJ O’Rourke (deceased)

The difference between successful democratic economies and autocracy is that the rule of law works better. Autocracies trend towards corruption and inefficiency. Insider dealing and corruption is a fact of the financial markets – punishing it is a matter of the enforcement of justice and the willingness to do so. Europe is acting over Epstein. What’s happening in the USA? 

This is not an obituary – but a story about markets. Hans-Jeorg Rudloff, who passed away earlier this week, was the dominant figure of the Eurobond market. His insights and vision were extraordinary – understanding how markets worked, how to dominate them, and setting the foundations for today’s $120 trillion global market!

After a busy few days in London, I need some light comic relief this morning, so let’s figure out why Britain is really broken. It’s nothing to do with Government. It’s all about crap customer service and the treacle that makes Big Companies so poor. They no longer care. And that spreads like a cancer around the economy. Trying to deal with large firms and the private utilities that run the UK is like daily root-canal surgery.

Forget the markets, forget the Fed, forget the Anti-dollar alliance – the issue of the day is what car brand best represents the aspirations of a bloke that knows nothing about cars? Should I buy something cheap, cheerful and reliable? In other words… Not a Land Rover?

Society is a complex notion. It is a collection of rules and guidelines for living and when these are pressured, instability is often the result. Markets are part of modern society and are vulnerable – especially at times of massive change, as is happening now. That doesn’t mean disaster – it means evolution to what will follows. Inshallah.

uI’m on holiday this week, but who can ignore the news? Donald Trump’s approach to making friends and influencing people is.. curious. I’m currently on the slopes in Canada – and it feels like a nation is waking up. Although we’ve got fresh powder and great conditions in Whistler, there are aspects of the Ski Industry which… peeve me.

The City of London as the financial centre of global markets has been in terminal decline since 2008. Over-regulation and bureaucracy has doomed it. To restore the UK’s excellence and swashbuckling success in financial markets, we need to embrace risk – not regulate it out the equation.  

DO NOT DEAL WITH GO-DADDY.