Global economy
Latest articles
- The Shipping Container Cannot Solve a Political Argument
Trade depends on predictable rules as much as efficient ports. Businesses pay when governments make uncertainty a habit. - Tourism Works Best When the Town Still Works
A destination cannot prosper for long by making ordinary life impossible for the people who keep it alive.
New essays
- The Things We Cannot Afford to Make Fast
Some forms of value depend on the time we spend with another person, making speed an uncertain measure of improvement.
New essays
- The Warehouse We Called Waste
Spare capacity looks inefficient until the day it becomes the reason a system continues working. - The Discount Paid in Somebody Else's Time
A low price may conceal an arrangement in which waiting and uncertainty do the balancing. - The Town after the Last Branch Closes
A service can withdraw its premises while leaving the costs of its absence behind.
New essays
- The Economy of Keeping Things Working
Maintenance creates value that a culture of launches struggles to recognise. - The Bargain Made by the Only Buyer
Competition matters on both sides of a transaction, including the side that purchases people's work. - The Profit in Making Departure Difficult
A business can retain customers by serving them well or by increasing the work required to leave. - The Insurance Nobody Can Buy Alone
Some risks become more manageable when they are treated as shared conditions rather than individual failures. - The Invoice Waiting at the End of the Chain
Slow payment can make a small supplier finance a much larger customer's operations.
Essays on inflation, housing, debt, trade and the distribution of economic change. Each asks how large economic forces become practical choices in everyday life.
Essays
- When the Price Falls but Life Stays Expensive
Why slowing inflation does not reverse earlier price rises, and why households can still struggle after the headline figures improve.
- The Debt That Buys Tomorrow—and Burdens It
Public borrowing can rescue a generation or quietly send it the bill.
- The House That Became an Investment First
The conflict between housing as wealth and housing as shelter, and what rising property values mean for people trying to find a home.
- Growth for Whom?
An economy can expand impressively while the experience of progress becomes strangely scarce.
- The Cheap Import and the Vanished Job
Free trade lowers prices in aggregate while concentrating disruption in particular lives and places.
- The Machine That Raises Productivity and Lowers Security
Artificial intelligence may make work more valuable while making particular workers easier to discard.
- Who Pays for the Climate Transition?
The green transition will fail politically if those with the least room are handed the clearest bill.
- A Younger Generation Paying for a Longer Life
Ageing societies must honour old promises without making youth the permanent adjustment mechanism.
- The Full Shelf and the Empty Table
The world can produce enough food while price, conflict and waste keep nourishment out of reach.
- The Currency Everyone Needs but No One Controls
A dollar-centred world gains a common language while importing decisions made for one country.
A little room for longer thinking, every week
One thoughtful email each week: an illustrated essay, a reading recommendation and a question worth considering.